My Babies

My Babies

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Raging Storms

This has been a very stormy time for me and for people I know and love.  My friend Tracy suddenly lost her mom.  My friend Kelley is watching her mom spiral down into the depths of dementia.  My friend Katie's daughter Sarah lost her newborn baby this morning to crib death.  Just a few days old.  I have sobbed over this a zillion times today.  My friend Terri has a sweet 23 month old grandaughter who has had two unexplained seizures in the last couple of months.  Super-scary.  I have friends who are going through cancer.  whose husbands are having health crisis.  Friends who are dealing with intense depression.  Financial woes that are staggering.  Then there are some whose problems are not as severe but are still storms that are waging their toll.  This past Saturday Megan and I painted in her house for twelve hours straight.  At one point I was in the dining room and she was in a bedroom when I was overcome by grief and tears.  I cried so hard I just knew she would hear me.  She is really getting married in a few months.  That house will be her home now.  And the most devastating blow......i will be all by myself for real.  I am not afraid to be alone.  But I would be a liar if I said that I didn't fear always to be alone.  For most of my marriage I was very, very lonely.  For many different reasons that really don't matter anymore.  I can say that I am honestly not lonely anymore.  Funny??? Huh??  But I do not really want to be alone for the next thirty or so years.  I am going to miss Megan like crazy but it is time for her to move on and grow up and into this new part of life.  I miss Erica too but she has just blossomed into domestic life and for that I am very proud and happy to witness.  This storm I am battling is small compared to others but it is still a storm for me.  I, for one, am ready for some quiet weather in my life.  I know when that does come another storm is on the horizon.  This world is not my home and the storms only prove that.  When it is smooth sailing all the time I am comfortable here.  Too comfortable with this world....a place that scripture says is not my home.  A blessed assurance is that there are no storms in heaven.  My real home.

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Face of Grief

On Sunday morning during Sunday School class I got some very sad and shocking news.  My sweet friend, Tracy's, mama died of a sudden stroke.  Her funeral was that day.  I gave no second thought about going.  She is my friend and that is just what you do.  You do funerals, weddings, bridal showers, baby showers...all the events of each others lives.  Friends do down times, up times, depression, joy.  I thank God for my friends in recent years.  Thank God...they helped me through some very dark days.  My friend Kelley and I went to the funeral that was at a very old and beautiful church.  It was standing room only and we were placed against the wall facing the family.  I don't really remember much about the service.  The lady that sang was really good though.  But what I do remember are the faces of grief.  The waves of tears  Watching Tracy's big ole 27 year old son's shoulders shaking with sobs.  Her beautiful daughters constant wiping of tears.  Tracy's little sister's face crumble over and over.  My sweet Tracy...so strong.  Going between smiling with tears on her face to brief glimpses of grief.  She and I are a lot alike.  We are strong.  Probably too strong, bordering on hard.  We are realists.  Not a lot of room for nonsense.  It is what it is kind of people.  I just stood there mesmerized by their faces.  I truly do not want to be in that position again.  I gained a whole new respect for people who stand in front of grief.  It is a hard place to stand.  In the days to come I am sure that waves of grief will wash over this family.  Over her two grown daughter who now feel like orphans.  The pure beauty of God.  Tracy's mom had cancer many years ago and had said of she got cancer again she would do kind of treatment.  She was an organ donor and when they opened her up to harvest the organs the doctors found that she had a large abdominal cancerous tumor.  God just took Judy home.  No suffering.  No long, drawn out death.  How precious of God to spare the family that kind of suffering.  They will miss their mother tremendously.  I cannot imagine losing my mama yet.  But one day they will be reunited....no face of grief in heaven.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Eleven Months Old


Savannah you are officially Eleven Months Old!!  How can this be??  You are the cuddliest baby ever, that is for sure.  I love holding you and watching your sweet face light up.  You were so funny for our "photo shoot" yesterday.  


Mimi, I don't like to be still very long....what's up?



Mr. Frog!!!  Where ya been?  I have missed you so much!



What do you mean you don't want a picture with me??  Don't threaten me buddy...Got it!




I will stomp you with my legs of steel and then I will chew on you and toss you in the floor.




Not really, Mr. Frog....come here....I really love you



See what a sweetie I can be!  

Savannah you still have just 2 teeth and you crawl like a madwoman all over the house.  You pull up and walk around stuff so it won't be long before you take off.  You weigh 22 lbs and your favorite thing to do is eat!!  You love your sister and your mommy and daddy.  You can say Mama, Daddy, Piper and you can nod your head to questions which is hilarious.  I love you little butterbean!!!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Fun Outside

I adore the outdoors.  I would stay outside all spring and summer long.  I love to plant flowers, swim, read outside, eat outside...just be outside.  I am thrilled that both my girls like the outdoors too.  They always liked playing in the dirt, the woods, the creek, the pool etc...  Now, my sweet, sweet grandbabies love to be outside too!!  Piper wants to go out all the time and so does Savannah.  I am just so glad!!  I never was a fan of what I like to call a "house-mouse" kid.


