Sleepover At Gramma's

A little Haiku for your enjoyment:

Sweet giggles erupt

She smiles as she hushes them

Sleeping at Gramma's

~Lori Bottomley

In the picture are my three grandsons, Carson, Aiden, and Danny, along with my daughter Brianna. Not every gramma is lucky enough to have 3 grandsons who are less than 5 months apart! Life is good!

Adventurous Alicia

I was inspired today to spotlight my daughter-in-law Alicia. I have been blessed with 2 wonderful daughers-in-law. I guess I did something right if my boys grew up and picked such great women to marry! Alicia was so young when I first met her. She was a little shy and I wondered if she could hold her own with my strong personality son Kendall. I needn't have worried. She matches Kendall point for point when it comes to his adventurous spirit and unstoppable energy. Kendall always loved his social life and Alicia has jumped right in creating friendships and occasions to be with those they enjoy. This past summer she began preparing and planning a big Halloween party that they have been wanting to have since last year. She comes over one day with little treats she made to test and see if they would work for her party. This was in July! I loved her enthusiasm and her determination not to let this Halloween go by without their big bash. So for weeks now, she has collected ideas and tried them out and carefully shopped the discount stores for decorations, food and other ideas. It has been fun as she shares her finds with me. I love that she includes me in her excitement. So, imagine my horror (and I don't mean the kind you laugh about later when you realize the icky goo you stuck your hand in at the haunted house was really just wet spaghetti...), when Kendall calls me on Friday as he rushed home to his sweet wife. She of course, was busy hanging up decorations for the big Halloween bash, when she fell. The verdict, a broken arm. To make it worse, it has a chip and she will need surgery! I am sure in the moment she was upset, and distraught at being hurt while by herself with Carson and another child she babysits. I know it was very painful too. What amazes me though is that it did not diminish her enthusiasm one bit for her big ghostly bash! On Saturday, she calls me to see if we are up to having them over to decorate pumpkins etc for Halloween! What? Are you kidding me? How can you even stand up straight with all the pain killers in your body right now? She hasn't even gotten her surgery or her cast yet! Is it the energy of youth that envelops her to drive forward? Or, is it a determination to keep going and have fun along the way that moves her to push through the challenges life offers? "Enjoy the journey" could be her motto. She's a doer...a goer...and that makes her a great mother! One of my favorite things about Alicia is her amazing zest for motherhood. She truly never tires of playing ring around the rosy or chasing Carson around the house saying "where's Carson?" when it is obvious to all he is RIGHT THERE! haha When Carson laughs, it only seems to light the fire in her to see how much more she can get him to laugh. He is truly a lucky boy to have a mom who would rather be with him than anywhere else in the world....unless his daddy is around of course....ahem...that was for Kendall's sake. =)
So Alicia, with all the love a mother can have for a daughter, I send you my appreciation and admiration for all of who you are. I hope this brings a smile to your face as you try to figure out how not to pick up that precious baby of yours for the next few weeks! You are amazing and beautiful and the most excellent person to be Kendall's wife and Carson's mommy. I love you!

Here is a slide show of some of my favorite pictures of Alicia.




A quick list of Alicia's favorite things:

Favorite color: pink

Favorite time of year: spring

Favorite music: slow rock

Favorite scripture: 1 John 4:14-19

Favorite part of being a mom:

Watching him laugh and playing with him.

Favorite quality in Kendall:

He helps me do things I couldn't do before.

Favorite vacation: camping in the mountains

Biggest time waster: Sitting on my butt watching TV.

Most happy when: My family's happy.

What do you enjoy doing with friends:

Entertain them and play games at my house.

Roosevelt Lake family trip

I decided it was time to catch up a few things on my blog. First, we went to Roosevelt Lake again the second weekend in August with my sister Shari's family. We had so much fun for the afternoon boating, tubing, and swimming in the lake. The most eventful thing that happened was that Cara was stung by a bee. She set everyone to laughing as she tossed all the Pringles onto the floor of the boat and then proceeded to stomp all over them when she got freaked out from the bee. Tom and I were in the tube and they had just hit the gas when the boat stopped suddenly. I thought, hey! I don't weigh "that" much! lol Turns out it was a bee not me. We ate some yummy food that Shari brought and even did some swimming over near the dam. Kari and Jake found a rope swing hanging from the bridge and spent a good amount of time trying to get the rope up to Jake so he could swing out into the water on it. There were a couple of other boats hanging out over there watching and they all applauded when he finally made it. Here are some pictures ofthe day, and a video clip of Jakes jump.

First pic is Elijah and Amanda on the tube. It was fast and they loved it!

The second is Tom's first jump into the cold water for a swim. The next is Brianna and Cara with their Pringle duck bills. The last one is the gang on the boat as it was coming in to the dock. The family pic at the top was taken in front of Roosevelt Dam, you can see it behind us.

Here is a video of Jake's jump.

It took a freeway....

So, last night I took my children to see the place where I grew up. My childhood home is a place that we began building when I was 10 years old. I remember my parents drawing plans on graph paper on the coffee table of our tiny little tract home. This was to be their "dream home". A place where they could raise their family of 6 children and teach them all the values and skills they knew they would need to be happy in this life and in the next. I remember spending FHE's digging trenches for the footings, and then mom spreading a blanket out on the ground where our dining room would be and we would eat dinner before the last of the sunlight faded away. Over 30 years were spent in that house. Many memories are associated with it. I remember Christmases where dad was the biggest scrooge and then I remember the Christmas when he turned into Santa Claus and so he is, to this day. I remember family talent shows and singing our hearts out or playing our instruments on the stage that was the landing to the stairs to great applause...and laughter. I remember sleeping on the floor in the summer in front of the swamp cooler before the air conditioner was installed. I remember water fights, both inside and outside. I remember football games, volleyball, planting the garden, raising the chickens and turkeys, the giant fig trees that only dad would eat from, our dogs and cats, the treehouse, jumping off the roof into the sand pile, sitting on the roof to watch the fireworks, and many other pleasant memories. I remember kissing my husband there for the first time and hoping mom and dad weren't spying from the upper window on the stairs. Many family gatherings were held there, we celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, grandchildren's births, and the heartache of goodbyes too.
That house survived storms including a micro-burst, 6 children, several extra children over the years, many many of my brother's friends, a couple of desert fires said brothers and friends set, a giant canal that narrowly missed our property, and monsoon storms that would set my brothers tubing down the washes. It took a freeway to destroy what we built over 35 years ago. But even a freeway can't destroy everything we built in that house. It was a house. A place where life was allowed to happen. Where relationships were created, strengthened and love flowed freely. It's walls kept all that in for us. But, it wasn't the cause of it all. I am grateful for that house for giving me my childhood memories and for holding safe the love of our family and tolerating our imperfections so well. But it is my parents and my siblings that I am most grateful for. For the time we spent together, for the lessons we taught each other. For the support we still are to each other. My parents have a new house to call home and it seems we have just transferred all the things we built so carefully in our old home, to the new with so much ease, that I realize just how much difference there is between house and home. A house is a place, a home is a condition. So, we played last night on the spot where my house and once home stood. The house is gone, yet the home remains and will forever if we keep doing what we have always done. Love each other and pass that heritage on to our children and grandchildren.