J--is for Joy

It's always a JOY when we're with the grandkids! Here they are at ages 6,5,4,3,2,1,0, 0. I love how their ages line up in order that way! (even though it only does that for approximately a week each year)

I wasn't sure we'd be able to get a photo this year with all the restrictions, etc., but it worked out that we could all meet for a couple of hours earlier this month.

Previously posted ABCs:

Apple, Blog, Cornflakes Candy, Cantata and Christmas, Draw This,  EEEEE, Family, Gum Ball Machine, HIE, Iris

Pieces of my Heart

Earlier this month a new piece of my heart was claimed when Grandchild #6 was born. He and the other five have taken up residence there, but as you can see, there's still plenty of room for more! God has blessed us!

Linking with Scribble Picnic, where this week's theme is Hearts.

Watermelon

     We had a great three days celebrating the Fourth of July, beginning at church on Sunday morning where the offertory was an inspiringly rendered patriotic melody. That afternoon we, plus my brother and his wife, joined up at our daughter's church for a pot-luck, patriotic service, homemade ice cream, and fireworks display. Attended a wedding on Monday, then spent Tuesday with family and friends. The Fourth was a beautiful Kansas summer evening for a picnic that included grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, chips, fruit, and of course watermelon–which was sliced into easy to handle pieces.

Grandchild #3 doing a great job balancing her plate of small watermelon pieces!

     Played some bocce ball, then Grandchild #1 found some fireflies to try to catch. (Edit: Sorry, I don't know why the video won't play. Guess I'll have to try another time.)

Catching fireflies!

     After that we lit our small collection of fireworks, and were also able to see many of those set off in town and in the surrounding countryside.

     Hope you all have a chance to enjoy some watermelon sometime before summer ends!

     I tried a watermelon sketch in my usual black and white first, but decided it might be better with some color this time.

     You can find plenty of other juicy watermelons here for this week's Scribble Picnic. P.S. If you commented on the fox last week, please check back for my group reply.

Books

     I wonder how many hours of my childhood and youth were spent with a book in hand? It had to be MANY, as I recall books received as gifts; walking (or riding my bike) the two and a half blocks to the town library at least weekly; A Fish out of Water; the Nancy Drew, Donna Parker, and Annette series; bringing home books from the long, low classroom shelves; reading the stories in old school reading books over and over on my own; book reports; ordering paperback books from the flyer brought home from school; reading in bed, in a tree, in my "hide-outs" in the garage and basement, in the car,... How fortunate to have had that privilege!

     I'm so glad that our oldest grandchild (nearly four now) has loved books from the time he was very little, too. He just may have been my inspiration for this week's Scribble Picnic theme of books! You can read and see what others came up with here.

Scribble Picnic–Grandfather Clock

Our oldest daughter and grandchildren #1 and #3 have been here for a few days, so I didn't find/take time to get out my drawing pencils. Instead, I dug out the old water color paints left over from our own kids' younger days, and Andrew and I set out to have some fun.

So here you have it–my water color scribble of a grandfather clock! "Where are the numbers?" he wanted to know. I squeezed some in for him, but will stick with this version to post!

I need to change my blog format so I can reply directly to your kind comments. Not sure when that will happen. Perhaps that would also take care of sometimes needing to click on the photos to see them completely. (Lissa, Michael and Wanda, I did reply to your comments last week if you want to go back one post.)

You can check out grandfather clocks created by others here.

Scribble Picnic–Fairy

     I don’t often draw human (or "fairy"!) figures, but had to give it a try with this week’s Scribble Picnic theme.  I started with a couple of sketches as seen on the right below.  Our daughter-in-law chose a Tinker Bell theme for the nursery when our oldest granddaughter was born, so I switched to using the leftover material from making curtains for my fairy inspiration.  I debated staying with regular pencil, but decided T. Bell would be more recognizable in color.  (Note to self–get some quality colored pencils ordered!)  You can see the fairies others chose to draw by clicking on the links at this page.  I hated missing last week’s Lantern theme, but we took a trip to see some of the grandkids for a few days, then went on to spend several more days “touristing” in central and north central Oklahoma.  We quite often take a short trip of some kind in March, our anniversary month.  This year marks 34!

