All things family-related. My husband and me, the children we made, the grandbebes that thrill us now. Our whole great big, loud, messy family. Love! *sigh…
When Stephanie was a little girl, any scarf or random piece of fabric would send her into joyful, swirling-twirling dancing. She would be delighted to get a stack of new bandanas in every color for birthdays. We called her our “Scarf Dancer” before we even knew there had been such a thing way back when. She was entertaining and funny right out of the gate, graceful and animated.
One rather dreary afternoon last October, Tredessa and I hosted a tea party for Averi and Gemma and Guinivere. When the music started, the scarves came out. And in Gemma and Guini, Stephanie’s own little girls, I see Stephanie still – silly giggling and jumping and free, rainbow colors and fabric framing her tiny self, dancing merrily, making happy.
The music is Chaminade’s “Scarf Dance,” composed around 1887, perfomed by Eric Parkin.
Yes, there are other things, but come on – it is all about the tomatoes
Lemon cucumbers, sweet baby watermelons, cilantro, lemon basil, lemon cukes, spaghetti squash seedlings await their summer home placement. Crackly little packages of bean seeds, okra and lettuces are anxious to surround the tomatoes, where they may all show proper deference.
Guini graduated from Kindergarten.
That gym was packed out! Parents and grandparents and all sorts of interesting peeps filed in and filled every nook and cranny. Guini, was, of course, the CUTEST one there! She threw us smiles throughout the program and waved like a beauty queen from a Cadillac. The parent organiztion had purchased actual little grad caps and gowns for this year and it was sweet. She’s my flower girl.
There is our Guini, getting her certificate from the principal.
Hunter graduated from Kindergarten.
Hunter’s mommy homeschooled him, but he was also in a Options, a homeschool support group where they offer lots of classes and support for parents one day a week. I like what Tara said about the graduation ceremony:
I used to think graduating from kindergarten was ridiculous but now that I’m a teacher I think they should graduate every year! Hunter worked so hard this year and I worked so hard that it feels like a perfect way to seal up all that the year has been!!
Options had all the kids wear their bathrobes and slippers and their own designed grad caps. It was soooooooo cute! Hunter also won the Excellent Writer award, which, for obvious reasons makes his Poppa and Nonna pretty proud!
Gemma May turned 4.
We are doing pre-pre-school now, at least until closer to Heaven Fest and then we’ll pick up again in the fall. But the girl already counts and sounds out words and knows her alphabet and can write her name and can tie her shoes. So mostly, I think we will make crafts!
Meanwhile her parents picked a perfect day to throw her a little family soiree at Brighton’s old Benedict park. It was mostly empty (until we got there, hehe) and there was basketball and bubbles, a crazy game of tag on the playset (watch out for Rocky and Ryan, little bebes) and dress-up and food, presents and superheroes.
Gemma was just adorable gracious and exuberant about each and every gift. She squealed and smiled and was unusually grateful and acknowledging for a tiny girl her age.
She and her mommy ordered the cake (my honor to make!): a 3-tier lemon poppyseed with fresh lemon curd filling with white chocolate hearts all around, one pink heart representing Gemma. It’s funny, because this was a smaller cake, but it looks pretty massive. Other cakes I do that are gargantuan don’t look as large in photos, so these pictures make me happy. The bottom tier was actually just a 2-layer 10″ cake, then a 2-layer 6″, finally a one-layer 3″ tomato can with some filling piped in (sort of a large muffin-size). I used the very whipped and creamy lower-sugar Almond Butter-Creme icing, then just cut the hearts out and pushed them in a bit. Kinda delicious, actually. And since it was such a lovely Sunday afternoon, no bugs, no intense heat, the cake held right up to the afternoon and looked pretty sweet at the party!
Love this family. “God sets the lonely in families…” Ps 68.6 NIV
Rocky is ridding his new yard of bad “xeriscaping!”
Green! Grass! Hard work! Why did everybody in Colorado in the late 90s and beyond think they could save water and energy by dumping 18,000 tons of rock in their yards? Xeriscaping does NOT equal rocks, people. Geesh. Let the mowing begin!
