This has always been one of my favorite family pictures, taken at a wonderful surprise birthday party Gary threw for me in 2001.

The kids row –
Josiah’s college girlfriend, Abigail, Josiah (son), Tammy (new daughter-in-law), Toby (son), Lara (daughter).
The adults – Gary and I, and my sisters, Joie and Elna.
All people who are very precious to me.
But shortly after this party, Josiah broke up with his girlfriend. Now it wasn’t so much that he didn’t care for her any longer, but he just realized he was a too selfish to really be in a relationship. He told me he wasn’t going to date until after college – it was all just too distracting. And he stuck with that decision.
And I did what any good momma would do with a picture that she absolutely loved.
I got busy cropping.

Time passed.
Josiah graduated.
We left town.
Josiah began dating again.
As he said to me later, everytime he went out with a girl, he just kept comparing her to Abigail. And whoever she was, she (the new date) just wasn’t measuring up. He finally decided to to see if maybe Abigail would consider coming back into his life. Let me tell you, it was a pretty hard sell. Once burned…..you know how that goes.
I certainly don’t know all of the ins and outs of how it all worked out, I can tell you that it worked out well!
Three years ago today, they walked down the aisle and committed their lives to each other.

Today they are living in Lancaster, PA, and blooming beautifully where God has planted them.

And when we get together as a family, we make sure that Abigail isn’t on an end!

Oh, and that favorite photo from 2001?
It’s back to its beautiful original. Full of people all the more precious to me!

Happy Anniversary, Josiah and Abigail! You are a blessing to each other, and to our family!

One of the really fun parts about being on the road is all the fun ideas for things that you gather along the way! There are some very clever people out there, and I’ve been fortunate enough to cross paths with many of them!
Last year, just before Christmas (that would be Christmas 2008), a SOWER friend shared with me what I can only call an “I Spy Beanbag”. The concept is to take teeny tiny things and put them (along with the “beans”) in a beanbag that has a window in it. Then the activity is to find the different items by moving around the beans to reveal the items. Got it?
No.
I’ve had a pretty hard time ’splaining it to folks, so I’ll just move to the picture.

Clockwise, from the bottom right -
The items that went into the beanbag. (Even though I watched for things throughout the year, at the end I did rely heavily on buttons. There are some amazing buttons out there!)
The three completed bags – made from pant legs of an old pair of Gary’s jeans.
A close-up of the window itself.
The pocket side of bags. I found cute kid’s jeans at thrift shops and used some of their “fanciness” to make the pockets. And the pocket holds the list of what is actually in the bag.
Pretty fun, eh? I think the grown-ups had as much fun finding the different items as the girls did (at least on Christmas morning!).
So those were my “everyone gets one of these” items (and thank-you Joanne for the great idea!).
But it was home-made-ville for the girls individually as well!
Back in 2005, I had made Ellie a quilted sweatshirt jacket.

Imagine my delight when last summer she asked me if I could make her another one since she had finally outgrown the one she had. Yessiree Bob – Grammas really like to hear things like that! When I asked what color she would like it to be(six year olds have some strong opinions about those things, you know), she replied, “purple”. (Silly me – I really should have known!). I started collecting purple fabrics, and eventually put together this -

I think she liked it!

I had been inspired to do some knitting for Hayley. Or actually I was inspired to ask Lara (my knitter-extraordinaire daughter) to knit a sweater for Hayley and then I would a knit a matching sweater for her doll. It was a good plan, but I discovered just before our Christmas Eve that Hayley didn’t actually HAVE a doll that my sweater would fit. So, as it turned out, Maddie’s doll got a sweater that matched Hayley’s beautiful sweater, and I quickly purchased a cute dress that went with Lara’s sweater. Ah, the best laid plans…..
But anyway – here’s the little sweater -

and here’s Hayley wearing her sweater and holding baby Sarah (with special thanks to Maddie for sharing!).

