If you want to see where we're headed and what we're doing, check out the "From house to Home" tab at the top of my page.



 

In Memory

 A photo album my mother gave to me on my 16th birthday had these words that I've always loved:

People we have known and loved,

Places we have been--

How beautiful in memory

to see them all again.

Maybe those were the first seeds sown of making me a scrapbooker.
A desire to not only hold them in memory,
but record them for others.

We are well into Sept, heading towards October.
The weather has turned cooler, the leaves are beginning to fall.
There are brown tinges on the grass, leaves & plants.
The corn is being cut.

It all reminds me that this is the time of year that my grandmother died.
October, 1993.
It brings tears to my eyes realizing it's been (nearly) 20 years ago.
I have four children that never knew her.
One that would barely remember.

Today as I was going thru things; sorting out to move,
I came across this poem written in my grandmothers handwriting.
She loved poetry and I've come to really enjoy it too althought
it took me quite a few years to appreciate it.

 Let me Grow Lovely

Let me grow lovely, growing old,

So many fine things do;

Laces and ivories and gold

And silks need not be new:

And there is healing in old trees,

Old streets a glamour hold;

Why may not I, as well as these,

grow lovely, growing old?

Karl Wilson Baker


My grandmother was truly a lovely person.


 

Sisters and Friends

 Once upon a time, these three sisters....

 Were best friends with these three sisters....

We spent many many happy hours together, both at our houses and my grandparents house, who lived just down the street from these girls, and they fondly referred to them as "Glenn and Aunt Ruth" (beings they already had a "Uncle Glenn")

Time and circumstances has a way of coming between lives, but this summer it was really really special to get to see and spend a little bit of time with the "2nd" sister who lives across the world.

Although each of us had one of the others for a best friend, I remember very few times when we were all 6 together with each other. It was usually two together. Unfortunately the three of us never did get to be with the three of them at the same time this summer while she was here, but I am so happy to have this picture. I have a few others, taken when we were together with Heidi this summer; I have many pictures in my mind of days together when we were children. I have some (not as many) pictures tucked away in my photo books, another reminder of the scrapbooking I want to do.

The memories of those "best friend" years are something I cherish, and I'm happy to count them still among my "best" friends!

She bakes cake

 August is our Daughter Lynisha's birthday month.  It is also our Son-in-law Mark's birthday.  HER brother in law, not her husband.
This month is the "big" 30 for them.

Lynisha "does" cakes.  We are partial to Lynisha's cakes.
So, what do you do when you are trying to pull off a surprise birthday party for the cake master mistress? You know...when you have the best, who wants to order from the rest? (or something like that!)

I was planning on heading out west for the weekend to work on getting our new old house cleaned up and work done in preparation for moving in. The Kids out there were planning to go over and spend the day on Saturday helping us and SIL Jim called and wondered what we could do for a birthday surprise for Lynisha and Mark.

After discussion, the plan was for him to have a co-worker of his call and order a cake from Lynisha.
So un-beknownst to her, she made her own birthday cake.  I know...rude, huh- haha!

Jim & Mark's folks came over & joined us for lunch & party and helped with some cleaning up too.
Thanks kids for helping make it a fun time!

 Happy 30th birthday, Mark and Lynisha!!

Changes

 Just traveling along the road-

 

Enjoying the scenery.  Smelling the flowers- 

 Watching & living the seasons as they come and go.

 And then there's a curve.  Sometimes unexpected.

 And then a warning sign.  Not only is the road ending, but it's means changing directions.

 

 And that means stop.

The stop sign appeared very abruptly this morning with a phone call.

"We have a house".

I really don't go out walking much. It's a shame.  I admire others who do, I know I should.

During the 2 1/2 years we've lived here I am ashamed at how few times I've found myself out walking the road.

The times that I have tho, I always have found myself intrigued by those road signs.  It seems the story of my life.  I cannot imagine growing up, living in the same house for *18* years.  It didn't happen with me.

I can't imagine living in the same house all my *married-grown-up* years.  It didn't happen with us either. 

In January this year, the road looked the same.  There was no changes in sight.

then the curve. A new job across the state.  Since then the future & distance has been pretty much obscured from sight. It has been tolerable, but very bumpy and uncertain.

Time passes.  Some days drag, but mostly the weeks fly by.

And then there's the sign.

It's means decision,

It means change.

As opinionated as I can be, decisions are not my strong point.

It can make my life pretty miserable.

Mostly for myself, but probably somewhat for others who have to listen to me too.

So how long from the warning sign to the stop sign?  Sometimes it

seems to go on for a long time.

In reality really not so long.

And sometimes the decision is taken right out of my hands

and if it's something that I've been really searching the answer for

in the right place, that is a good thing.

The stop sign is right in front of me now, it's time to let go

and move on.

 **************************************************

Then again-

how insignificant my changes seem

in light of other things that have happened this year.

Some friends lost a child.

Some lost loved ones.

Causalities.  

Shootings in the news.