Gavin is officially a third-grader now!
The first of the grandbebes. How is this possible? He, who loves-loves-loves hard work (including helping people move and gardening and mowing and just all your basic slave-labor) just told me he plans to take the entire summer as a vacation from any sort of work. He said this while helping his Uncle Rocky load a slide and BBQ grill onto the back of the pick-up truck in the hot sun. Yeah. I don’t think so. But he is almost 8 and almost in 3rd grade so he is probably going to say all sorts of silly things now.
Heaven Fest fun is ramping up.
Had THE greatest leadership meeting Sunday night at The Ranch in Loveland. I looked around at 75 people or so, many of whom I’ve yet to meet, and realized, “Our family is growing.”
I think most of the group made it in to the pic. Can you say “indoor-air-conditioned stages”? Oh yes! Three of them! 8 stages, 100+ artists and bands. Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars away. Good times! www.heavenfest.com
Tomatoes are being sunk deep, deep into the center of my garden squares, where they will happily make themselves at home and start producing lots of sweet, juicy red tomatoes – just for me!
I love you – yes, I do! A bushel and peck and a hug around the neck. For almost your entire life, from such a young, young age, you’ve been a songstress, a singer, a psalmist. You were the choreographing, twirling, flowing-fabric, scarf-dancing music track of the family ~ just skipping down the happy hallways of life. Everything got a little more colorful and a little more ebullient when you came along.
Yes, I cropped Stormie (the other half of the trend-setting www.MayDae.com. It Is not her birthday! *smile
You were born to
Heavy-with-flowers lilac bushes, your sister learning to wear “slip-slops” when she came to see you for the first time at the hospital, purple irises lining established streets in Kokomo, a little charcoal gray house and a month with which you’re joined by name. You were more than 5 weeks early and may have arrived because of a crazy carnival ride and took your first post-hospital nap atop an old pulpit in the corner of the fellowship hall while I taught a VBS class. You were like a china doll, I was afraid to make noise. We sewed and created and worked hard to prepare your space, we wanted everything to be just right – and in that tiny pink and lace bassinet, you looked like a miniature.
The rainbow–girl
God heals. He is the Healer. That is the blazing-across-the-skymessage of your life, Steph. And the adversary gets no points in the battle for our baby girl. With God’s blessing-kiss on the love between your dad and me, with your big sister praying to have a little sister all her own – you were sent. But you know the enemy, he always tries to stop a miracle at its birth. You live in the ranks of Moses, Jesus, even, with spiritual war- decrees against their very lives: Stop the miracle before it can begin to change the course of everything…
But God, who is faithful, healed you wholly and fully. Breath. That is what He gave you. Unlike others who never had to struggle for air, you, like Adam, had to have a supernatural miracle of the very Ruach, the breath of God {the actual very Spirit of the Living God} breathed in to you.
And so, though I now see the miraculous in every day and can look back at the faithfulness of the One who created me and all the times He was saving me from myself and certain disaster, you were the very first miracle I ever really knew I needed. And in the quiet, dark night following your birth, when your life hung precariously in a balance I didn’t even comprehend, when they’d taken you to James Whitcomb Riley Hospital in Indianapolis and you were not in my arms – I cried out for your life, and the Faithful One heard me and graciously granted my petition.
And though so much could have gone wrong, there could have been so many problems, later, He, by the driving force of His very breath in you, instilled so much color, so much texture and pattern and creativity and gifting and vivaciousness and animation. His very Spirit filled your lungs and your heart and soul and personality and every rainbow has symbolized you since.
You are Rainbow Bear. Always have been. And it was confirmed by the laying on of hands more than once. There is so much there. May you always know in all things that you were created to declare in the heavenlies that God keeps His promise.
Happy Birthday, Stephanie. I put some words together so you will know how & why I celebrate your birth and your life!
Happy Birthday, sweetie-pie. With love from your momma
Everything is soaking-wet-clean and all sparkly-shimmery this morning from an all-night rain with beautiful blue skies and bright sun overhead. The slightest breeze blows gentle droplets into the bright-light air like a natural misting tent. Happy birds vex Sandy-the-dog and the carnations, heavy with with moisture, are perfuming the sunny morning.
