Throwback Thursday - Kristen and Mark

This is one of my favorite pictures of Kristen and Mark.  I think it was taken at Kristen's college graduation party (note - date pictures, even if you think you will always remember when it was taken).  Our good friend Ralph Lathrop snapped it and gave us a print.  #lovethesetwo

Throwback Thursday - Kristen's first day of preschool, Mark's second year of preschool

This was Kristen on her first day of nursery school, September 3, 1975.  She had just turned three.  She went on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9-12 with three boys from our neighborhood - Chris Fitzpatrick, Chris Laplante, and Michael Tassinari.  I wrote in her baby book that she loved it, and was not scared a bit!

Below is the back of the Feeding Hills Congregational Church in the center of town where the nursery school was.  It was called Building Block Learning Center, and her teacher was Miss Pat.  

I took this picture this past Fall but the nursery school hasn't been there for years.  t have no pictures of the school, or the teacher!

Mark also went to this nursery school when he turned 3.  Unfortunately, I have no picture of his first day of school (second child syndrome?).  He went with several kids from the neighborhood, Mark Taylor, Tony Tassinari, Billy Strycharz, Katie Fitzpatrick, and Missy Marieb.

For the second year of nursery school, a few of them went to the YMCA in Westfield.

They had a pool there and offered swimming lessons.  He loved it.  Only a few of the group changed to the Y - Mark, Mark Taylor, Missy Marieb, and I think Billy Strycharz.  The rest stayed at Building Block.

Throwback Thursday - Kristen in her Christmas Dress and her first "Piece"

Christmas 1974; Kristen was 2 years old.

Just a little background.  Bethany, our church, in 1974 was not nearly as big as it is now.  It was located on the corner of Springfield and Armory Streets in Springfield.  Every Christmas season back then Bethany had a Children's Christmas Program where the Sunday School kids would say their "piece" up on the pulpit in front of the whole church.  Sometimes there was a little pageant that would go along with it playing out the Christmas story.  Afterwards the kids would all receive Christmas candy in an orange web type stocking or Christmas box.  I remember saying my piece when I was a kid, so this had been going on for a long time.  I'm not sure when they stopped doing this, probably when the church got bigger.

At any rate, back in 1974 they were still doing it.  Kristen came home from Sunday School with a "piece" to say.  She was only 2, so I wasn't sure if she would do it.  Paul's mom, GG, bought her a new dress and when the time came, she got right up  there and said her "piece".  She was the youngest one to do it.

I had written it down in her baby book and this is what it was:

Shining for Jesus - "A little star up in the sky can shine for Jesus, so can I."  I'm not sure if anyone else understood her but I sure did!  Needless to say, we were all so proud of her!

She also sang a song with two other little girls, Pammy Bennett and Heather Sorcinelli.  So cute.

Also, in looking through her baby book I found that in 1975 when she was 3, her piece was called My Wish for You - "A wish for you, it comes from me.  May your Christmas very happy be."

These pictures were given to me by someone from church years later.  I don't remember who.  The one above was from 1975.

The one below was from 1976 but by then I had stopped writing in her baby book and I don't have her "piece".  I do know that all three years she sang a song with these same girls.




PS - In looking through Mark's baby book, I never wrote down any of his Christmas "pieces."  The one thing I do know is that he did not start at 2 years old, lol!

Throwback Thursday - Kristen's first kid birthday party, 4 years old

This is the only picture that I took at Kristen's 4th birthday party!!  It seems inconceivable to me now!

This was her first kid birthday party.  Most of the kids were from our neighborhood.

From left to right - Robin (she lived next door; her family only lived on our street for a few years), Karen Jacobek (she was the daughter of Ann, a lady who used to work with Dot.  We became friendly when we were pregnant at the same time.  Karen and Kristen are 5 days apart), and Michael Tassanari who lived at the beginning of our circle.  In the back I think are Chris Fitzpatrick (he lived on the other side of us) and Erica Marieb who also lived on our circle.

About the only thing that I remember of her party was that she was VERY excited.  She got ready early and asked if we could take a walk around the circle to see if any of the kids were ready to come to her party.