H–is for HIE

     In a few months our first granddaughter will reach her second birthday, which will be a great day of celebration, as was her first birthday.  Her actual day of birth, those many months ago, was a time that should also have been full of smiles and joy, but instead filled with worries and questions.  She had HIE–hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. Hypoxic–lack of oxygen. Ischemic–restricting blood flow. Encephalopathy–affecting the brain. Simply put–oxygen deprivation that affects the brain at birth.

    The medical staff took immediate action, but it still took hours to stabilize, make preparations, and transport her to the NICU in the larger city. They couldn’t use the life-flight helicopter because of there being such bad thunderstorms going on that night. Instead she was taken by ambulance, with one of the first actions taken being to cool her body, which slowed blood flow to prevent further brain damage. It was a month later that she was able to go home. Her parents quickly learned and gave the day by day care needed, one of the biggest of which was getting used to feeding her via a gastronomy tube. They were fast learners, and Samantha thrives physically. In the next photo you can see her "button" for feeding.

Samantha with her beloved Grampa

     One of the HIE effects was that she was never able to cry. One doesn't usually think of a crying baby as a blessing, but it truly is. How thrilled we were when Samantha first started making some vocalizations!

Samantha having a meal via tube with the help of the orange feeding pump.

     Because of a “default mode” of mostly keeping her head turned to the left (which she still does), her head was getting flat on that side.  So, until her skull fused, she had several months of wearing a helmet, which did its reshaping job.

Helmet "graduation day"

     Samantha has a variety of specialists and therapists who help with different developmental aspects. Even though she has always received her main nutrition through a gastronomy tube, she is also undergoing therapy to strengthen her face and mouth muscles to be able to eat by mouth. A wonderful by-product is that those same stronger muscles help her be able to vocalize more, and to smile. It’s such a blessing to see her eyes light up during an interaction; and now to see an occasional added smile just makes my heart rejoice!

     One always expects and hopes the best with a new baby. And you know, that’s just what the family got with Samantha. No, she isn’t developing at a “normal” rate, but she is making progress and developing at her own normal rate, just as God knew she would.  She reminds us all not to take anything for granted, and is such a sweet joy!

The biggest smile I've seen–looking forward to many more!

     (If you want to know more about HIE, you can read here. Our friend Kacy writes about her own daughter here and here. Of course each child affected by HIE has different diagnoses, but some of Hudsyn’s–the GERD, the gastronomy tube–are similar to those of Samantha.)    

F–is for Family

     Family.  What does one do without it?

     I’ve been blessed all my life with an amazing family.  I have SO MANY great memories of family time when I was growing up.  My dad loved the Lord, was the kindest man you could ever hope to know, and absolutely adored my mom.  They were college sweethearts and had over 50 years of married life together.  Mom was the best anyone could ask for, and I’ll forever miss her love, encouragement, and support in my life.  My older brothers put up with their younger sister, and still do for that matter!  I just wish we could get together more often.

     My next level of family began with the answer to my prayers that I found in Benny.  We were late twenties and mid-thirties when we met and married, and both agree it was worth the wait!  Raising a son and two daughters was not without its challenges of course, but those were far outweighed by the good times!  What a joy and privilege to see them develop into such fine young people and find their own loving spouses to continue on with.

     This may have been taken a dozen or so years ago!

     Grandchildren.  Did I mention grandchildren?  :-)  We have four now–ages 3 1/2, almost 2, almost 1, and just over one week!  All the clichés are true–there’s nothing like it, why didn’t we have them first, etc.  With their different ages and abilities, each one is a unique delight!

#4 (#1, #2, and#3 are a few posts down)

     Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… None ever lived in the same town I was in, which made each time we were together all that much more special.  Of the older generation, I’ve only two aunts remaining. 