I need to laugh, and when the sun is out
I’ve got something I can laugh about
I feel good, in a special way
I’m in love and it’s a sunny day
Today Guini has Kindergarten graduation. Can’t wait to surprise her with balloons and flowers. And? It’s a “cake day,” which means something different for me than other people. Today I will begin work on Gemma May’s 3-tier lemon-poppy-seed cake (to be filled with lemon-curd creme) for her 4th birthday. Though her actual birthday is Monday, we shall celebrate on Sunday at the park. Plus, tomorrow is Stephanie’s 29th birthday and also, according to Harold Camping, rapture and judgement day – which is really going to stink if I get good and going on this cake and then it goes to waste.
Had an amazing deluxe pedicure and session with a reflexologist last night with my 3rd Thursday buds, followed by the Steak-Gorgonzola-Alfredo at The Olive Garden last night. On the way home a radio station played 3 Beetles songs in a row and my feet still feel like dancing this morning at the thought of it.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
PSALM 19 NIV
Plus Dave said Averi called me last night just to talk while I was gone. That is a good message to get! Can’t wait to see my little Averi-kins and all the granbebes this weekend! I was born for this.
Guini and Gemma May have decided my home needs refreshed. I think so, too. It needs so much re-done I don’t even have the energy. But I asked their opinion anyway.
Guini color-formed the whole United States of America!
Let’s start in the kitchen. What color should the walls be?
Guini: Pink! Let’s paint the walls pink! And then get purple curtains.
Me: Purple curtains?
Guini: Yes. It will be pretty.
Gemma May (who has been sipping her hot cocoa and dipping her buttered toast into it): I am going to paint this whole counter yellow.
Guini: That would look good. Then, let’s paint the table green – just like the coffee table! Then it will look all nice.
These are definitely women after my own heart.
A little hot cocoa accident for Gemma meant wrapping up until her clothes were washed and dried. Meanwhile, let’s play some matching games!
Honeyboo just has such encouraging words and prints, happened upon by accident. MayDae and Little Bits belong to my daughters, Stephie and Stormie and Jovan. See? Happy places, all!
Come Mother’s Day, you realize how may women you actually came from, what they brought to your life, how they are all part of the river that flows through your heart.
Ressie Belle Anderson Moslander Baker
This is the grandma whose personality I may most likely have. Choleric and able, a little bossy and pretty strong. She is the one I lived near and saw most often in my early years. She is my dad’s mom, a hard-working farm girl from the mid-west whose first husband was killed in a car crash leaving her with 2 baby girls and 6 months pregnant with her son, my dad.
She was not a “gooey-warm” grandmother, necessarily, but maybe a little ornery. She was sensible and busy, opinionated and strong and protective when Grandpa’s teasing went a little far. She lived down the street and I could go see her anytime. And she was always working hard, the house getting an entire “spring cleaning,” every single week of the year (that part of her, no, I did not get).
She gave me gifts, which I thoroughly now suspect were her love language. Not often, not even regularly on gift-type occasions, but when she gifted, they impacted me. A large clear jar with yellow flowers on it, filled with Minuet in E toilette water. A red plaid-skirted outfit, double-knit with matching red tights. A set of used Cherry Ames Nurse books and Mrs Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, a book I love to this day.
She also bequeathed to me, because I loved music and sang along to anything I could get my hands on for my little blue record player, a large selection of 78s and 45s from Disney and old radio shows. “Here is something I thought you might like,” she’d say, handing me a brown paper bag. And she was always right.
She gardened for food and potted plants for joy. She had a cactus collection I could never resist touching, yet always regretted, and several cages with brightly colored parakeets as pets, but also as business. She raised and sold hundreds from her basement, as it happens.
She was strong-willed and smart, very entrepreneurial (if they needed money, she would figure out how to make it happen and it was done) and the glue that kept the family together. Her house was the center of my extended family universe. And when she died at at the age of 57, when I was just 11, I was at her house, on her giant round ottoman, in her tangerine-colored living room (she loved bold color, too) and time stood a little still and things were never the same. Carefree childhood, life as we’d always known it, a little less so.