I don't remember if Paul was there or if it was while he was working.  Mark must have been there but I don't even remember that.

Of course, we had the family party at another time so I don't think there was any other family there.  I really wish I had been into scrapbooking then, or at least journaling!

Throwback Thursday - Bedrooms

I took a class with Becky Higgins recently and in it she asked which pictures you wished you had of your childhood, etc.

I really wish I had pictures of my childhood bedrooms (I had two, one before my grandfather died and one after he died). My Aunt Dot took a lot of pictures but, as with most people back then, she took pictures of people and events.  Film and processing was expensive, and it probably seemed a waste to take pictures of just rooms in your home.

I can still picture in my mind some of my second room, but I wish I had pictures.

So I went looking in my old photo albums for pictures of bedrooms.

These are pictures of Paul and my bedroom in our first apartment in 1970-72.  I find it so funny that I brought some of my stuffed animals from home.

I still have these bedroom lamps.  They were my mother-in-law's.  She gave them to us, she said, until we got new ones.  Almost 48 years later, we still have them in our bedroom, lol.

This is from our second apartment in 1972-73.

I'm thankful that I have these pictures because really, in the early years of our marriage, we didn't take many.  But I wish I had more close up pictures of the things in these rooms.

Then I started looking for Mark and Kristen's first bedrooms.

When I was about 5 months pregnant we moved from a one bedroom apartment at Belden Ct in Agawam to a two bedroom apartment.  Kristen had most of the second room.

This is the story of the little crib.

In 1973 we moved into our house in Feeding Hills.  We had three bedrooms.  This is Kristen's room.

The third bedroom was Paul's office, book room, stuff that didn't go in any other room, lol. We arranged the room to fit Mark in when he was born in 1974.  We took a couple of pictures, probably to show how little space Mark had in that room!

He eventually had the whole room and most of the stuff in that room found a place in our bedroom, lol!

I am trying to go through my old photo albums chronologically and hopefully I will find some pictures of their rooms.  I'll update this post if I do.

Luckily, I tried to take pictures of my grandchildren's rooms, but that will be another post.

Its never too late to take ordinary, every day pictures (such as bedrooms, lol).

In Becky Higgins' class, she shared a quote from Take a Picture Today, Feel Happy Tomorrow by Annie M. Gordon, PhD. "In the moment, we think why record our everyday experiences, we will remember them in the future and they aren't that memorable anyway.  Even just a month later though, our memories of the event begin to dim, the details fall away, and what once seemed ordinary feels a bit more extraordinary." How true!

Throwback Thursday - Brick Carport Project

The year was 1979, and this was part of the plans that Paul made to make a brick patio under our carport.  This part of the plan was to calculate the number of bricks he needed, which was 1800.

A year or so previously, he had made a brick floor out of used sidewalk bricks for the shed in the backyard, and liked how it turned out.

The idea for putting bricks under the carport probably stemmed from the fact that I didn't really like the look of the blacktop driveway that went under the carport.

He decided to put sidewalk bricks on top of the blacktop, and did a lot of research and planning before attempting this.

He bought the bricks from Gagliarducci Construction, a paving contractor, at 227 Mill St. in Springfield.  They were old sidewalk bricks from downtown Springfield, 8 cents a brick if you picked them up yourself, which he did because he wanted to hand pick them. This was a real bargain.  Used building bricks were only 5 cents a piece, but new or used sidewalk bricks were at least 25 cents a piece everywhere else.

Paul cut holes in the blacktop along three sides for the anchors that would hold the 4 x 6 fir beams that would be the border. Then he had Kristen and Mark scoop out (with their little hands) the amount of dirt equivalent to 45 lbs of concrete (half a bag).

The focus of these pictures was the kids working on the brick carport project, but I love so many other things about these old pictures. You can see our cat Callie on the back steps, the trash cans with "Radtke" that Paul put on almost everything, his grandfather's old wheelbarrow, and my little fenced in flower garden. In the back yard you can see the shed with just the wheel of what was Kristen's bike, and Mark's bike with the training wheels on.  Kristen was 7 at the time and Mark was 5.

I have always loved how our brick carport turned out.  It is still perfect even after almost 39 years.  We use it as a patio in the summer, but we can still park under it in the winter.

