Fly High Little Blue Bird

 20 days ago, one of the teachers who is in my daughter's pod had a birthday party for her four year old. Her older daughter, her baby daughter and three little cousins attended. One hour later, the baby suffered a seizure. 

20 days ago, the baby was lifeflighted to a children's hospital when the seizure didn't stop. 

20 days ago, the baby began treatments and tests to try to see what was going on and why this was happening. 

7 days ago, the baby's family found that, through genetic testing, a very rare condition had developed and that this would prove fatal to their little blue bird. They also found that the four year old has a 25% chance she has the same untreatable condition and that her oldest sister has a 25% chance she is a carrier and could never have children. 

Today, that little blue bird flew home to heaven from her mother's arms.  

Her mommy and daddy are asking for 3 for B. 

Please pray for someone or send them good vibes. 

Please tell someone what they mean to you or how they have impacted your life. 

Please do an act of random kindness in memory of Baby B.

I am so heartbroken. 

Mommy posted this early this morning: 

2/23/23 - Take the family pictures, don't hold off on a single thing. Take vacations, make the memories, take walks, play, live; all of the rest can wait. I put off getting"professional" family photos, waiting until B's first birthday to do all of it together. I waited too long! I was always worried about being sure the house was tidied up, laundry done, and everything prepped for each day;

I lost time with my babies. If you haven't learned anything through this journey, please take away the point of making each moment count, nothing is more important than the memories made and the moments spent together laughing and being present.

B is peaceful and that makes me at peace holding her body wrapped in mine. I play every song that you all send and pray over her with your words of love. She is such a fighter, and continues to be so strong. I can't truly fathom this is happening when I can feel her warm body tucked into mine and her heart beating under my cheek. I continue to pray for miracles and Gods peace simultaneously. But, right now she's peaceful and in my arms life still feels perfect in a sick way. Thinking of what is coming and navigating the future is overwhelming, makes me physically sick and is suffocating. So, for now, we listen to our worship music snuggled and intertwined. You will have to pry me from this bed.

Galentine's Day

I hope everyone had a special Valentine's Day!  I am blessed to be married to my wonderful husband. He is a great guy who would do anything for anyone, an outstanding father and even more outstanding grandfather. But romantic, he is not. 

He is great at filling my gas tank, checking on my tires, household repairs, setting up electronics and general maintenance around here. And always supportive of any ridiculous projects I come up with. So I just buy my own chocolate and flowers (Aldi's had tulips this year!)

Instead of Valentine's Day, I celebrate Galentine's Day. I started this with door drops to neighbors during Covid and still have special people in my life that needed to be appreciated. Sadly Miss Peggy who lived next door to me for the past 44 years passed away before Christmas. And one of my neighbors moved south. This year I honored my longtime neighbor/friend, my caregiving neighbor/church friend whose husband has been struggling with strokes, one daughter and two daughter-in-laws and a co-gramma who lost her husband a few short weeks ago. 

Dollar Tree, here I came. 

I bought the large Valentine "Buckets" and some small cups and pails for the candy! My theme is pink with a little red.  Unfortunately the buckets were only large enough for desserts. 

In addition to the pail and cup, I made heart shaped brownies and banana bread. That pretty much filled the bucket. 

I decided to put items that needed refrigerated in containers. So here is a container in a container. 

The inside container. 

Strawberry, blueberries, and petit fours! 

The sandwich container. 

Clockwise, chicken breast on Italian bread with garlic aioli, raisin bread with cream cheese and powdered sugar, ham, swiss and mustard on a Hawaiian roll, and egg salad on a croissant. 

I used the plates as lids and put the containers in a Valentine bag. 

Myself, I celebrated Galentine's Day in person with two other friends. We went out for coffee and talked for over four hours! 

And here is one of my favorite wedding pictures. It is my grandfather and his two wives. What? Well, the bride in the picture is my paternal grandmother, Mary and the attendants are her brother and sister-in-law.  My great uncle died the year before I was born and my grandmother died the year after I was born. My grandfather then married his sister-in-law. Got all that? 

Guest Room Christmas Project Part 1

 

I was never one to decorate early for Christmas. I didn't wait until after Thanksgiving, I waited until December 1. And when my kids were young and we had a live tree, we would cut one at the tree farm on Christmas Eve morning to make sure it was healthy through Epiphany, my youngest son's birthday. 

But as I get older, I get slower. And it just seems like it is suddenly a few days until Christmas and most of the decorations are still in boxes and I still need to bake . . .  So I have joined the early birds. 

Last year I started "Project Hallmark Christmas Inn" and decorated our master bedroom for the season. That is the third room on my list this year. First is my freshly painted and carpeted guest room. 

The theme came early in February when Christmas bedding was marked down for final sale - it's a Fa La La Llama Christmas! I have been picking up items all year and am pulling them from the hiding places. The photos are helping me make changes - add an extra gray throw pillow- lose the red one.

The quilts, ordered online, turned out to be super thin. Which worked out great because I was able to put them over the existing bedding and won't have to figure out where to store what was there. I have a 17" llama pillow coming for this bed. 

I ordered two of these 4' white trees, with multi colored lights on clearance for $10 a a piece, free shipping. I picked up the red tree collars at 5 Below, a store I had never visited before. The dresser topper will be changing to something else. Here is a look at the new drapes for this room, too. 

The wreaths were $5 at 5 Below (this is a dangerous store, lol) and the picture shows me that I need to fix the top of this tree. 

The new closet doors! Yes, I will change the wreath hangers to match each other. And I found the pom pom garland that will go over the doors. I have the fabric to make the rag garlands for window valances, but I think I will work on that project at the end of the month when I go out of town to stay with my oldest daughter's tweenagers. I also have some nifty large llamas for the walls.  There will be update posts. 

I recently saw a "Mr. Kringle Suite" advertised at a fancy hotel in Cleveland for $600 a night. I told my grandchildren I will be accepting reservations for this room and charging a special family rate.  

Actually, the first guest is here tonight before the room is even finished. A co-grandparent became very ill and there was a meeting in a McDonalds parking lot with a weeks worth of clothing exchanged for our four year old birthday boy.  He and two brothers were here the day before with fevers as we are still passing the fall 2022 respiratory infection around. I was on antibiotics for 10 days, found my voice but still have a sore throat and cough. The kids are playing tag and merry-go-round with it, as they trade spiking fevers. And two even came down with hand, hoof and mouth - which is a virus I have learned. It's going to be a long winter. 

Not Covid

 

 

All the littles have been bringing home viruses from school. The elementary kids shared a disgusting stomach virus with me in September.  They have coughing and sneezing and dripping noses for October. Instead of driving nursery school car poll on Monday, I spent my day on the phone trying to wrangle an appointment for a three year old with a severe sinus infection. A smarter gramma might have started some over the counter stuff then. 

I have been using some of my stash of covid tests (all negative), but when I tried to book an on-line appointment, I couldn't schedule until November 4. So today, a lovely Sunday with temperatures in the 70's, I sat in the waiting room at "convenient care" for two hours and eventually left with two prescriptions. 

Did I mention I completely lost my voice? It has been three days of croaking barely above a whisper and I am now under orders for no whispering either. Since my Super Power is talking nonstop, this has been difficult! 

Oh, and guess what else they are sharing at nursery school? Pink Eye. . . .