Here we are

 So here is the best picture this year! My children's children. They are great. Look at the smile on Ellis's face. She is laughing at one of the girls. I think she will be a giggler. B loves her and really my kids are the best parents ever. They seem to actually have learned from our mistakes and yet they are not afraid to keep the kids in line either. It is so exciting to see them be great parents and to see the fathers really parent too.  I love this picture. Now we just need to get one with Papa in it too that I approve of !

I'm up

Being older has its perks but not sleeping is a way of life with me so when I do sleep it seems so strange. Tonight/ this morning is not one of the sleeping times. Who knows why but I really like being up in the middle of the night. I used to love being up with the babies, nursing them, cuddling them. It was the only time I and I alone got to be with them it was special to me. Now when I wake I think of those babies who are having babies themselves. It is strange and I pray for them to learn and grow through the experience. I get to look at pictures of my son who is at boot camp. Now that is the way to lose weight. No sleep and lots of exercise. Not sure I am ready to sign up but it does promote brain growth and his brain has grown and he has decided that going to school and doing well is a great idea as well. Good. He will make a great officer one day. I love summer richness. Picked blackberries this week and bought peaches. Have the blackberries frozen and some of the peaches. Many need to ripen but that is so easy and smells so good. Gonna make peach jam. Never have done that. I like peach butter as it is so easy to do in the crockpot. Reading Robert Rohr Falling Up. Wonderful book about ministry in the 2nd half of life. Also reading the Southern Sister's Mysteries. What fun books! Easy read and I am flying through them. Book Club reading Anatomy of a Soul and this is a rich full book. That is all the reading for now. I am quilting again. Finished the redwork for one quilt that I am doing with a friend and finished a quilt with my daughter Becky for our new baby Ellis. It turned out wonderful. Now I am doing a hanging with English Paper piecing for the sunflower time of the year!

Now we Know

My second daughter had her first baby Monday. I was able to go to see her and our newest addition to the family and hold them and kiss them. Women should have their sisters and aunts around them when they deliver. I loved The Red Tent for that reason. It was more about the women that surrounded her then the other parts of the story for me. My daughter said these words "Now I know why..." she was referring to why women tell their birth stories but isn't it so true of us all. Until we go through "X" we just don't know. The older I get the more I realize I don't know. The more I only want people who feel the same around me. Youth with it's bravado of " if you only did it this way" really gets to me. I think it is because that is who I used to be. Now I am so just trying to enjoy and I so enjoyed watching my 5th born adore her new niece and the joy that she had when she was wanting to purchase everything pink at the Carter's outlet store. Being a grandparent also makes me really understand that I can be loved just because of who I am. After all my new grandchild can do nothing in fact what she does do is really quite irritating if you think about it. Sleep, eat, and be cleaned up after...but that does not bother me...so why does cleaning up after teenage sons who do the same not make me smile :)

Daughters

Last weekend I went with 2 of my daughters to a baby shower given for another daughter. It was such a nice weekend. My daughter has such nice friends and they were all there with their little ones and I was overjoyed with everyone's thoughtfulness and kindness. I had the same with all my children. In fact I had a shower for all 8. My mother did not approve and neither did I but friends being the sweet things that they are.... I loved the parties. We had lunches and we gave gifts to Crisis Pregnancy Centers but mostly we celebrated with each other the gift of new life. I am on pins and needles now ( really I am sewing and I can be messy)waiting for this baby to be born. I will hop in the car the moment I hear that she has started labor which I just know will be this week.( It is a 5 hour drive)Life is so dear to be attending the birth of a grandchild.
I spent all last week with my 1st and he was so fun. I love 4 yr old and he is 3 1/2 just done with all the temper work that 2 yr olds must try out and just ready to be a kid. Puddles and sticks and stories and games. This is real work for these kids. I can't wait to help out this summer in his VBS and begin the process of summer visit centered around VBS. I figure I will be busy every week( in the summer) by the end of the next 10 yrs when everyone is married and having children. It is a great thought.
Finished Elizabeth Goudge's autobiography and it ends with a prayer by Thomas Traherne that I like so much.
O God, who by love alone art great and glorious, that art present and livest with us by love alone: Grant us likewise by love to attain another self, by love to live in others, and by love to come to our glory, to see and accompany Thy love throughout all eternity.

It is that love that has produced again the glories of spring. The forsythia is budding, the iris are popping up and the willows are that beautiful yellow haze around the ponds they grow by as I drive to school. Some have accused Traherne of being pantheistic but really, enjoying the God who has given the wonders of the natural world does not make one a worshiper of the earth!Glory, I am so glad we are not bound in this post modern world to the teachings of one set of views. That we can change and grow in thought, word and deed. With that I go back to being on the pins and needles sewing for all the new babies that are to be born in my acquaintance this spring.

Moving on

Yesterday was Family Sunday at church. It was a hard day for me. There were so many sweet little things all around and I felt the loss of time. It will never be the same. It will be better but I miss it sooooo much.

Quiet Times

I am an early riser. Always have been but now that I am older I really rise early. I have come to so enjoy this time. I am quiet then. Don't move much. I will enjoy a cup of tea, read build a fire when it is cold and sit outside and watch the first rays of sun hit the earth when it is warm. Maybe it is because I have enjoyed having children about me all my adult life, I never sent them back to their own beds when then were scared at night. Sometime I would have to have them sleep on the floor beside the bed as the bed would be filled with others and it would be sweet and funny to step over their little huddled bodies in the morning as of course they would sleep through the baby crying but I had to get up and attend. Now I want my time alone to be alone. I don't even want the dog. No one to demand attention. This morning as I got up knowing I would not be going anywhere due to ice that came to visit last night I sat at the computer waiting for my kettle to heat up and heard a sound....snoring ???to light for Carl ...Noah to close for him...I turned on the light and there was Caleb asleep on the couch. I tried to wake him and ask him why he was sleeping on the couch but dead to the world he would not respond but I was not to be thawarted...I wanted to be alone...So I rolled him until he was almost off the couch and demanded that he go to his bed or his brothers but get out of the living room. That accomplished I settled down after starting a fire and getting Ruth and Carl out of bed b/c she had something to go to and Carl was going to do the driving in this mess. As I settled reading poetry from a man Carl and I heard speak the night before I heard the noise...steps, boots from the basement...Andrew?? but there were more steps...? Gentlemen? no answer ( this house is small and you can hear everything) "ANDREW!" "Oh Mrs B yes I am here." "Who is with you?" "Ryan, we have a forensic tournament today" I know my course of action here. No child is going to walk there in this ice. "Ok boys go start and scrap my car I will get dressed!" So off I go knowing that these mornings will end soon enough but I STILL I want my quiet mornings!

blogging again

So life happened and I stopped writing but one of my daughters has asked me to tell her the things that influenced me in raising children. She has just turned 30 and thinks we did do somethings well. I started collecting the books that influenced me. What I should tell her is to stay away from anything that says "_____ steps to____" Seemed to be many of those sort of books around when I was raising kids but I tended to stay away from those as I had read so many of those for marriage and that did not go well. I tend to read ALLOT! I think I don't b/c I compare myself to others ( like my 2nd daughter who surpassed me when she was 10) but when I read articles about reading I see I am head of the masses.
I will go back to putting down the books that have shaped me in thought and deed. It is interesting to watch the little girls in my life who are now Mommies and they do it so much better than I did and they REALLY love their babies but you know what...so do I...even if they are not babies anymore.