Memorial Day Remembrance

Here is a slide show of our Memorial Day. We love to go out and decorate the graves of our loved ones.  My mother-in-law gave us the most beautiful peonies and roses out of her garden.  Mary and Mackie had so much fun smelling their sweet fragrance!  Peonies are such an amazing flower.  They are one of my favorites.  When I worked in the flower business in Southern California  they charged anywhere from to $5 to $10 a piece for peonies.  So we had a real gold mine as we had a whole bucket full of them :)

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Here is the link to the video: http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=10f22f3c51ce5290b3101c9&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url
 

Back Yard Ballet

 

Baby Dreams

I sat down and found this picture the other morning.  What inspired my search for it was that my niece and her husband announced they were having a baby.  She is three months along and the baby is due in November.  This is a picture of my mom and my sister when she is pregnant with my niece in 1978.  My mother was so excited because this was her first grandchild.  I so enjoyed seeing this picture again.  As you can see my mother is beaming and it is so cute that she has her hand on her tummy too.  Mom loved being a mother and a grandmother.  I remember when my sister and brother-in-law first told us, mom got out all her crocheting hooks and the sewing machine and went to work making so many lovely things for the baby.  I was in my senior year of high school and still at home, so I joined in on making things too.  It was all so very exciting.  My sister had been married for 5 years and mom had been waiting and longing for this time of grandchildren.  When my mom and dad got married mom was so excited to become a mother.  My oldest sister was born 2 weeks before their first anniversary and mom had a whole chest of drawers full of lovely things made.  This was long before the days of sonograms so mom was praying she would have a little girl because of the sweet frilly things she had made and had been given to her.  So, my oldest sister was decked out in the most beautiful outfits and people at church would just love to come see what she had on.  Now my dear mother is in heaven.  She lived until my niece was 9 years old and my nephew was 2 years old.  So she was only able to see, here on earth, 2 of her now 5 grandchildren.  I feel in my heart that she has seen them all, including the little angels that have been miscarried or died as a baby in our family.  Now the next generation has started.  My nephew has a 13 year old step son and a 10 month old baby boy and now my niece is expecting.  She will be finding out pretty soon whether she is having a boy or a girl.  The newer sonograms are so much more accurate that they can tell earlier than before.  From the time I have found out she was pregnant I have felt she that is carrying a little girl.  I did have a dream almost 5 years ago of my niece showing me a house plan with one room designated as a nursery and is was colored pink.  This little one is special for a special reason and I pray for my niece, her husband and the baby every day. 

 

Coffee Filter Flowers

I got this wonderful idea to make flowers out of coffee filters from Pinterest. I used food coloring in water and put the different colors in a egg carton. Mary had so much fun painting them. After they dried I pinched them in the middle and formed a flower and then taped them on to plastic straws. She made them for her grandma for Mother's Day. As you can see by the last picture that her grandma was very pleased.

A Mother's Love

Here is a recap of my Mother's Day Weekend set to music. This song is truly a song of my heart.

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Mackie is One

Today is our beloved puppy's first birthday.  Mary had so much fun planning his birthday.  She picked out his toy, doggie cookie from the pet store and our cakes at the bakery.  Mackie is such a funny little dog.  He is smart and has found his way into our hearts.  He is an excitable little guy with a lots of bark but he is very loyal and a very good watch dog.  Nothing goes on around the house without us knowing about it.  He is very loving and does the cutest things.  He loves his weekly bath and lets me comb and trim him.  He is such a cute little guy and is a wonderful companion for Mary.  She has learned how to care for him and think of his needs and feelings.  Since she is an only child this is a good character builder for her as she does not have siblings to share with.

Mary is having so much fun watching him taste his cookie that she bought him.  We ended up breaking off a piece for him and he ran all over the living room looking for just the right place to bury it.  He was full from dinner and wanted to find just the right spot so he could find it and eat it later!

Here is a video we put together of his year with us.  Mary loves the song that Rich picked out.  The lyrics just tickle her so.

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So Blessed

This sweet face greeted me for Mother's Day this morning.

She gave me this card.

She signed it herself.  I teared up on this to see my baby girl writing.

Here is a really cute video that was made by our church and was played in the main sanctuary for all the moms.  Mary is in the group that say what food they like best that their mom makes.  By her comment you can tell she really likes to eat.  She had Rich and I laughing so hard.

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/i19UT5WgOkw

Art in Bloom

We had such a lovely day today.  Mary's ballet class performed at a beautiful outdoor event in town.  A lot of the streets were blocked off and were filled with art booths, craft booths and food booths.  Two stages were set up for different performances.  Mary's class performed an adorable little dance called the Six Little Bunnies.

Mary and Grandma's hand.

Waiting to go on stage.

Performing with her class.

Grandma, Me and Mary after the performance.

So many beautiful flowers!

We ended the day with pie and ice cream at Marie Calendars :)  

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!

A Thread of Love

As Mother's Day approaches I want to share this beautiful poem that my husband wrote 6 months before we met.  I just love it and it brings tears to my eyes every time I read it.  

I Want to Fly ...

A few days ago Mary came up to me while I was working in my garden and said, "Mama, I want to fly!"

 I smiled and said I wished that when I was little too.  In fact people from the beginning of time have wanted to fly. That is why hot air balloons and airplanes were invented so we could fly.  She said "But Mama I want to have wings and fly.  I said that would be so wonderful and one day all those who believe in Jesus will fly up to meet him in the clouds when he comes back.  She thought about that for a minute and then said....

 

 "If a man has the faith the size of a mustard seed and he says to this mountain be moved and it shall move for nothing shall be impossible for him."  She just quoted Matthew 17:20 and I have never worked with her to say that.  

I was so blessed by that.  I thought our faith does not have to be large it just needs to be true.  We not only believe there is a God but also believe what He says and listen to his voice.  The mustard seed is small but has the genetic information to produce one the the biggest plants in your garden.  That little seed can really grow.  Faith in God and what he says, is very, very powerful.
 

      

                   

 Kids are so wonderful and can speak to your heart in such a simple and beautiful way!

What Makes a Mother?

I found this beautiful slide show while just browsing on the internet.  I was so captivated by it.  I did a little research and found the author of the poem, "What Makes a Mother".  Her name is Jennifer Wasik and she wrote this poem for her son Zachery who died shortly after he was born in 1998.  I read her story of her pregnancy and loss.  He died from some birth defects one being a herniated diaphragm.  My brother, Philip, just younger than me died from the complications of a herniated diaphragm at birth.  I found out that this occurs at 8 weeks development and the lungs are damaged during development and only 50% of babies today survive this and many that live, have life long health struggles from it.  There is no known cause of it.  It just occurs in about one in 2500 births.  Then I found found the girl's story who made this slide show.  She is young only about 26 years old now and she had two early miscarriages and a very traumatic loss of twins at 16 weeks.  I read both stories and just wept.  Both these ladies have gone on to have healthy children but it just broke my heart of all the pain that is out there for those who have suffered pregnancy and child loss.  Many women have lost multiple babies. So as Mother's Day approaches my heart goes out to all those who have suffered loss like this and I know the Lord's heart is very near those who are suffering grief.  

 

Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/-p3e8_XKoRo
 

Popping up Pumpkins

Last year Mary got pumpkin seeds from her Grandpa and she planted them and grew this beautiful pumpkin.

We saved the seeds when we carved it for Halloween and then planted them last week and they popped up so quickly and now we have beautiful seedlings that we will plant outside in a couple of weeks.  Over the summer we will see how many pumpkins we will get for the fall!