Sweet Mamaw

This is an older picture of my mamaw (looking pretty sassy by the way :)) not long after Alzheimers started stealing her memory. Mamaw, who is almost 90, is in her final hours here on earth, and I have a few things to say to her.

Dear Mamaw,

As our family gathered around your bed tonight and sang Amazing Grace...and followed it by "my chains are gone, I've been set free," I couldn't help but picture you with the chain of Alzheimers gone from around you. In a few short hours, you will no longer fight to remember someone's name or have to be fed by someone else. You will run into the arms of your Savior who will tell you what a great course you ran, and then you will one by one get to love on Papaw, and Bob, and Mamaw Lucy and Auntie, and many others.

And I will miss you...both the Mamaw that I knew years ago and knew me, and the Mamaw that no longer knew my name. I will miss your sweet smile and laugh, and your words that no longer made any sense, but they were important for you to say. I have missed your chocolate pies and cooking for many years, and shelling pecans in your backyard. I miss you taking us to the park and Wisteria Drive. I will miss smelling you in White Shoulders, and you trying to give us money and feed us every time we saw you. Thank you for all the loads of laundry, all the meals, free rent, and taxi service. Thank you for being a wonderful mother, grandmother, and great grandmother to 4 children, 13 grandchildren, and at last count 19 great grandchildren. Your fingerprints are all over them.

I never saw you angry, or bitter...only loving with an unconditional love. What a beautiful and graceful legacy you are leaving to your family. I can't help but think of the words to the song "Home Free"

Home Free, eventually

At the ultimate healing we will be Home Free

Home Free, oh I've got a feeling

At the ultimate healing

We will be Home Free

I'm so thankful you are going to your ultimate healing, and you will finally be Home Free. I'll hold on to all the precious memories until I see you again...my sweet Mamaw.

Why I Do What I Do

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for three glorious days of SCRAPBOOKING at the Covered Bridge Inn. Those of you who do not scrapbook are thinking to yourselves…”how in the world do you sit for 3 days at a 5’ table surrounded by pictures, papers, pictures, glue, pictures, embellishments, candy, pictures and enjoy that?” Those of you who do scrapbook, you totally understand.

There are reasons why I scrapbook, and blog, and journal…and here’s a few:

Because they’ll never be 2 again.
Because I’ve only got about 8 summers left before they leave home.
Because it fills my heart with warm fuzzies.
Because it shows me again how blessed I am.
Because I don’t want to have regrets.
Because I want them to know how much I love them.
Because I’m leaving a legacy in more ways than one.
Because he came along and stole my heart.
Because life is crazy…and good.

And because I never want to forget this…

You understand now right?

Fall Ball

I was going through some pictures today getting ready for my SCRAPBOOK RETREAT THIS WEEKEND!!!!! (can you read how excited I am?) and realized I had never blogged about Caleb's fall ball baseball finale. Cody decided not to play any sport this fall, but Caleb wanted to play baseball with his bud, Connor. He had a great time and learned alot about how much things cost in the snack hut at Dunlop, how many sunflower seeds you can put in your mouth at the same time, and how long it takes to find your baseball cap if you don't put your name in it. Oh yeah, and how you can miss your turn to bat if you have to leave to poop.

And I so know he's going to hate me one day for this one...but he deserves it because this is how dressed he was 20 minutes after I told him to get his uniform on one Saturday...yes, undies and a belt.

Going to the Chapel

Yesterday was a big day for our family. The oldest grandchild of my parents, the firstborn baby in our family…the one who got ALL the spoilin, Allison, got married to Derek. First of all as a sidenote, I have to tell you that Cody was sooo impressed with the church where they got married because they had a … snack machine. All we have at our church is a coke machine. I’m just saying…he’s weighing his options.

It was fun, stressful, and tiring planning the wedding because the MOB (no, not that kind of mob with guns, but 'mother of the bride' who sometimes wished she had a gun) my sister, Lisa, who normally would help the daughter with a lot of the planning, lives in Mississippi. So that would leave Grammy, Ne-Ne and I to help Alli plan. I will say that Allison’s idea of planning does not involve spreadsheets. I am not kidding…how in the world can you plan an event without spreadsheets? But I digress...

The planning all came to fruition yesterday…the big day. It was a sweet, beautiful ceremony with its share of wedding ‘bloopers.’ First of all, the lighting was really bad in the front of the church and my dad, AKA the minister, had a hard time seeing his ‘script.’ What little light rays he could have gotten were blocked out because the groom is so tall. Then my dad decided to change the order of something in the program…but alas he forgot to tell anyone except his brain because there was a long pregnant pause when he was trying to send a message via telepathy to my brother-in-law at the soundboard and the singer that he wanted the next song to go there. But at the end, they were married and are now having some fun time on their honeymoon.

Three things I take away from this past weekend. One, my boys clean up good. Caleb was the ring bearer and Cody was an usher…and they were both total stud muffins in their tuxes. Second, I learned that Cody should never be allowed to have free reign with a video camera under any circumstances and that Caleb should never be interviewed on video. They left some incredible video that most assuredly will be used against them some day…with pleasure.

Thirdly, I felt once again the most incredible feeling of family. My parents have spent their lives making sure that my sisters and I knew how important family is in this life. They made sure we knew how to pass this on to our children, and one day to our children’s children. Is our family perfect? Not by a long shot…but it’s good, fun, and warm, and safe. This new union was not unlike most…some difficulties, lessons learned, decisions made that some did not agree with…but when it’s all said and done, we have a new member of our family and that only makes us more grateful, and thankful for the addition. I just know I want to be with these people, my people, as much as I can for the rest of my life.