Job well done, Paul!

Happy 45th birthday Kris!

This picture is from Kristen's first birthday party.  We had the party at Nan and Dot's house because my Aunt Dot was recovering from falling down the attic stairs and was still too sore to ride in the car.

My Aunt Ettie was there and gave her the present that is right in front of her.  For some reason Kristen was afraid of it and wanted to get out of her chair!  Maybe the present was too big.

I have always loved that picture; so glad that we captured that cute little face on film!

The present was a blue horse that you ride on (you can see it on the table in the picture below).

She was fine with it after it was unwrapped.

Happy birthday Kris!

A trigger that takes me back - Sesame Street Theme Song

*I read recently on one of the blogs that I follow, when something triggers a memory, write it down as part of your story.

We have had this VCR tape for awhile.  I'm not even sure when we got it; probably when Marley was little.

Today, when Miriam was here, she wanted to watch this.  The minute it started I realized that every time I hear the Sesame Street theme song, you know the one...Sunny day, sleeping the clouds away, it brings me back to a certain memory.

The year was 1974, winter.  Kristen was about 18 months old and I was newly pregnant.  And sick.  

Now you have to remember that this was back before children's television was on all the time; even before VCR tapes.  I think Sesame Street came on mid-morning; the perfect time for me to have a "quiet time" on the couch.  

The minute Kristen heard that theme song, she would come running from whatever she was doing.  It was so fast-paced that it would keep her attention, and I got a chance to rest!

Happy 42nd Birthday Mark!

Back before ultrasounds were done as a regular part of prenatal care and you were able to know the sex of your baby, it was a surprise at birth whether you had a girl or a boy.

Because I had already had a girl, I just thought I would have another girl (talk about naive!).  We had a girl's name picked out, Amy, but we could not agree on a boy's name.  Paul wanted Peter.  Now I like the name Peter, but not with the last name Radtke.  Peter Radtke?  I imagined him standing at the bus stop and being teased by the other kids, "Here comes Peter Rabbit".  No it would not be Peter!  I wanted Mark.  We never did come to an agreement because, after all, we were having another girl!

So, when the doctor said, "It's a boy", I said, "Are you sure?" (must have been the medication, lol).  Before the name discussion could even come up again Paul said, "Do you still want to name him Mark?  You get to choose, you did all the work".  I knew it was probably said in a weak moment, but I went with it, and he was named Mark Edward Radtke.

It was another story with Kristen.  She was 2 yrs and 1 week old, and expected us to bring home a sister, Amy. Someone (probably my mother-in-law) bought her a doll and we called her Amy.  Even so, she called him Amy brudder for quite awhile!

Happy birthday Mark!

Happy 44th Birthday Kris!

In honor of Kristen's birthday, I thought I would post a picture of her, and a funny memory.  This picture was taken some time in the summer before her first birthday.  She had a cute little habit of lifting her head, and making a funny face while puckering up her lips.  We all got such a kick out of it. GG (Paul's mom) caught a cute moment on camera of Grandpa and Kristen making that funny little face.

Happy birthday Kris!

Throwback Thursday - The tree in our backyard

In May we had our tree in the backyard taken down.  It was very sad for me.

We bought our house in the Spring of 1973.  That Summer Paul and his Aunt Judy dug up three small maple trees from her property in Granby, CT.  We planted two trees in the back yard and one in the front yard.  The one in the front is the only one still standing.  One of the trees came down in a bad thunderstorm years ago when the kids were teenagers.  We came home from church Sunday night and the tree was down.  Luckily it fell right between our pool and the carport with no damage.

Last fall we started noticing that the base of another tree was black.  Paul thought it might have been hit by lightning.  Our landscaper said it was from ants and put down something to kill the ants.

This winter we noticed that pieces of the bark were falling off.  In the Spring Paul called a tree service and they said that the tree might last another year but then it would be harder to take down.

This picture was taken in the summer of 1973 soon after the tree was planted.  Kristen was almost a year old.  My thought was that I would take a picture of her every year on her birthday next to this tree.  It lasted one year, ha ha!

These are pictures of the tree coming down.