     Of course marriage expanded family immediately.  In-laws and their families brought another good dimension to family that I can't imagine not having.

     I can’t leave the subject of family without including my spiritual family.  These fellow believers have taught and been with me through all kinds of joys, frustrations, and sorrows.  Some I’ve known for decades and some for just a few years, but we all have eternity to look forward to because of accepting Jesus Christ into our lives as Lord and Savior.

     Family.

     I think family should be spelled b l e s s i n g!

C–is for Corn Flakes Candy, Cantata and Christmas

Mixed up some Corn Flakes Candy this afternoon.  So simple!

Combine 1 cup corn syrup and 1 cup brown sugar in a 3-quart saucepan.  Cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture bubbles.  Remove from heat.  Stir in 1 cup peanut butter and 6 cups corn flakes until well coated.  Drop by teaspoons on waxed paper.  Or, press into well-buttered 9 x 13 pan and cool until firm before cutting.

I usually make some for Christmas, but we had plenty of other sweets around, so didn't this time.

Christmas–that's my second favorite holiday (after Easter).

In a way, Christmas always begins in October for me, as that is when rehearsals for the community Christmas cantata begin.  I’ve missed a few years, maybe more than a few, but have usually sung in it over the past thirty-eight years!  I had an uncle who taught music here one year in the early 1960s, and apparently he was instrumental in getting the annual event started.  What a joy it is to sing about the birth of Jesus, the real meaning of Christmas!

Our traditional Christmas Eve soup and gifts with Benny’s side of the family was at his sister’s, just up the road.

Usually we go to a Christmas Eve candlelight service, but since Christmas was on Sunday, the Lutheran church (which we attended until a few years ago) had a Julotta (Christmas, just before dawn) candlelight service we went to instead.  Then we went to our Berean church's Christmas Day service.  Had a non-tradtional Christmas Day dinner here of crockpot BBQ pork ribs, followed by a relaxing day of nothing in particular.

Midweek my side of the family gathered for our WWW Christmas, always fun and filled with laughter, food, games (always Nerts), gifts, traditions and memories.

This would be our three (so far) grandkids!

Some of the immediate family was able to stay the entire week. Then we celebrated Christmas again with all the immediate family on New Year's Day!

Blessed, blessed, blessed!

Ping Pong!

Ping pong.

Do you remember the first time you saw the game being played?  I don't either, but this past weekend I had the fun of watching Andrew, our oldest grandchild, see it for the first time.  He was completely enthralled and couldn't stop grinning!

Let's Try This Again!

How could I let most of a year go by without posting anything? I have kept up-to-date reading several other people's blogs, but haven't done much commenting. I'll try to do better, as I know how encouraging comments can be!

So, over the last several months there have been a good number of family gatherings.

Andrew continued to grow.

The whole family pitched in to help Trina and Josh move in February.

Visited at Mom's several times. She went with us to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in February.  Wish the photo wasn't so blurry.

Benny and I toured our newly refurbished state capitol building in Topeka. I'll try to do a separate post about that another time.

We took a trip to the Amana Colonies. That should be a separate post also!

In April I sang with the county community choir as we presented selections from Handel's Messiah. What a joy that was!

Look who learned to walk!

I lost something the end of May! Fifteen inches were chopped off, destined for Children with Hair Loss, a group that does not charge for wigs for children who need them.

In June we celebrated Andrew's first birthday!

I helped with VBS, which is always a fun time!

Brittany (DIL) and my sister-in-law and I went on a walking photo tour of our county seat the middle of June. Of course that resulted in many interesting photos, so I have my blogging work cut out for me with yet another potential post!

There's more to catch you up about, but I'll leave off here for now, with this shot of Andrew and me on the Fourth of July.

He's Growing!

This was last month during a brief visit to the farm.

Now I'm thinking it's about time to go to his house for a visit!

We Have New Names!

As of June 4, thanks to the arrival of Andrew Michael, Benny and I have new names.  We are now Gram E. and Grampa!