Birthday Glimpse....

Here's Jairus enjoying the birthday cake....he also enjoyed cleaning off his sister's plates when they weren't around to stop him!

The Birthday girl enjoying her cake too!
Verity enjoyed the cake after becoming very upset when she realized that she couldn't open any of honour's presents! That's alright greatgrandma was there to console.




Honour enjoyed all of the attention but had to kiss all the 'boys' present because she didn't blow out all five of her candles at once!

Honour

This is my first grandaughter. Her name is Honour and she is five years old today!..Five years ago when we were waiting for Honour to be born, this nana was fit to be tied. You see, daughter Leslie was planning on a 'home birth'.....I have read about them, I've seen them on the television but I've never actually been part of one, in my very own family, with my very own grandchild!!!!! I'm not sure how well I hid my apprehension, but the day that Leslie called and said,..'I think the baby's coming today' was certainly a day of excitement! I jumped in the van and raced to her house.....which was a very long 45 minutes away.....to be greeted by Leslie hanging over the front porch railing with a grin on her face....like she had nothing better to do that day but give birth...if she was scared, she didn't show it.....the day was spent quietly, going for long walks....I remember this one car pulling up to Leslie and I as she was paused in her walking, in mid contraction, and the lady saying...'is she okay?' and I said, 'yes, she's just in labour'.....the poor lady wanted to drive us to the hospital but I assured her that everything was okay....
that afternoon the long awaited moment came and Honour was born......a beautiful, quiet birth.....I was so excited that I wanted to shout it from the front porch...I remember going outside and looking around and you just wanted to stop people, anyone..and say 'do you know what just happened in this house....the most amazing thing has happened...my little grandaughter has been born and she's beautiful and her name is Honour Elizabeth!
Now, five year later here she is, at a campfire, eating marshmallows with her little sister and her mama beside her.......still, amazing, still beautiful.....

Happy Birthday Honour!

How I get to clean my closet.....

Today is Monday.....again.....I really don't get along with Mondays.....they don't play nice with me....my body is screaming......noooooooooo, but the clock is saying, get your sorry self up and get going!
Yesterday, I had fifteen people for supper....many people, of late, have said...'I don't know how you do that every Sunday'....well, I know how I do it,..with the grace of God and a fabulous husband who is an accountant....what does an accountant have to do with it you say...well, I'll tell you....he LOVES everything orderly and in it's place...so....he helps, mostly with the cleanup, but in this house this is major!
This past week, army son came home driving a huge truck, (I never did get my nerve up to drive it....maybe next time!)....he got his license in the morning, went directly to, did not stop at go, and picked up this huge truck and drove it home....I think he's fairly enamored with this 1/2 ton of metal....he keeps driving around with his arm hanging out the window and a big smile on his face......impressing all the chicks, you see......guys and their toys!
Me, while I started handquilting one grandaughter's quilt this weekend....when Honour found out that it was hers, she was quite excited but I've decided that it's kind of like being pregnant, you should never tell the little ones too soon, cause the next day Honour came back and asked if it was done! I didn't have the heart to tell her that it would be at least Christmas. I was a little bummed because I wanted to start hand stitching both girls quilts but I ran out of quilting safety pins .....annoyance....you see, I don't baste my 'sandwich' together, I use quilting safety pins,..so slipped to the local Len's Mill store and they had some but when I got home found that they were so thin that I!!!!!! could bend them....not a good sign, since I basically haven't any arm muscles so if I can bend them...well, I'm in trouble. I was also annoyed that I'd have to travel for at least 30 minutes to get to a real fabric store to get better quality and believe me, this body doesn't want to budge today....but hubby comes to the rescue....he says he doesn't work far from one of the fabric stores so he doesn't mind getting them....bless his soul, he is a prince! It just wouldn't do to have one quilt done before the other one,...little girlies really don't understand, if one has to wait several months for hers while sister already has hers......oh my.
So, two weeks tomorrow is the first day of school around here! Hallelujah and Praise the Lord! The only draw back is that all four teens in my house have grown....immensely grown....which means back to school shopping which also means a lot of angst......no money and teen shopping really doesn't compute...especially when Miss Emma is a shopping diva.....the other three will pretty well accept what I have to offer but Emma.....nonononononooooooooo......not a pretty scene and certainly not something I want to even tax my brain with on a Monday! So, maybe I'll just clean my closet......

Letting Go...

My parents are getting old....and just WHEN did this happen???? Yesterday, I sat in on a meeting with my mom and dad, my brother and his wife, and a case manager from one of the social agencies that will strive to help my parents stay in their home, independently as long as possible. I will admit to being fairly nervous about this meeting...you see, my older sister usually looks after these things,...my older sister with the logical, thinking on the spot, 'A' personality.....ya, that's the one......but she is in Ireland right now for a nice holiday, so there I was, trying to fill her shoes and feeling totally inadequate!
The case worker was there to do an assesment on my mom and dad to pinpoint their needs.....now, that isn't too difficult for my dad...diabetic, renal failure, ulcerated colitus, recently had a mild heart attack.....but, for my mom...we realized that mom has never been hospitalized, except for giving birth...she's not sick, she has a sore back from a fall at Easter but not sick.....but mom has the OTHER problem.....dementia....it's a scary thing,....it's unsettling to see the woman who was so strong and capable all those years, becoming forgetful and easily confused. The case worker told me in private that mom should never drive again...that her car keyes should be taken from her....that she's dangerous on the road.....I'm not quite sure how she's going to take that......she's Irish, you see....she can get her dander up pretty quickly if she has too....