Fires have been burning, it's changed peoples plans, their days,

in some cases taken their homes or livlihood.

My friend deals with cancer. A life altering experience.

And me?

Well, I get a change of scenery.

The opportunity to make new friends,

expand our horizons,

live with my husband again,

and set to work re-decorating a new house!

Paint me happy

 I'm a horrible procrastinator.
When we moved in this house we got the living room & dining room repainted.  During the time we lived here in the last 2 1/2 years we also got all 3 bedrooms repainted.
The kitchen probably needed it nearly worse than the other rooms, as it had been water damaged.  However I could never make up my mind what color I wanted it, I liked the red that it was, and I kept putting it off.  After all, there was always something else to do.

Here's what it looked like:
(Before)
 http://www.lmand12js.blogspot.com/2010/06/part-3-of-house-tour.html

Fast forward to March this year.  Husband got a new job across the state and so there is high expectation that we will be moving.  We had originally planned to wait till May, when school was out and his probationary period was up to move so we didn't spend a whole lot of time looking as we knew we couldn't be out of this place before August.
May has came and went, school is out and now June has disappeared also.  We still don't have a place to live, and our joking comments about not really wanting to move from here are closer to becoming a reality than we would like.
Mostly it's just really nerve-wracking to not know if you're moving or staying put.
Of course there's also the inconvenience of the husband living 4 hours away and only being home on weekends.

Back to my kitchen. In the middle of the whole waiting process of "moving or not, and when" .
I decided I'd go buy paint for the kitchen.   Impatient waiting calls for drastic measures.  It should solve the dilemma, right?
I mean after all, if I buy paint & paint the kitchen & porch, one of two things will happen.  Either we will get a house & move, or we won't and we will just stay here.  Right?  Makes sense to me!

Last week I bought paint. I spent my birthday weekend painting and cleaning my kitchen. You know--the cobwebs & grease that accumulate while I'm busy cleaning other people's houses.  The process was slightly delayed by  having 4 grandkids there on Saturday  while our son was working on re-roofing the house.  Life doesn't get put on hold just because I was painting.

I might have been a bit frazzled over that except for the fact that I was really treated quite royally for my birthday. 
On Friday I was treated to a lovely lunch (and company) compliments of my sister.
Saturday I was treated to a lovely breakfast out, compliments of my two sister-in-laws.
Saturday evening I was treated to a lovely dinner out compliments of my son.

It's really pathetic that I had my camera along on all three mentioned occasions & didn't get any pictures.
It's really pathetic that the only picture I have of my birthday is this one of
the beautiful bouquet of flowers that I bought myself and the totally delicious cake that I made for dessert following the delicious meal I made Sunday evening.
My family thanked me by singing happy birthday to me.  :)
This really wasn't suppose to be a post about my birthday,
It just jumped in and hi-jacked  the middle of my post.

I finally finished up the kitchen on Monday and on Tuesday I started on the porch.
My July 4th holiday was spent working. (I'm not complaining, mind you, I LOVE a free day to get my projects worked on)
 The ceiling is painted, the walls & woodwork are all washed, the Curtains washed & re-hung, floor is scrubbed & the windows are sparkly clean inside and out.


 Here's the "After"
The porch--

 Actually there was much more cleaning to be done in here than what I painted.  We all voted to leave the walls, and I only re-painted the ceiling.  It is an original porch ceiling and was painted a light blue.  Amazingly the lighter shade of paint I chose for part of the kitchen was only just a shade darker than the original ceiling paint.  I brushed a very light coat on it to try to retain the older and worn look, and still make it match the kitchen & look nice.

Around the kitchen--

 Had to paint my "chicken nests" too

 I actually have two different shades of blue in the kitchen.  It's really not as different as I had thought. You can maybe see in this picture, the wall on the right is just a little lighter than the one on the left.

 My chicken nests are the darker shade.  You can hardly tell.

I had really expected the color to be a bit more teal than it is, I didn't intend to end up with a "blue" kitchen.
I do like it tho & husband & kids have said they really like it too.

 Paint me happy, I'm done for now & off to pick up grandkids for a weeks visit.

Take 2, or 3 or 395

 Everyone loves family pictures, right?  Of course,  That is if you are the one getting to LOOK at them, rather than be IN them....or even TAKE them!

My kids have grown up with a mom who insisted on a family group picture at least once a year.  Sometimes it happened more often.  Kids all together, Occasion, Photo time.  Like it or not. I have to give them credit- there honestly wasn't generally TOO much grumbling.  Usually I did it at our summer or fall annual Church gathering because it was when we were all together & generally dressed up. The older the kids got, the more "testy" a few of them were. (or maybe that was just the SIL's that we added to the group... haha!)   Really the hardest thing was when we were away from home was to get everyone all together in the same place at the same time.  Some of the scenarios from those times are hilarious to remember.  Not so much at the time!