Berniece Quick Hallet
She is my mom’s mom. She was gentle and tender and misunderstood and lived quietly with a broken heart. From the stories I have heard, most from her, even in childhood she was a misfit of sorts. Very young, she married my mom’s dad and they had 2 daughters together before the marriage broke up. And she never quite rebounded. Court proceedings and custody battles led her in to a second marriage merely to provide a stable home environment for her daughters. Her second husband loved her fiercely and treated her daughters well and fathered her next child, another daughter, but she never really gave her heart again, it seems.
“Nervous breakdowns” and “mental illness” were used to describe her at times. She attempted suicide on more than one occasion, my poor mama finding her once on the kitchen floor as she came in from high school. My earliest memories of my Grandma Hallet were when my mom dressed me up and we drove to see her at a state mental hospital, a green and rolling-hilled compound that seemed lovely to me. My mom wore a leopard print dress. I was three and very excited to be visiting her, no comprehension at all of why she was there, so far away from home.
But with me, towards me, she was a kind, loving woman, cheering me on and encouraging my efforts. On our birthdays, or anytime she could muster up money, she would give us $1.11. Yes. Exactly $1.11. Why? Because the dollar was our spending money, but to teach us tithing, she’d throw in the dime so we could have the whole dollar. But then you havd to pay tithes on the dime, right? Thus the extra penny. One-dollar and eleven-cents.
By the time I was 7 or 8, she didn’t live alone again, but stayed with my Aunt Helen’s family and would visit us for extended times. She lived from a brown paper bag between houses. And she slept in a bed with my sister and me and always prayed with us for the whole family. She smiled really big and crinkled her eyes. Sometimes when I see pictures of myself laughing unabashedly, I think I see her there. She loved to clean the house and put away dinner and claimed to adore doing dishes (I did not get this from her at all). Or at least she said she did. Sometimes now I think she was just trying to pay her way, trying to prove she had value. This, I probably did get from her – the need to prove my value, earn my way all of the time.
And I hate that she didn’t know she did have such value in our lives. And that she saw herself as an embarrassment and as weak, and so did others because of her tender heart. She never wanted to be a bother. I have always been opposed to the thought of being less-able-to-handle-thingslike her, or forgetful like she was, and sometimes I have looked at broken heartedness in others as a fault, as if you can avoid it in a life where you love deeply. And I think of 1 Corinthians 12 and now understand how she should have been handled:
And the parts we regard as less honorable are those we clothe with the greatest care. So we carefully protect those parts that should not be seen, 24 while the more honorable parts do not require this special care. So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to those parts that have less dignity. 25 This makes for harmony among the members, so that all the members care for each other.
Grandma died that week between Christmas and New Years when so many lonely people do. She was alone, at her state care facility. Only 68. Now I know she wasn’t weak, not unable, but just unjaded, un-harshened as a true-heart response. Her heart was still flesh. And it was still pure white as her hair had become. And I think that if my grandkids at all remember me with any gentle kindness, praying for them, cheering them on and gently, but always, in their corner, than I shall be glad to have been compared to her.
This is my Grandma Allison. While my Grandpa was exuberant and boisterous in his love and affection, while he would loudly proclaim his enthusiasm and love for us and make such a big deal of our presence, Grandma was this classic beauty. She was serene and graceful, even-tempered and kind. I always found her fascinatingly beautiful. I can remember so far back as to include gloves and hats and leopard-print high heels, a size 5 for her tiny feet.
She spoke to me. I wasn’t just a kid in the room to her. I was a person to talk to with graciousness and kindness.
The last time I got to spend time with her, I sat at a piano and played and songs as she picked them. I was surprised to learn how much she loved music and how she played and sang herself, though not for us. She picked her favorite just before we had to leave. And she held the music open while I did her favorite, Amy Grant’s, “El Shaddai.”
To the outcast on her knees,
You were the God who really sees,
And by Your might,
You set Your children free.
She loved that, for reasons I don’t really know, as far as my Grandma was concerned. But I love it because knowing He sees me is setting me free. I love that we shared that worship that day.