Where did the time go....and I know they can't live forever but I'm not sure if I'm ready for all this right now....I've still got a lot of things going on with my kids and my grandkids...and...and.....I'm not ready for my mom and dad not to be here ......how do you prepare yourself to let go.....

I have questions....lots and lots of questions......and it's very frustrating when you don't have the answers and even worse when people that you go to for the answers say...'sorry, I don't have the answers' or even worse, you hear...'you probably will never know the answers'. Now some of those questions are easier to let go, especially if you've been wondering about them, say, like for twenty, even thirty years! Of course, that puts these questions in the past category....but what about those in the present,...or in the future.....you know, the ones that keep you awake at night while your spouse is gently(or not gently) snoring beside you.

I've watched the interview done with Steven Curtis Chapman and his family on Good Morning America, a few times.....if somebody has a legitimate reason for asking why and for having questions, it's that family! But I was very encouraged when I heard Steven say...'oh yes, we have lots of questions, but we also have faith,...and faith is living with the questions'.....the important thing, that GMA edited out was that Steven and his family don't have just any old faith, like in the stars, or the trees or the ocean....they have faith in God......

I'm glad that I have a faith in God too, because when He gently reminds me of that ......well then I can be gently(or not) snoring beside my husband at night too!

I'm so glad....

Camping

Well, we've come to the end of our two week camping holiday...although for someone like me to put camping and holiday side by side in a sentence is somewhat of an oxymoron! You see, I dislike camping....passionately.....I've always claimed that my older sister, yes people,...all those that know my older sister, yes, she really is my older sister and now that she's finally stopped dying her hair people are actually believing me! Yes, my older sister got all the camping genes in the family and then skipped me entirely...but strangely enough I did pass them on to eldest son...strange but true! Even stranger,...what did I do for my honeymoon, years ago...I went camping! You see my hubby and I had actually no money back then (we still don't but don't tell anyone, it will spoil his accountant image!).....so, what kind of holiday do you have when you haven't any money...yes, bingo...you go camping! So, like I was saying we have come to the end of it...although my BIL would argue with me that what I do isn't real camping...see I like my bathroom to be in the same building in which I am sleeping.....being past the menopause age requires at least one and sometimes two!!!, nocturnal visits to the facilities and I really don't care to run into other nocturnal creatures in the middle of the night...especially the ones w/white stripes down their backs!....So......we have a trailer, not a tent....well, we have that but I wouldn't sleep in it,..I leave that for teenage son!.....not a hard top trailer like camping sister and BIL but a regular trailer...with an indoor bathroom.....of course it's not big enough to swing a cat in but it's big enough to ...well, you know....big enough! Anyways, I keep on digressing......camping, over and done with and just in time.....I put some supper in the microwave...(yes, yes...I know, real campers don't have microwaves but hey, you camp your way and I'll camp mine!)...and the keypad flashed and went dark...oh no....what about the supper...good grief....got hubby to fire up the barbeque and finally served supper a half an hour later...to grouchy teenagers.....you know when you don't feed them they get quite ugly!
As I was saying...at the end of the two weeks and let's take an accounting of our poor old trailer...yes it is old but we've taken pretty good care of it and just this summer someone said how good it still looked, but alas, just as I am falling apart..so is my beloved trailer.....the tiny fridge, kept checking out several times a day so we had to keep perishables in the coolatron, the hot water heater had a slow, tiny leak...which ran from one side of the trailer to the other..thru the bathroom,...so there was always this little shiny edging along the bathroom floor of water, but at five to six hundred to fix,..well, we put up with it........and lets see, what else...oh yes, the ants...they would appear anywhere...just out of the blue....you never saw them coming out of somewhere, they just always appeared in the middle of the wall......very strange...we figure that when we get everything cleaned out tomorrow that we'll give it a good spraying of Raid and hope they decline over the winter!
So, that's camping for another year....or at least my version of it.......I did get a lot of reading done which was pleasant...it will be good to get the teens back in their separate corners, I mean bedrooms, before they kill each other.....and it will be good for my hubby to get his sanity back....he never realized that his daughter redid her hair at least four times a day and her make up nearly as many.....boggled his mind....that's okay dear,....just a few more years.....

Grandbabies!

Four out of five of my grandchildren came to the trailer this weekend....and eldest daughter took the opportunity to show me how to put some pics on my blog! This is Verity, Honour and Jairus. Jairus is showing you that he just lost his first tooth!

And this is the newest one, Afton, who is three months old this week!

Aren't they great!!!!!!