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…
Last week was one of those weird, rough weeks for our family.
Our beautiful new daughter-by-marriage, Jovan, learned her grandma passed away rather suddenly on Monday. It was Jovan’s first day at her new job and she was going through orientation when she found out, so she had to press on and subdue her thoughts and emotions. It made it hard. “Grandma DiPerna” was in her 80’s. Her life was long and she has left a growing family of loving, incredible children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Though her star has burned out and the night sky will never seem the same, her legacy remains.
The same day, Dave’s nephew, Troy, was murdered in Las Vegas. Who can explain or find justification for the violent death of a 41-year-young man? A small-town fireman is in jail for first-degree murder. Lives are turned upside down. It cannot be undone.
On Friday, our little Stormiekins was in a car accident. She is sore, bruised, but intact. And as a mom, you cry in gratefulness and as a release because of how much worse it could have been. And when you weigh everything, the cost of repairs and restoration and insurance and physical pain and all the rest – it is not too much for my little girl to be OK.
Here is Stormie looking on as Rocky and Jovan exchanged vows a few months ago. I am so glad you are OK, Stormkins. I am thanking God for it!
Blessed so far beyond what I deserve, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: There is no promise of tomorrow for any of us. Live and love and be thankful at the highest level possible while it is still today.
It’s a trail of bright colored Play-Dough bits and crayon drawings of “piles of snow” and stickers and paint and Light-Saber battles with vacuum hoses and cookies and orange pop and more cookies and dancing to the Fiesta Latin music channel (learning to do the twist and to shake our booties) and announcing, “Watch Nonna, I’m gonna fly now” as we jump from 3 steps up and Nonna’s heart is temporarily arrested until the landing is obviously successful.
Guini
It’s Guini loving the most dangerous thing a one-year-old could love: neon-colored plastic jacks, which she likes to pull one by one from an old Quaker Oatmeal cannister and place on the floor and then immediately one by one they go back in. She actually squeals with delight as she pulls them out, dazzled over and over by the colors and we just watch her as she dazzles us.
Hunter
It’s Hunter begging to be frightened again and again. He makes me put on the Darth Maul mask and chase him, but screams in utter terror when I truly surprise him and then lifts the mask to make sure: “Nonna?” Ok. Relief. It is just Nonna. Back to being chased. Then, time to cuddle and repeated requests to sing “Jingle-bells-all-the-way.” With Hunter, nothing is ever done once. If once was good, many times are better.
Gavin
It’s Gavin “posing” me with a couple of stuffed animals as he cranks and adjusts Grandpa’s tripod, pretending there is a camera there. He tells me to wait “just one second” then instructs me, “Say cheese.” He squinches his eyes and I smile as he creates a clicking sound with his tongue and then he tilts his head head and says, “Awwwwwe...” because I smiled so prettily. And as he thanks me for sitting still, I wish I were aiming a real camera back to capture this exact moment of pretend into which I was invited. And I force myself to see it deeply so I can never forget this February afternoon…
Being a mom was the most wonderful thing. Being a Nonna, I am completely undone.
May you also know this joy! Blessings! Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am feeling a strong urge to climb a fourteener just so I can scream out my gratitude to God for all He has given me, for how He has blessed me. Gavin, Guinivere and Hunter, my personal heritage from the LORD, how I love you!
Happy Valentine’s Day, David Allen Rhoades, the love of my life!
You have been a wonderful friend and lover and husband and now an incredible grandfather, too. I sang you a song for Valentine’s Day (click the link below). In retrospect, I should’ve picked something a little easier, perhaps with more like a 3-note range?… I am definately not “up to” a Broadway tune, but it is done now – for all to know:
I will never leave you. I know you too well (through all of life’s stages) to let you go. My head and heart are full of our memories, our life – things no one else can ever share. I love you, Dave.
In the book of Philippians in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul gives his personal biography of a totally miserable, religious past (miserable because anytime getting close to God is dependant on what wedo and how wedo it, it is a cumbersome load). In the spirit of chapter 3, verses 4 – 6, I hereby submit my own biographical history outlining the stupidity I once clung to (that is me in the photo – a Pharisee in the making! )- that somehow I was worth something to God, valuable to His kingdom because of my own good works and where I came from.
The book of Jeanie’s stupidity 3:4-6:
I had lots of confidence in my value to the kingdom of God because I was born into a Christian home to a ministry family. My first full sentence was “I’m gonna go to church” and I was a church girl among church girls. I was a Christian of the Pentecostal persuasion (others had some of the truth, but we had more, thus the term “full-gospel”). All of my siblings and their families are in the ministry. Many aunts and uncles and cousins are in full-time ministry. Concerning the law and attempting to get God’s favor by my own self-suffiency, I could totally relate to Pharisees – working hard to keep it, and hoping for those heavenly brownie points because of it. Zealously striving for favor for my performance and being a “good girl,” I was devasted when the less-holy were blessed. I grew up to attend Bible College and marry a pastor. And then I set out to raise my own bunch of good, Christian kids.
