Grace and miracles

Birth is a miracle and part of God's plan.  Two people love each.  As they express their love they are blessed with conception.  The mother lovingly carries that child, sometimes sacrificing much and giving so much of herself, for 9 months.  Labor is painful but when the baby is born the pain and sacrifice are forgotten.  Love envelops the mother and father.  All of the sudden the parents understand a love that they knew not before. They love that child more than life itself.  They will do anything, sacrifice anything... anything for that child.  Because of that love they are ready to raise the child and give the child the love that she needs.

That is God's plan.  He loves us the way we love our children.  He wants to send His children into this life to people who will love and protect them.  It's a miracle and it's beautiful.

If Sarah sees this photo she will not be happy with me.  This was taken an hour after a long and difficult labor.  I think she is beautiful.  So is my son, Jimmy, and their baby Grace.

I am amazed how I can instantly love this child.  I really do.  I LOVE her.

 I have a feeling Dan loves her, too.

 Shell shocked but in love.  Grace is 4 days old and Jim and Sarah are oh, so happy.

Grandma Betty loves holding her great grand daughter.  Grace seems to like Grandma Betty, too.

 Gracie is blowing us all kisses.  I think she is happy to be in this world.  She should be. She has two amazing parents.

Sarah's shower without Sarah.

Last night my mother and I gave a baby shower to my daughter in law, Sarah.  Fifteen minutes before it was to begin my son, Jimmy,  called to say Sarah had been to the doctor and had a stress test.  The baby's heart rate dropped during the test and so, as a precaution, they needed to go to the hospital to be monitored for 2 hours.  Needless to say, Sarah would not be attending her shower.

The invitations had been sent, the food was ready, the guests were about to arrive.  What could we do? We did what we had to do.  We had Sarah's shower with out Sarah.  We ate, talked, laughed, and shared what we were giving Sarah.  It was the best shower I've ever been to without the guest of honor.

The baby and Sarah are fine and enjoyed opening the gifts later, with Jimmy, alone, at home.

PS to previous post

Dan said that if I had awakened him he would have hooked the battery up to the charger.  What?  We have a battery charger?  Oh maaaaaan (in a very whiney voice.)  At least I learned how to pop the hood.

Helpless female? HA!

It's 5am.  I get in the car to head to the sports club to have a nice run on a treadmill.  The car won't start.  Nothing.  Nada.  Dead battery.  The other car is in the shop.  The truck is at the sports club already because Tom works there and took the truck at 4:30am.  Dan is asleep.  What do I do?

I want to exercise.  John needs a working car by 7am to go to school.  I don't want to disturb my wonderful husband's sleep.  I form my plan.  Here's what I did.
1.  I ran the 2 1/2 miles to the sports club.
2.  I got the truck from Tom and drove it home.
3.  I jumped the car with the truck.  (I had to read in the owner's manual to find out how to open the hood.)
4.  I drove the truck back to the sports club.
5.  I ran home and had enough time to run a couple more miles.

Above you can see how tired and lousy I look after an early morning run.

Results?
Did I get exercise?  Check
Did John have a working car in time for school?  Check
Did Dan get his beauty sleep?  Check.  He didn't know what had happened until it was all over.

It feels good to take care of a problem, especially a car problem, all by myself.  I had a good morning.

Spying on a marriage proposal

 

The ring is ready.

So is the painting of the place they met (and where they'll get engaged)

Dan and I got to help set it all up-candles, roses, ring, painting, and our son, Mark, set a camera to take a picture every ten seconds.  Here I'm getting a text from Tom to say they are coming. 

  

We get to the car, our hiding place, and realize we forgot to set out the roses.  In this picture Dan is running a mad dash to put the flowers in place.

Phew, he made it.  Dan set the flowers down.

Sixty seconds later, here comes Tom and Megan.  Megan is now suspicious.

And, Ta Daa, the proposal.

  

Tom didn't get the text to let him know we had the camera set to take pictures every 10 seconds :-D

But I'm glad we did.

One can't get engaged without a kiss.

The happy couple.

Not quite as guilty

I'm one of those people who squirms in her seat when the lesson is about genealogy.  I don't do it.  Ok?  I'm guilty.  Rotten.  Slothful.  Lazy.

But.....this week I felt a little piece of heaven in the genealogy department.  Dan has been playing around with the new family search program on the LDS church site.  He's been trying to clean up some of the work that has been done on my lines.  Low and behold, he found 4 names, 1 female and 3 males who had been sealed to their parents but never had the other ordinances done!  I was so excited.  There was one of my female ancestors that needed some work done and I could do it!

Last week I completed her work, doing the endowment.  From the picture above you can see she was born in 1802, sealed to her parents in 1902,  and for some unknown reason the rest of her work wasn't done.  She had a long wait but it was finally completed on Feb 16, 2010.  Happy Day!  I had a very good feeling in the temple that day.

A tie that matches

 

So, tonight, John is going to Sweethearts Ball with cute Madi.  It's nice because they are good friends so none of the awkwardness that I felt when I went to a dance at 16.  I remember hardly knowing one of my early dance dates and so spending a whole evening with him was, well, uncomfortable.

Not so with John and Madi.  

Now a days the dates like to match.  This week John brought home a swatch of fabric from Madi's dress so he could chose his shirt.
 

We went shopping and found a shirt that was close to the same color of tan.  For a tie, Madi told him her dress had a pinkish color.  We found two ties that were "pinkish" but we didn't know which was the right "pinkish."  John got out his phone, took a picture of the ties and sent it to Madi.  She said that neither tie was right. Her color was more of an orangeish pink.   Hmmmm.  We looked some more  and found an "orangeish pink" tie.  Once again, he took a picture and sent it for Madi's approval.  Her answer?  "Perfect!"  We bought the tie.

From this picture you can see it's a pretty good match.  Phew!

 

And here you can see that Jameson and Aly did a pretty good job matching, too.

I hardly dared talk to my date and John's date is helping him chose his attire.  I have a feeling he's going to have a lot more fun than I did on that early date.