Do your grandchildren love stuffed animals?  If so, here’s a fun idea of a little something that you could make and give to a grandchild.

Now, I’m assuming that you can sew a simple straight line.  Nothing fancy.  Just plain straight stitching.  Can you do that?  Good.

The idea is to sew a pocket on a pillowcase where a small stuffed animal can ’sleep’ while your grandchild sleeps.

Get a pillowcase and sew some matching material on the open end to extend it in length.  On the extension, sew on a pocket in a contrasting fabric pattern that is big enough to hold a small stuffed animal.

Here’s a picture to show you what the finished pillowcase will look like.

You can give the stuffed animal and pillowcase to a grandchild as a birthday present, a Christmas present, a Buzzard’s Day present (yes, folks, that’s a real holiday — on March 15), or a just-because-I-love-you present.

If your grandchild is old enough (I’d say around eight years old or so), you could spend time together picking out material and sewing the pillowcase pocket.

Then, you can have a sleepover party with your grandchild, her pocket pal, you, and Grandpa — as long as Grandpa doesn’t snore too bad!

After over 30 hours of labor, our daughter-in-law had her baby!  He has the sweetest little round face and a beautiful complexion.  They are going to name him Simeon.  We’re so thrilled that he is here and that mother and baby are doing well.

Yesterday we celebrated Veterans Day.  My thoughts were on my father who enlisted in the Marine corps during WW II when he graduated from high school.  That turned out to be just a few months before the war ended.  This was a blessing for us.  If he had enlisted a little bit earlier, he might have been in the forces that landed on Iwo Jima.  Thank goodness, he wasn’t.

Yesterday, I watched a powerful video called A Pittance of Time.  It got me thinking about the responsibility that we grandparents have to our grandchildren in preserving the memories, the stories, and the histories of our family members — especially of those who have served in our country’s military.  The numbers of the World War II veterans are slowly diminishing.  This great loss to their families could be compounded if their experiences are not captured and written down.

I know that for many it is difficult to talk about those experiences.  My heart goes out to them for all of the horrors that they experienced.  Hopefully, through kindness and softness from family members, they may decide to share their experiences for their posterity.

This sharing of experiences is vital regardless of which war our veterans have fought in.  Family members will treasure those stories forever.  I strongly encourage all of you grandmothers to reach out to the veterans in your family to see if their stories are written down.  If they aren’t, see if there is a way for you to capture those stories.

Then, in a quiet moment, draw your grandchildren around and tell them these stories.  Help them to understand the sacrifice and commitment that was given in serving our country.  Help your grandchildren learn their heritage of what their family has done to keep America free.

Here is A Pittance of Time.  It lasts 5 minutes but has a powerful message.  You might want to share it with your grandchildren.

I’m not in to bragging or anything.  Just tryin’ to do my own little thing in my own little corner of the world.  But Grandma Lisa from Grandma Briefs has awarded me the Honest Scrap Award.  Honest, she has!  Woot, woot!!

The good part is that I need to pass the award along to 7 others whose blogs I find brilliant in content and/or design.  No problem there.

Then, I have to share ten honest things about myself.  Yikes!  Ten? Are you kidding me? How about nine?  After all, my name is Nina . . .  it rhymes with nine.  Do I hear six?  Six?  Six?  Six, anyone?

Ten, you say?  Oh, alrighty then. Here goes.  Ten things about me.

1.  I am brilliantly boring.  White paste on a white piece of paper is more dazzling than I.
2. I love to read the dictionary.  Rather hard to follow the plot at times, but somehow I manage.
3. I don’t bite my toenails.  Really.  I don’t.
4. Bleach is for me what a table saw is to Norm Abram from This Old House — a power tool!
5. I love to use my Weed Eater to gently trim the delicate flowers in my yard.
6.  Tahiti is my all-time favorite place to visit.  It’s the only place where my basal temperature manages to warm up to within 10 degrees of 98.6.
7. I think anyone who likes beets is a poor misguided soul.
8. Knickknacks r not me.
9. Monte Python and the Holy Grail is my favorite movie.  NOT!
10.  I dearly love my husband, our children, their spouses, and our fabulously smart, beautiful grandchildren!!!

Whew!  Aren’t you glad that’s over now?