And special thanks to Toni who shared her cute sweater patterns with me! (Oh, and to Lara who did all the “big knitting” and found the great yarn!)
I wasn’t sure what to make for little Maddie, until I remembered a cute reversible dress pattern that someone had shared with me last fall. She makes these dresses in a variety of sizesand then sends them overseas to various missions when she hears of a need. The dress is totally reversible and only has about 3 inches of hand sewing involved. Sounded pretty sweet to me!

The dress was a little big, and I think it took me more time to find a plain brown shirt to go with it than it took me to make it, but all in all, I think it was a success. Here she is in her dress with baby Sarah.

Thanks, Evelyn for the inspiration for the dresses.
With the girls all wrapped up, I only had one more gift to worry about – my precious daughter-in-law, Abigail. Since I was still on the homemade kick, she got a quilted purse-

(and if she stands next to Maddie, they’ll match!). I’ve made a couple of these purses (I have one and so does Lara), but I want to thank my buddy Rosie for her inspiration in making these bags. And watch out, Tammy, you might be next!

My final “fun thing” isn’t really a crafty thing, but just a fun idea if you have grandkids. I wanted to give the girls something fun for Valentine’s Day and I remember someone telling me about sending a bottle through the mail. Here is what I started with -

We cut a door on one side of the bottle and glued the top on. We even splurged on fancy bottles, but I don’t think the water tasted any different. Just so you know.
Then we filled them as full as we could.

Final step – putting the label over the “door” and taking them to the post office!

The girl at the post office hardly blinked an eye – so give it a try! It’s sure to bring a smile to whoever gets a bottle of goodies in the mail!

Fair warning, there’s still a little craftiness to come…..

Whether you’re being serious, silly or smiley, you are beautiful inside and out!
A very Happy Birthday shout-out to our daughter, Tammy!
We are blessed to have you in our family – and Toby is one lucky dude!

Wasn’t it just yesterday that Toby called and said -
“It’s a GIRL!!!!”?
OK, so it really doesn’t seem like it was yesterday, but SEVEN YEARS?????? Now that seems impossible!
It seems that she went from this

to this

in the blink of an eye!
Happy Birthday, Eliana Grace – the sweetest seven year old we know!

Ah, after a lovely post-Christmas holiday in Marysville, Ohio, where we were able to hug ALL of our children and grandchildren, we are back in our own little 300 square foot house. And I confess, it feels great! We did have a wonderful visit with our gang – for Gary it was the first time he’s seen some of them since last Christmas. And even if we had seen them several times throughout the year, when your grandchildren are 2, 5, and (almost)7, you know the changes will be great each and every time you are together. We were amazed at how verbal little Maddie was (age 2), what a great game player Hayley is (age 5), and how well Ellie is reading.
Here’s Maddie -

And Hayley -

and the biggest sister – Ellie -

Ok, I know I’m their grandmother, but really….cutest ever?
Just sayin’.

Since we were there for over a week, we were pleased to see that Toby had come up with a project for us (Well, Gary really. I’m pretty happy to play Sorry with the big girls or read another book to little Maddie) to work on while we were there. They tackled the basement – building shelves and then working to fill them up.
From this -

to this -

By the time we left, those shelves were pretty full, the “garage sale” stuff had been separated and the girls’ play area had been pretty well organized. By the way – those boxes that are on the shelves? That is all our “stuff.” Literally, that is all we have that we don’t have with us.
But our holiday wasn’t just about playing with the grand-girls and staying out of trouble in the basement. It was also about catching up with the Big Kids. To see how Lara is doing after her first year in Texas (just fine!), to see what great parents Toby and Tammy are becoming and to see how Josiah and Abigail are blossoming where the Lord has planted them in Lancaster. So here is our family picture – with a little visual on how interesting is to actually GET a family photo!

(The big beautiful puppy, Nali (age 7 months!), lives with Lara!)
What a wonderful family we have been blessed with!

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But, as I said earlier, we are Home. And Home this month is Cherry Valley Christian School in Beaumont, CA. We’ll be getting better acquainted with the area over the weekend ahead, but right now it’s been nice to enjoy the beautiful weather (it was sunny and in the high 60’s today), get ourselves unpacked, and generally just kick back and take naps.

Home. Sweet. Home.