Embroidery project

Nathan made this for Brigham for Valentine's Day. He's never learned anything about embroidery, but he is an excellent artist (especially when drawing birds). He volunteered to sew a big heart for Brigham since Brigham wouldn't be getting Valentine's like the school kids. Because of Nathan's big heart, he sewed this robin for Brigham. What a great kid!

1999

Looking out at our decapitated snowman, freezing weather, wind blowing, snowing, winter scene, I wanted to remember warmer days!

A corner of the vegetable garden. The wood chuck ate most of that garden!

May was born at the end of a very hot summer. That was the first year we lived in our house and my first time gardening. Joseph spent hours and hours digging garden beds for me. (Many of those beds have since been filled in with grass.) I planted most of the flower beds with seeds and was given the gift of perennials from a couple of people who heard that I wanted some. As I planted the yard in flowers that year I told myself that I was planting it for the baby that was coming, as a gift. The yard was beautiful that year as a result.

I remember looking out our bedroom window one night at the sunflowers that were growing there. On the stem of one of the sunflowers was a tiny frog. Michigan is full of frogs. It's fun to hear them chirping, but we usually just see the toads in the grass, bumpy and brown. Or we see the bull frogs at the nature center. I keep meaning to plant sunflowers in that same spot in the hopes of seeing another little frog. If you look at the pictures, you can also see a little tree. It's a flowering plum. It's pretty big by now. I wouldn't be able to take that same picture today. Mostly you'd just see tree.

The sunflowers

We didn't get an ultrasound with the pregnancy and so we didn't know if the baby was a boy or girl. I had a kind of sixth sense about it though and bought many, many baby girl clothes at garage sales that summer. May brought a lot of joy to our lives. The best word I can think of to describe the time after she was born is 'sunshiney.' She was a peaceful baby and a beautiful one. Since she was too little to enjoy the gift I gave her that summer, I give it to her now.

When each of our babies have been born, we have picked a classical piece for them. May's piece is "Sheep May Safely Graze" by J. S. Bach. It is a happy, lilting, sweet melody that totally captures those early days of her life.

The day my water broke, I had driven down to Charlotte (40-45 minutes) because they had the closest Walmart. I heard that music while I was driving and just knew that it was "the one."

I love you, May!

P.S. Just for my own benefit, Nathan's piece was "Air in D" by Bach, Elijah's was "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" by Bach, Sariah's was a violin piece from Chris Baker's doctoral CD (Joseph, do you remember?), and Brigham's was Pachelbel's "Canon."

Childhood Slipping Away...

My heart sighs.

As I was digging through my files, I came across a picture taken on the day of Jodi's wedding, almost ten years ago. There's little Nathan sitting on Joseph's lap (looks a lot like Brigham right now). Today he's eleven years old. He's in the stretch of life where he begins to leave the little boy behind. It makes me want to grab onto the little boy part of him and make it stay. It makes me want to do better.

I love you, Nathan!

Love Note

My mom sent the kids each a DVD for Christmas and along with it a little note. I was cleaning up our book area in the living room yesterday and found Elijah's. He likes to take cards and notes and add his own little messages.

Lost in the Middle

Elijah is not only the middle child of five, but he's also the middle of three boys. In addition, he's in between two girls! He's lost found the the exact middle of lots of things.

He's such a cute boy, known since he was a baby for his "squinchy" eye which is an endearing characteristic of his face when he's smiling. I've already posted the picture below in another post, but it shows his eye perfectly (double click to see what I mean).


He's progressing along in school like the smart boy he is. I love it when first graders write. I love it that they can't spell all the words and so they do their best with what they know of phonics. I've saved some of his writing lately because even though he's not a "little" kid anymore, he's still cute!

He likes to swim and will be in level three swimming when he takes lessons this summer. That means that he'll be in the deep end and he's not scared at all. His real passion is soccer, but he'll settle for a basketball clinic that starts this Saturday.

He loves Brigham. I'm absolutely sure that they knew each other before they came to be in our family. Elijah zooms Brigham around on a little ride-on hippo as Brigham squeals and giggles. Elijah asks Brigham if he wants to come with him and Brigham wraps his little arms around Elijah's neck. Off they go!

This past summer, he asked Joseph to take the training wheels off his bicycle. He wanted to keep up with the rest and as soon as those wheels were off, he rode off and never looked back.

Love that kid!!

A few of his funny sleeping positions!

I Will

Yesterday was my 15th wedding anniversary! That's so amazing to me. We celebrated on an off year, taking a week-long trip after our 13th anniversary two years ago! But this post is dedicated to Joseph:

I Will

Who knows how long I've loved you
D'you know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely lifetime
If you want me to I will

For if I ever saw you
I didn't catch your name
But it never really mattered
I will always feel the same

Love you forever and forever
Love you with all my heart
Love you whenever we're together
Love you when we're apart

And when at last I find you
Your song will fill the air
Sing it loud so I can hear you
Make it easy to be near you
Cause the things you do endear you to me
Oh, you know I will