Happy Birthday Jeremy

We love you!

Happy Birthday Jennifer!

Happy Birthday, Danielle!

A sensitive mind sees outside the box;

An artistic spirit guides creative hands.

Attuned to giving, seeking peace;

A kind heart thoughtfully understands.

Happy Birthday, Jennifer!

An eye for the future and hands that bring care,

A mind that solves puzzles with creative flare;

A sensitive spirit, a determined soul,

A willing heart keeping family whole.

Ho, Ho, Ho

Last weekend I joined my shopping buddies in Portland for round the clock fun. We wear out sooner than we did when we started this tradition thirty years ago, but I'm pleased to announce that I can still do a mean mall walk. Jennifer, Sarah, and Danielle joined us at different times. It was really nice to connect with them, but it meant that they had to track us down by cell phone and try to pin us down to a meeting place. It's probably a little like trying to herd cats. As always, they were patient with us and good sports about wearing Betty's "Christmas Crowns" that she says spread cheer and help her find us in the stores when she's lost. We took a moment to let Sarah and Danielle entertain us with their wall climbing and bouldering. They had it worked out with management to give us turns, but we settled instead for taking pictures of them in action. Maybe next year.

I apologize to the family members that I neglected to call. Time always zooms by and I had more trouble than usual keeping my phone charged. We kept ourselves pretty busy hopping between shopping centers and individual stores scattered around the area, trying to at least find the things we could only get in the city. I still have some online ordering to do and some local shopping, but I can breath a little easier. The place where we stayed set up a wrapping room complete with Christmas paper, bows, labels, ribbon, scissors, and tape so we spent our last evening wrapping about half of our packages.

Here Danielle is tutoring Betty in a shirt folding trick that takes a certain flick of the wrist. After giving everyone individual lessons, they practiced on their own clothes the rest of the evening and the next morning when we packed up to leave. I guess we're pretty easily entertained.

Now it's time for the hot tub! What a group. We have so much fun every year, we have come to realize that it is less about the shopping and more about the personal connections. Each of us has had our share of difficult moments, but no matter where life takes us, we always have this time set aside for each other; a time for wise cracks, silliness, commiserating, and fun with a little shopping, eating, and margaritas on the side. Get ready! Only 364 days until we're back!

Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

A contagious wit, a social nature;

A creative eye and a generous role.

A sensitive heart, an analytical mind;

Measured risks and a patient soul.

Celebrating Danielle

We love you! (Slide show here)

Happy Birthday, Jennifer

Since I am having trouble posting the slideshow, please click on the link below to view it:

We love you, Jen!

Get Into the Spirit!

This is the week of Operation Christmas Child, which is sponsored by the nondenominational Samaritan’s Purse organization. Mom and I have each packed two plastic containers (instead of the suggested paper-wrapped shoeboxes) with small toys, stuffed animals, toothbrushes, toothpaste, bars of soap, hard candy, flip flops, socks, puzzles, notepaper, pencils, and erasers. We will take them to a nearby relay center, along with $7/box for postage, where they will be checked for inappropriate war toys, candy that could melt, or liquid substances such as shampoo before being boxed in crates and sent to regional centers and then loaded onto planes for delivery. Accompanied by a little bible story book printed in a native language, the gifts go into countries all over the world and are given to children who are victims of war, natural disasters, poverty, and disease. Many of these kids have never received a gift before.

Our church has also done this as a group project for quite a few years. I provide the plastic containers because they can be reused by children’s families to store food, etc. and everyone in the parish randomly brings small toys, wrapped candies, and hygiene items with which to fill the boxes. Some bring a little, some a lot. We spread all the goods out on tables and then each grab a box and fill it according to whether it is for a boy or girl and which age group (3-5, 6-10, 11-14). It’s easy, fun, and feasible for everyone.

If you’d like to try it, here’s where you find a drop-off center close to you and more details about the process. I love the joy that this brings to everyone involved. What a great way to begin Advent!

Give It a Try

I joked with Mom that we actually had quite the social calendar this past week. It began with my husband’s family reunion a week ago, then family from my Dad’s side drove up for a visit on Thursday, followed by our weekend adventure in Portland. Mom did pretty well with all of the activity.

I really appreciated my cousin, Shari, and her son, Scott, driving five hours round trip so they could spend some time with Mom. It was good to see Mom laugh and bask in their attention.

Mom was certainly a good sport about traveling on two back-to-back weekends, which I know is more difficult for her these days. For the reunion potluck she was self-conscious about navigating in someone else’s home, trips to the bathroom, and being in the way. All of the family was so good with her, though, that she ended up enjoying herself and feeling that the trip was a success.

She had similar hesitations about going to Portland, too, and was especially nervous about our girls trying to take her out of the hotel while Don and I went to the musical. With much trepidation, I finally told her that I had borrowed a wheelchair to take in case the hotel was not able to honor our requests for a room close to an elevator and exit. She actually seemed relieved rather than irritated (usually I get reprimanded with an adamant, “No! I don’t need one of those yet. I’m not that far gone.”) so I went a step further and told her that if she felt like it, maybe she would want to use it at other times as well. For instance, she would enjoy a trip out for ice cream or shoe shopping a lot more if she didn’t spend all her energy just getting inside the first store. She could ride in the chair until she wanted to get out of it to walk around shoe and clothing displays, etc., then sit back down for a ride to the next store.

She ended up having a great time shopping with Sarah and Jen, although both were nearly fired for their wheelchair driving. They canvassed the length of Washington Square Mall twice in one afternoon and Mom bought a couple gifts and herself some slippers and a pair of Aerosole shoes. When they stopped for ice cream, she polished off a rootbeer float and started making plans for coming back to do some Christmas shopping.

I am so thankful that she had a good time and was successful in her shopping. The girls may have gained a few white hairs, but all for a good cause. Mom’s willingness to try was what made the weekend a success for her, although I know she did it only for our sakes at first. Hopefully, she enjoyed herself enough that it may open up some doors for her being able to do more during our simpler outings here at home. She is more physically frail than she was even six months ago, but her active mind drives her to still want to do things and swings her spirit very low when her body and strength can't keep up. It is a challenge to strike a balance between pushing her to stay physically active (move it or lose it) and making things physically easier for her so she can participate more and enjoy life. For now, anyway, we have had a nice little break in routine and created some new good memories together in the process.

10 Pink Pigs

Our living room floor hasn't looked like this for a long time. We had a little visitor for a short while this afternoon. The first order of business is always politely asking for something out of the candy jar. After all, this is known as the Candy House to her and her cousin. Then, the farmyard-in-a-bag that she had brought came to life. Little K. counted out "10 pink" little pigs for me (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 - not bad for soon-to-be 3 years old) then stirred them up with her hand and informed me that she was "scrambling" them. When she spotted the LocBlocks that I had set out, however, the animals were left to entertain themselves for awhile.

I noticed an interesting phenomenon within myself with this visit. The mom in me was interested in watching how K. played and in verbally engaging her cute little personality to see what ideas she would come up with, while the new teacher in me started making note of her speech, vocabulary choices, and counting and color identification skills. Yikes. Anyway, she is a corker and very sweet so it was a nice hour. When it was time to go she sang a "This is How We Clean Up" song while she and Don put the farm back in the bag. You can tell she is the daughter of a teacher!

I love this look of concentration on K's face and remember the expression well on the faces of my own when they were this age.