I am so grateful for my godly heritage, the roots I have. I love the stories of how God made Himself real to both my mother and father, each from Godless homes, how He changed everything in them and through them. Many, many people are walking in the redemptive grace of God today because of the choice Ross & Norma Moslander made to follow Christ.
But oh, my goodness, I have to work at not allowing these things to become a snare to me and to others. I have to keep dragging my pride to the cross.
I am in awe of the person who did not have the salvation message and cross of Jesus Christ served up on a silver platter, and yet they live in the full joy of knowing Christ without any of the doctrinal, or religious baggage that can so easily beset us. People with a “past,” who come to Christ knowing how badly they needed a Savior and that they have no chance of impressing Him with their works or religious reputation just blow my mind. It reminds me of Christ’s teaching that “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” We often judge a person’s qualifications to lead in the kingdom by where they came from, how they were raised, who they are related to. God’s criteria are different. It is all about the heart. God is looking at the heart!
But thank goodness, like Paul, I have been knocked off my religious high-horse (although I have the amazing ability to run it down and remount it at times, yikes!) and I can now see all that stuff for the rubbish it is. What I once thought were assets, I now see as liabilities. My passion is to know Christ and to somehow, finally – totally getover myself. What a relief.
Laying aside all human achievements in exchange for the free grace of God, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Phil. 3.8 NKJV
We are snowed IN! See the photos, a view from the living room window and our neighbor who has been shoveling out for hours – he is our hero! Can you believe, even as we took this pic a few minutes ago, it is still snowing!? (See the ap news account here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061221/ap_on_re_us/snowstorm )[no longer available]
I have heard varying amounts, but we know we’re well over 20 inches of snow, with the drifts in our yard being up to 4 feet high (the fences you see in the photo are 5 foot fences)! Just a few days ago, Dave was Christmas shopping in a t-shirt and shorts. That is Colorado!
Today our daughter, Stephanie, and her husband, Tristan, were to find out whether baby number three was a boy or girl, but even if they could get their front door opened, their car is buried somewhere out on Interstate 76, just east of Denver on the plains (city folk have no idea!). Tris didn’t get away from work quite early enough yesterday. Yikes!
So, if you’re reading this from Colorado, here are a few things you can do today at home –
warm up with hot cocoa and re-read A Christmas Carol
“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear”
Eat plum pudding and mince pie
Stand under the mistletoe for extended periods of time – don’t leave until you get what you went there for
snack on Christmas treats (it doesn’t show signs of stopping – I hope you bought some corn for popping!)
shake a snowglobe
walk outside for 5 minutes and actually become a snow-person
And what a great day to have some fun with the kids. Go to www.jesustreedecorations.com where you can download a free book and ornament print-outs to help teach the kids what Christmas really is all about!
May your days be merry and bright. Blessings, Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Enjoy the snow as it falls like a blanket of grace from the sky and try to remember this blessing when our backs are aching from shoveling tomorrow and when cars splash us with muddy snow-slush this weekend at WalMart.
You recognize that quote, right? It is exclaimed by the saintly Tiny Tim at the end of the Charles Dickens’s classic “A Christmas Carol.
Three
We have tiny people around our house often these days, our grand-kids: Gavin 3, Hunter 2, and Guinivere 1. Our tiny ones have yet to declare “God bless us, every one,” but they are bringing great delight to our hearts in the glow of the tree this Christmas season. And oh, we are blessed by them!
Gavin knows what a cotton-headed ninny-muggins is…(do you?) Gavin, who has watched “Elf” at least 47 times in the past few weeks and made us watch along many times. The best was last night, though, when he reached over to gently hold my hand. As we watched this silly grown-up, pre-school-ish Buddy the Elf character played by Will Farrell, I apparently began to nod off. Gavin whispered, “Don’t go to sleep, Nonna, watch with me,” and then he reached over and hugged me and held my face for a moment to look into my eyes, making sure they didn’t close again. Melt…
When I suggested maybe he would also like to go to sleep, he politely whispered, “No thank you.” I stayed awake at my post, holding his hand and watching “Elf.”
Gavin’s mommy and daddy are making sure he grows in his understanding of Christmas and God’s great gift to mankind. His Jesus-awareness has increased. I found this out recently as he responded to my inquiry “Is there anyone in this car who wants french fries?’ as we hit a Wendy’s drive-through. Gavin piped up, “Yes, Jesus does!”