We have one child who shall remain nameless who always SEEMED to hear and understand the directions of time and place to gather, but for some reason when it came down to the time, he was the one missing.
It would go something like this:

To child 1-#(??) depending on the year. "Family pictures Sunday at 9 a.m. in the yard of the little house on top of the hill". Make sure you are there in plenty of time.  And please don't let the whole convention know! We don't need a huge audience.  We're enough of a spectacle as it is.
Sorry, I didn't really say that part...I just thought it....haha!
"Child X, make sure you remind child xx. Did you tell A?  make sure B knows.  YES mom...."

9 a.m. 3/4 of children are there.  look around where is ??.  "She's coming, she just has to do....."  o.k.  Where is ??  He's still getting dressed.  Does he know he's suppose to be here NOW?  Yes, but he....."
So everyone is there but Ryan.  WHERE is Ryan?  "Well, last time I saw him, he was....  Do you want me to go get him?  Yes!  off she goes, comes back.  Everyone else kind of wanders around...Later years SIL grumbles loudly. One year we finally found Ryan in a friends trailer, another year we never did find him in time for photos.  I left a space where he would have stood, later when the errant child appeared I dragged him by his ears to the spot, took a picture of him standing there & cut & pasted him in.  (Years before digital magic!)
We went thru all sorts of scenarios like getting time & place figured out, then someone decided they thought a different place would be better & told 1/2 the group. We did learn to have an non-family member go chase down missing family members because otherwise it took twice as long & there were more people missing than just the one!

Ah well, crazy funny memories.  I have a whole book of yearly (or more often) family pictures.  Some good, some bad, some hilarious but all precious.  I'm not sorry I insisted on it even if it was a pain!

So that brings me to the point of this post (I know--I could have skipped all that & cut right to the chase, right?)

Family Pictures.
Our last one was 5 years ago before Laura went oversees.  There was 19 of us.  Two SIL's & 3 grandchildren included.  A nice easy bunch to coordinate clothes & time.  Uh huh!  One child couldn't come home.  Oh well, no big deal.  Photographer daughter took a picture of him later and photo-shopped him in.  It worked.
Fast forward.  Last fall when Laura came back to the states I said "Family picture sometime this year!"
Last year was a year of new babies.  One in March, in August, in October and December.  We were all together except for Jana at Thanksgiving, and still had one more baby due soon, so we planned in the spring.
Now granted, I was totally aware that someone else could end up with a baby on the way, but it did seem kind of silly to do pictures so close to babies being born.

Plans were made for Memorial day weekend.  All 12 siblings were going to make it. This means:
2Parents+12 children+6spouses+12grandchildren=32people. A few more than last time.
The planning and shopping for clothes to try to coordinate would make a blogpost in itself. 
 Incidentally, in the meantime of waiting on the right time for this picture, grandchild #13 is on it's way!  We're not waiting on it tho.


 I was hoping to be able to have a weekend at the farm, pictures would have been fun here but that couldn't happen with Ryan's work schedule.  WAIT A MINUTE....It was RYAN messing things up again!

We all went to Sidney for the weekend.  For the first time in 10 years I had all 12 of our kids together.
I've told it before, I'll say it again.  My kids rarely fought.  They didn't this weekend either.  They are a very lovely special group of kids and they have given us 12 incredibly sweet grandchildren.  So far!  Yes, we think the spouses are pretty nice too.  Most of the time anyway!
 edit--I thought so until I saw the pictures anyway--haha!

It didn't work out to do the pictures Sat. afternoon like we'd planned, because of the weather, NOT because of a missing child--
I have to say that Ryan totally came thru.  He's redeemed himself! He lives 80 miles away from Sidney and works nights/weekends too.  He came down Sat to spend some time with us, back home to work the night shift, then back on Sun. morning so we could be together for Fellowship with ALL our kids, slept after lunch until picture time, showed up with sweet wife & baby girl, tolerated our 395 (more or less) of photos and then left to go home & back to work again.
Kids do grow up!  I think he's related to his Father actually!
Oops, guess I  named the nameless.  I won't pick on you anymore Ryan, we'll just blame it on the middle child syndrome o.k.?

In the meantime while Lynisha edit's the "395" pictures to try to get something that is not too far out there to hang on our walls I thought it would be fun to post a few outtakes along with a couple of my favorites that we already posted on facebook.

For your viewing pleasure;

 Why would you want to stand where you were asked and look at the camera while you were waiting on the photographer to get everyone "ELSE" in place?

 And if we can't get 20 adults to stay in place and all look at the camera, how on earth would you expect 12 little ones under the age of 8? Oh yeah, and when ask the others to move out of the background?  Well, surely just going further away will take care of that, right?

 So this is what happens when you say "you can do a goofy pose"--Notice the one who knows "goofy" will end up being public so is careful how she looks!  Of course then there's one of them that doesn't  care if goofy ends up being blogged, it's more the norm for her anyway!

 Yes sir, we all get along & like to spend time together--

*SMILE* for the camera!

 These were the most fun really!  Of course it may be because I got to take the picture instead of being in it! haha!

Look close--you'll see why this is another out-take.