Throwback Thursday - Disney gifts from 1975

The Gonsalves are back from Disney!  This got me thinking about other Disney trips.  This one is from July 1975 so Kristen was almost 3 and Mark was almost 1.  My aunt Dot had just returned from Disney World with my cousin Lynda.  Dot brought each of the kids Disney T-shirts and hats.  Where has the  time gone?

That Was Then, This Is Now - a scrapbook page, week #6

This is week #6 of Cathy Zielske's Hybrid Scrapbooking Class, and another page that is out of my comfort zone.

Picking out the pictures was easy.  When it came time for the journaling, it took me on a tangent that I had totally not planned on.  This class has been harder for me than I thought it would be.  I am learning a lot, but the page content that Cathy has picked for her class has been something that I would never have chosen to do.  When they are finished, though, I'm really glad to have done them.

So, without further talk, this is week #6....

Throwback Thursday - A little tease

Lately, Mason has been into teasing Marley.  The more she gets upset, the more he does it.  I tell her to ignore him, that he only does it to get a rise out of her.  I told her about how Uncle Mark used to tease her mother unmercifully and when I would tell her to ignore him she would whine, "I can't."  Now Marley says the same thing.

A while ago Marley said to him, "Mason, don't be like your father", to which he retorted, almost angrily, "I want to be like my faver."

In these pictures Mark and Kristen were 1 and 3.  The look on Mark's face says it all. 

I feel like it's dejavu.

Throwback Thursday - Our Backyard in 1974

I was looking through some of my old pictures trying to pick out something for this post and I was amazed at our backyard in 1974. The people who live behind us, Jack and Judy, have, over the years, planted so much that it almost seems like a park behind us. In this picture, though, you can still see the other side of our circle.

The swing set was my old swing set that was still in my grandmother's back yard in the early '70's. Our friends Ralph and Linda took it to their house, cleaned it up and painted it, used it for awhile and then gave it back to us when we got a house.

Kristen was almost 2 in this picture. Isn't she cute?

Throwback Thursday - Kristen and her Denis Browne Bar

When Kristen started to stand on her own it became noticeable that her feet turned in.  Actually, we  noticed it before that, but when she was 9 months old her pediatrician, Dr. Stirlacci, wrote me a prescription for corrective shoes.  I remember the day so clearly.  My grandmother had gone with me to the pediatrician's office and we took the prescription to Brooslin Shoes on Sumner Ave. in Springfield.  I was so shocked to see what the salesman came out with; little white shoes with open toes attached to a bar with screw type things underneath the bar that kept the shoes at a certain angle.  He proceeded to try them on her and I had all I could do not to cry in the store.  I took them off her before we left; I wasn't even sure that I could get her in her car seat with them on.  As soon as I got in the car I started to cry.  My poor grandmother tried to comfort me but she didn't know what to make of it either.

Kristen, on the other hand, wasn't bothered by it at all.  She soon learned how to crawl with them on and to pull herself up on things and balance on one screw while twirling around!

She wore them for three months, and then went to straight last shoes (they are neither left or right, but straight).  I'm not sure how long she wore those, probably until she outgrew them.  Her feet still turned in a little bit after that, but gradually she grew out of it.

Throwback (Monday) - Today would have been Priscilla's 85th birthday!

I have always loved this picture of my mother-in-law and my daughter.  It was taken in 2000.  Kris and Toby were home from Ohio for a visit. 

Priscilla has been gone now for almost nine years.  I still miss her.  A lot.  I could not have asked for a more wonderful mother-in-law.  She was the best!  I am so thankful for the relationship both of my children had with her. 

Happy birthday GG. 

Throwback Thursday - Kristen's shelf (and Marley's new shelf)

Marley has been wanting Paul to put a shelf in her bedroom like the one her mother had.  This picture was taken in 1984 when Kristen was 12.  It was the first picture that I came upon of her shelf.  Obviously the subject of the picture was not the shelf (it was probably Callie, our cat) but you can at least get an idea of it.  Now it holds children's books, but back then, as you can see, she had all of her treasures up there.

Last Sunday Paul put a shelf like this in Marley's room.  I know she is going to have a lot of fun putting all of her treasures on it.