Nothing is more fun than just a bucket of water!  Don't worry...both her mommy and I were right there so there was no danger of Savannah diving head first in the bucket!!


Painting some concrete walls with water and a paintbrush kept my girls occupied for a long time when they were little!!  Piper too!



Can I paint too, Piper??!!  Can I ????



I only have one brush Savannah so you can have a turn another day....when you can walk from the bucket to the wall...okay??!!!!

Summer is coming and I can't wait to have some outside fun with these two sweetie-pies!!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

This Made Me Cry...

I love "Dove" commercials and I love their products.  They often use real women to portray their products in the advertisements and I think that is just great.  Today I was wasting time and found this jewel.  It made me cry...really hard too.  We, as women, are so hard on ourselves to meet a certain criteria.  A certain size.  A certain look.  We are beautiful...each of us in our own way.  The Bible says;  "We are fearfully and wonderfully made".  To doubt that is to dishonor our creator...God.  He knit each of us together in our mother's womb and He makes no mistakes.  So the next time you feel ugly or think that you need to enhance or improve.  Watch this and then thank the Lord for your beauty.  Inside and out.


Thursday, April 4, 2013

What I have noticed lately

I rarely go out to eat.  Being single and not dating keep me pretty much in house.  I enjoy cooking for myself and my family anyway.  Being the third wheel is never fun, no matter how sweet people are to you anyhow.  But in the last couple of weeks I have went out to eat about four times with some friends and my daughter.  And what I saw really bothered me....a lot.  At almost every single table people are immersed in ...their phones.  Be it an iphone, blackberry, razor or whatever.  And being a super-de-duper nosybird of the fullest....I strain myself to see what is so intriguing  to these people.  For the most part it is facebook.  Occasionally I saw emails, or google search bars and a few on pinterest but mostly facebook.  Now I don't have a facebook account and I am sure if i did I would be a complete stalker of people I don't even know.  Like some of y'all...  Are we such a shallow, self-absorbed people that we cannot even carry on a conversation with our spouse, friend, daughter, son or the like without our phone in our face???  It is just so sad to me that this has become life to people.  Nothing is that important that it must be filtered through facebook.  If it is a true emergency I sure don't want it put there first.  I was riding in a car with a group of women home from a church event when one of them in the backseat kept on commenting on all these photos and comments she was reading on facebook.  What an opportunity she missed with the four live women in the car she could have fellowshipped with.  Instead she was scrolling through the newsfeed reading what others were doing and the funny part is....she did not really know most of them.  Just....sad.  I am not against facebook, twitter, texting or whatever as types of social media but I am against it when it takes away from reality.  Human reality.  Human voices.  Conversation.  Interaction with others.  Tones we can hear and reflect back to someone.  Growing friendships deeper.  Really ministering to one another.  I know I am a complete dinosaur with technology but I love real live people.  I don't like atm's, bank drives that have no tellers, automation.  I see mommies snapping photos and posting on instagram for their friends to see right away while their child needs a new push on the swing.  But mommy is busy reading every ones reply to their little cutie...that she doesn't even notice.  Something is very wrong here.....very wrong.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Missing Out

This past weekend both my daughter, Megan and I both had a horrible, horrible stomach bug.  Horrible, I tell ya.  I am just thanking the good Lord above that we have two functioning whole bathrooms...if you get my drift.  She has never, ever thrown up like that in her life.  Every fifteen minutes for hours.  Me...I always throw up every fifteen minutes for at least 18 hours.  I am an overachiever like that....my parents are so proud.  Needless to say if only vomiting was it for this hideous bug....double ickola!!  But we are both a lot better today but we both missed our churches Easter services.  And we were both so sad!!  Easter is one of my favorite holidays and it is Megan's favorite.  We both love church and church activities and missing the Easter services was just not our thing.  But we did both feel like getting up last night and did tune in to the last episode of the History Channels, "The Bible".  While this mini-documentary has had some minor ( and a few major) flaws it has been all in all pretty good.  And if it draws one person to the body of Christ well...winner, winner, Chicken Dinner!!  It did a sobering job of the Crucifixion and brought it home to us again at the sacrifice that Jesus did for us...for me.  And that is what Easter really is.  The birth of hope.  Hope is what keeps us in Christ...able to go on.  Able to serve, to live, to look ahead.  If it were not for the cross we would no hope.  No chance.  Nothing.  We do not serve a make believe God who doesn't care.  We serve a risen savior who tells us to cast all our cares on Him.  Amazing Love..that is what that is.  Sure I missed out on Savannah's first Easter and I did not get to take their pictures in their sweet Easter dresses.  I still have their Easter Baskets I made them right on my dining room table...but I am dressing them up this week and totally taking their photos just like it is Easter Sunday.  In fifteen years we won't remember that it wasn't taken on Sunday!!  I hate I missed out on our Easter Cantata at church but I know that Christ arose on that first Easter morning and I can live that hope each day.  I sure do hope in heaven that God has a big movie theater that shows all these events that we read about in the Bible and we can watch them.  Or better...wouldn't it be neat if we could actually relive them in heaven??!!  I am sure God would never want His children to miss out on anything He has His hands in.