We will praise and lift You high, El Shaddai
Looking forward to singing and worshipping with her again soon.
Laveta Davis
I guess she wasn’t my “real” grandma as grandmas go, but she was to me and her impact on my family and me is undeniable.
She was my mom’s pastor’s wife, the one who nurtured my mom in her baby-Christian days. My mom, raised in an unchurched home, had made a decision to follow Jesus as a young teen and this godly woman saw something in her and poured in to my mom, and discipled her and walked the Christian walk with her.
When my mom was carrying me, LaVeta Davis asked, “Can your baby call me Grandma?” And I always did. All the kids did. And she brought me “grown-up” books about sewing and flower arranging. And she brought us paper for creating and card-making supplies and all things creative. We always knew after she visited, that there would be fun things to make.
She gave us, when I was very young, a set of old 1940s Pictorial Encyclopedias. I doubt she knew how much I would love those things. For when I was 5, my dad ridded our home of the television set in favor of more time for prayer and study. And as a little girl, for entertainment, I read the encyclopedia. For hours I would sit at the base of the shelves in the formal dining room reading and learning and discovering, all in black and white. I couldn’t wish better times on my grandbebes if I tried.
These are some of my most unforgettable, most influential women.
Yes. I come from strong, loving, godly women. They taught me to be resourceful, tender, strong, sassy, opinionated, gentle, creative, gracious, intelligent, passionate, long suffering, loving, discerning, well-doing, forgiving, hard-working, giving and so much more. If I haven’t turned out right, it is not the fault of these women. They were amazing all.
Gavin is here and we are making movies. It’s fun. He has lots of movie ideas. We have enough project ideas to last us years. {love him/the 1st grandchild, too}
Oh happy day. You make me happy when skies are gray. And all sorts of fun songs about love and joy. To you. For your birthday today. Am I supposed to mention that you are 32? Because I won’t if I shouldn’t. You should not hate it. Think of me – your mother!! If you are 32, then I am….
You were born to…
A novice, a clueless girl. A May day. The lilacs in full, fragrant glory. The sunshine. Green grass. No money. Uncertain times. A God who loved you and was already smiling at your life.
Fixed in the Galaxy
When you were a teenager, everything was stars. They were your “motif,” and all around you were oodles of doodles of stars and star design on your clothes and belongings and in presents you got. And you were nicknamed “Shooting Stara” and it was cute. But it was part of youth. It was part of a past and you have become a claassic woman of dignity, beauty, strength and grace now. Save, perhaps for when you are competing with great zeal on the kickball field or during a volleyball game. Becoming wise and deeply steadfast, though, has not changed or diminished your easy laugh and happy nature. No, it has only deepened it and made your personality even richer with joy-bringing treasure.
For your birthday, I think of the hallmarks of who you are and what you have always been known for. For me, of course, a gift. Thus the Barbra Streisand song, “The best Gift,” that Bill Tull and Mary Tiller sang for your dedication.
“Liquid joy,” Lisa Bierer called you,for you are a glass-is-half-full, big-smile, cheerleading, enCOURAGing, exhorting kind of person. Everybody in the room feels more loved and more happy when you have arrived.
At the Heaven Fest dinner Saturday night in Loveland
But then, there was the whole “star” phase. And as I thought about you and all you are and everything you are becoming and how, youthful and lighthearted as you remain, you embody even now the personality you did at 3 or 4 years of age. And as a teen. So, I could not forget the star part.
But what is different now, sweet daughter? Now, you need to know, you are not a shootingstar, just a brilliant flash of passing dazzle and fancy against a dark sky. You are a star hung steadfastly in the firmament declaring God’s glory. I still see the star in you (S)TARa. I see it. But now, it is as Daniel 12.3 says:
Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
You have the wisdom of some years now. You are not just a pretty girl. You are a ravishing woman. And you are leading many to righteousness, like a cool drink of water on a hot, dusty day, by your life, by your example, by everything God created you to be and to do. That has given you a fixed place in the universe to shine. You shine, baby girl. You shine.
Happy Birthday, Tara. Here are my words, a few of them, to say I love you and I thank God for you.