Hunter is picky about his Christmas confectionsIn spite of the fact that when Hunter discovered, just this past Wednesday, that he did not like chocolate-covered-cherries and flailed the partly chewed brown and red gooey ball at me in utter disgust, he is pure delight! At 2 years old, this little prince is destined to give that Tiny Tim a run for his “God-blessing-quoteable” money.
Hunter loves to lift his hands and “praise Jesus!” He sometimes seems reserved, almost contemplative (not the usual description of a boy at 2), but I suspect there may be a hell-fire and brimstone preacher coming. Even now, he powerfully gestures and declares and holds an audience spellbound. At a recent CD release party, Hunter was heard singing, with all his little might, “Fire fall down…fire fall down on us we pray...” with his arms raised into the air as high as he could get them.
Hunter’s recent “discovery” of “Toy Story” and Woody and Buzz Lightyear has made that movie new again. The other night when just he and I were hanging out, he was rummaging through our basket of Christmas movies and with great joy informed me, “Nonna, look – it’s ‘Woody 2!’ ” No, I don’t believe he was saying “it’s Woody, too…” I am certain he had heard rumors there was a sequel and knew he had found it. He gets the movie numbering system. That’s the kind of mind he has.
Cuddlebug Princess
Guinivere is the princess. She says, “Hi,” a lot and very brightly, like she really means it. “What’s that?” is her favorite question. And there is a lot of other jabbering, too, which seems to be her own secret language, but is spoken fluently by big brother Gavin and cousin Hunter. Everyone in the family thinks that Guini loves them best (although I am sure in my case, it is true) because of the way she comes up to me and raises her arms like I am the answer to all her prayers. She wraps them tightly around my neck while pressing her chubby cheek to mine. Then she’s off, spreading the love, making others think she loves them the most.
Then this happened…
Seeing Santa Claus A few days ago, their mommies and aunts and I packed up Gavin and Hunter and Guini and took them to a small room at United Power, where it was rumored that Santa Claus would be making a visit. We all acted excited about it, so the kids humored us and got all enthused about it, too. There were hordes of beleaguered parents and ornery kids being forced through the room in a tight maze created by tables. Up and down the aisles we went, like cattle being led to slaughter, all for the treasured keepsake photo of our little ones with Santa Claus.
Some families had all 2.3 children dressed in matching reindeer sweaters and were perfectly coiffed, with shoes shining and teeth straight. Others had kids with snot running down their faces and their hair standing straight up due to static electricity, with one shoe untied (is this fair – should the kid with snot have to have static in his hair, too?).
Getting all the way to Santa Claus was long and arduous. How did we keep their eyes on the prize? Because across the room you could see the man in the elf hat with a plate of cookies and a table full of candy canes. So we stayed in the line with 238 people in front of us, 867 behind. Guini waved and said “hi” quite merrily throughout, even though it was just the same group of people over and over, up and down the maze. She thought everyone was there to receive her love and friendship.
Finally, it was our turn, our moment with Santa. It was the moment I would get the perfect picture of my 3 adorable grandchildren, sitting atop the Claus’s knees, smiling, delighting him with their gift requests. I daydreamed how I would show the picture to all, the symbol of our perfect Christmas 2006. And soon, the icing on the cake: cookies and candy canes.
replace this image
photo taken a split second before Guini began pummeling Santa to within an inch of his life
And now, in this corner, weighing in at only 21.5 pounds… Well, when Tara put Hunter on Santa’s knee, he began to cry. Big, wet, grievous tears spilled from his face. Gavin got less thrilled about the whole thing the closer he got to this big furry-dressed man. But he politely smiled and stood close, but not too close to Santa’s knee, refusing to even look at the gentleman. At this point he was wondering why we had all been so excited. Guinivere, “Miss Friendly”, let out a bone-chilling scream of protest when she was placed on Santa’s lap. All the people squished in to that room, including Santa’s helpers stopped dead in their tracks. We held our breaths…
The photographer looked panicked, but was somehow able to snap the fastest kid/Santa photo known to mankind just a split second before Guini turned around and began beating Santa in his big, fat, acrylic, fuzzy, fake beard for all she was worth. They had to call security. But doggonit, we didn’t leave without our cookies and candy canes. So, you know, it was worth it. Tiny Tim has nothing on my grandbabies!
Blessings! Jeanie
NOTETO SELF: Watch with them, pray with them, squish cheeks with them…get cookies and candy canes with them by any means available! And remember – Jesus is in the car with me. And He may want fries. :)