In this home…
We do second chances.
We do grace.
We do real.
We do mistakes.
We do I’m sorries.
We do loud really well.
We do hugs.
We do family.
We do Love.

Congratulations Alli & Derek! May your marriage be rich and sweet... and fun. I love you.

Letter to Me 29 Years Ago

Dear 16 Year Old Gina,

I wish you could see the future...to know what is to come. That way you'd know what to avoid, what to spend your time doing, what to make important in your life.

That friend that creates drama in your life over and over again...just know, it's going to be okay. She will move on to other girls she can control and feel powerful over, and you will meet great friends that you want to spend the rest of your life spending time with, laughing with, crying with, seeing chick flicks with, and eating cookies with. You'll share the births of your children together, the deaths of your loved ones together, and the highs and lows of being parents.

And that boy you are soooo crazy about...wow, I wish I could stop you. You're so going to wish you had been honest with yourself about what you were seeing. But once again, you will eventually... and someday you'll be holding hands with the sweetest guy on earth and he's going to love you, and protect you and take care of you forever. He's going to put you first in his life, and let me tell you, you'll be glad you didn't let the age thing get in the way of happiness.

And the good life you wanted...you are so going to have it. Not in the way you dreamed about necessarily back then, but so much better. You're not going to care about money near as much as how much you're going to love being a mom. It's hard to believe, but you're not going to be so selfish anymore, and you're going to think about them before yourself...and that's such a good thing. Your kids are going to bring you so much happiness you'll be set for life.

I cannot tell you everything will be roses...it won't. You're going to go through some things and hear some words that will hurt so bad you don't think you can recover, but you will. Your faith will see you through the rough spots...and you'll be stronger for it. I wish I could save you from some of the repercussions from the bad decisions you're going to make, but then you wouldn't be shaped into the person God meant for you to be.

And you just thought you knew and loved God then. Wait until you see Him for all He is...over and over again. Wait until He forgives you... and restores you over and over again. Wait, just wait, until He proves He is King and in control over and over again.

You're going to be more thankful, and grateful, and feel loved...so loved. So hold on...hold on for a bumpy ride knowing that you're going to come out of all this okay. More than okay really...happy and fulfilled. And that's going to mean so much more than the things that you think matter today.

Love,
45 Year Old Gina

What's So Hard About Farming?

During the summer, we were at one of the plant stores getting some flowers for the front flower bed. The boys begged to get a vegetable to plant to grow their own veggies. Well, they're cheap (very important since I KNEW they would not keep up with them, water them, etc.) so we said okay. We even let them plant them right in the front flower bed by the garage since we, once again, KNEW that they wouldn't be there long.


Well, evidently either my children have the special green thumb that has eluded me my entire life, or farming isn't that difficult after all. Seriously these little guys have thrived on very little water, soil that won't keep my lilies pretty, and very little room to move around. But look...aren't they sweet?

Since we threw away the little tags inside of the crate (again, we weren't going to need those), we forgot what they planted. We're pretty sure these are poblano peppers, but maybe jalapeno? And the other little green ones, we have no idea. Is there a farmer out there who was not offended by this post that could help?

What Were You Thinking?

Did you ever come across some people and think to yourself "what were you thinking?" Enjoy...

This is a little hard to see (it's so hard to get a good picture with your cell phone when you're trying to act like you're NOT taking a picture)...I'm sure Aeropostale never meant for this to happen...

And I'm sure my seester never thought this would rear its ugly head, but, um, yeah...

My Children the Billboards

A further continuation of Cody's graffiti...now moved to include his legs and given names.

And Caleb's joined in the act with tattoos he's now had on his face for 4 days. I think Baylor should pay him some sort of commission for the pub he's giving them!

Last Minute School Projects

6th Grade is shaping up to be Project Year....Super Excited about that (read that with lots of sarcasm)! This was the Reflections project that everyone can do, but is required in the 6th grade. The theme this year was "Wow!", and this was Cody's interpretion of that. He impressed me because he worked on this for several weeks, but then of course waited until the night before to finish the last country, marker outline, and color the whole thing.

I am proud though...he did not trace this, he drew every part of it. He has WAY more patience to stay true on project details...I so would have started drawing the first continent and then turned it into an abstract drawing of a butterfly or something that DID NOT require exactness. Notice the tongue in the picture...that is inherited from his Grammy.

And then, there's this. I'm not even gonna rant about finding out about school projects the night before they're due because I know every family in these United States goes through this...and if you don't, I don't even want to hear about your perfect children. This is the precious project we got to spend our evening tonight doing...I, um, of course, mean what Cody got to spend his night doing... except for the driving to Hobby Lobby and plopping down almost $16 for clothing for a POTATO! I can't even make this stuff up people.

And even though Cody mentioned this project 5 weeks ago when it was assigned, the next I heard about it was after school today when he says, "we need to go to Michaels to get stuff for my potato project that's due tomorrow." And after I beat him senseless (only in my thoughts), I took some deep breaths and went to my happy place.

Yes, it's a potato...and it's Daniel Boone sans arms and legs of course. I don't even want to know what the teacher who thought this up did during her college years!

Permanent Paper

Cody has been coming home almost every day from school with writing on his arm...a variety of things...things to remember, hearts drawn on by girls (uh huh...yeah it starts early), crazy words, etc. I was looking at it yesterday and told him "you really don't need to write on your skin." He asked, "why?" I said the same thing every mother says, "Because you're just not supposed to." I mean, that's what I was told.

Then Cody says, "If God didn't want us to do it, he wouldn't have made our skin writable." Good point, Cody, good point.