Happy Birthday Alaina!

Goodness, wasn't it just last week that we brought you home from the hospital with all your black hair and red Indian-like skin? Didn't I just cut your curls for the first time and walk you around the corner to preschool yesterday? Wasn't last night your first dance recital with you adorably dressed in a traslucent white skirt and shiny black tap shoes? Didn't we just put you on a plane to visit Oma and Opa? Wasn't it yesterday when we sat in the sand and built sandcastles in Mexico and just yesterday that you sat next to me in a PCMC waiting room as the moments ticked on endlessly like a timebomb? Wasn't it just a minute ago that you drove off in a little white car with your sister to start High School and a minute later that we found the perfect wedding dress and ordered the Root Beer bubbles for your wedding cake? Wasn't it a second ago that you became a wife and a mother and an eternal family?

Time. Where does it go to? It flows out of the baby pictures and the school pictures and drifts up when you open the dance recital programs and the wedding announcements and the grandbabies pictures. Time is encapsulated in the feelings of the heart and the memories of the mind. Where did yesterday go? Its in my heart where you will always be. Happy Birthday Alaina--you are a wonderful woman, eternal companion, mother, sister, daughter and friend. I love you forever and always.

Newspapers..what a way to start the day!

This morning I thought I would pick up the newspaper and take a look at what was going on the world; or should I say what the reporters say is going on the world. I don't watch the news on TV much as I am convinced the news, both local and national are the most violent programs available on TV. So, I picked up the newspaper. Here are a few of the headlines:

• Dog owner is arrested after scuffle over doo


• Trial date set in 2005 bank-fraud case


• Man finally charged in May shooting at home


• Teen slices his hand during attack on man


• Man jailed in stabbing of relative with pen


• Hotel staffers, maid with mop tackle man


• New details emerge of deadly traffic stop


• Man's kin sue hit-run driver who killed him


• Engine failure blamed in jet crash


• Both parties try to woo women voters


• Motorist on sidewalk kills 1 man injures 2

Iwas just about to sink into the depths of depression when I saw it--it was in an inconspicuous bottom corner on the last page of the sections I was reading. You may laugh at me but I think this is great. Why don't they put more good in with the bad? Have the editors found that we don't read or watch the news if it isn't degrading, violent, morbid or sensational? I like to know what is going on in the world, but I don't believe for a second that it is all bad. I know there are terrible things that go on but I also know that there are good people with good motives that do good things. I see it everyday around me; why don't those stories get reported? Would the world read and watch; I know I would.

Me and my girls!

A Mother's Deepest Dream

Motherhood is an interesting thing. It seems that you grow with your children. Genuine happiness has always been what I have hoped for each of my children. Second on my list of desires for them--ongoing, fullfilling relationships with one another. Last weekend I was totally taken off-guard by a HUGE surprise party that the girls had planned and carried out together. I cannot do it justice by just writing about it in my next blog I will "show off" what they accomplished; but for this one I wish to express to my sweet daughters how deeply I was touched by your desire to work together to do this for me. I was so overcome with emotion that I didn't dare get started for fear of never stopping. I still have not been able to verbally thank my girls for the gratitude runs deep, fills my heart and comes brimming to the surface when I even think about saying something.

So here goes--girls, there is nothing, no nothing you could have done to make me happier. I certainly do not deserve to have such wonderful daughters; but I am eternally grateful. You are my dearest friends and confidants. When I watch each one of you and your individual talents and gifts, I continue to be amazed that I am so blessed to be your mother. Thank you for working together for me.

There are so many ways that you are similar to one or more of each other, yet you are each so very unique--please always celebrate your differences, though they sometimes make you crazy. You each have gifts that can help one another in the difficult times of your lives; remember what I have told you since you were just old enough to seek out other companionships-- "friends will come and friends will go, but your sister will always be your sister." When the time comes that I am no longer around, it is one of my greatest hopes that you will always have one another to love and cherish and to comfort you.

So here's to you Breeana, Alaina, Jenna and Kara! Just when I think my life could be no more blessed; you have given me yet one more thing to be so grateful for. Thank you just doesn't seem to work for this, does it? Oh, how I love each of you.