Last night was the visitation at the funeral home in memory of my grandmother.  It went very well, and really suited her.  Then this morning I joined my parents, brother and sister for the drive over to Pekin (about 30 mintues away) for the graveside service.  Again, it was another good time of remembering my grandmother’s life and saying goodbye.

On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant, and my folks treated us all to lunch.  Since I don’t go out to eat very much, it was fun to sample all the interesting things on the buffet line at the Chinese restaurant.

When we got home, I was able to lay down for a nap.  Laura took care of Lilly while I rested, and I was very grateful for the chance to recover from the emotional drain from the last few days.

This evening I took the younger kids to Junior Choir practice at the church.  Now I am home and tired, even though I had a nice nap.  There is a group of family gathering at my folks’ house tonight, but I think I’ve had enough social time for the day.  I hate to miss the fun, and my thoughts are with them.

Yesterday I sent out the following birthday party invitation:

Dear Family,

Love,
Christie

And then, I sent out a second e-mail to everyone except Grammy, letting them know that while we would indeed celebrate Lilly’s birthday, we also wanted to surprise Grammy (Nancy) by celebrating her birthday as well.  Several weeks ago Mary expressed a desire for Grammy’s birthday to be extra-special since her first birthday here in Illinois is this next Tuesday (12-9).  So Mary and I brainstormed back and forth and finally settled on this surprise-party idea.

I made a yummy carrot cake, and also made a double batch of brownies for those who don’t care for carrot cake.  We served hot drinks: coffee, tea and cocoa.  Laura made a beautiful sign wishing Grammy a Happy Birthday, and everyone pitched in to help clean house to make it welcoming to our guests.

When Grammy walked through the door, I pointed to Laura’s sign and said that we would like to celebrate her birthday tonight at our party.  She was so pleased and I think she was really surprised.

We sang Happy Birthday to both of our special guests, and a wonderful time was had by all.  We are so glad that Grammy lives close enough that we can throw her a party!

Happy Birthday, Lilly!

Happy Birthday, Grammy!

As of 7 pm tonight, my grandmother is finally free of the body that betrayed her so badly over the past year and a half.  As she passed from earth to Glory, she was surrounded by friends and loved ones.  Two of her children were there to say goodbye, and other friends and nurses were nearby offering support and love.

According to my father, his mother’s death was peaceful.  I can’t help but think it’s the first peace she’s had since she got sick in June of last year.  So much pain and distress… and it’s finally over.  I am intensely grateful that her suffering is finally gone.

We will attend her visitation here in Bloomington next Tuesday evening, and the graveside service will be held in Pekin on Wednesday morning.

Long ago I named myself.  When we had a baby, I decided I wanted to be called “Mama”.  I don’t know why I like that term, but I do, so that’s who I am.  But recently I’ve been going through a bit of an identity crisis and renaming.

First, Judah decided he wanted to call me something different.  A few weeks ago he asked me what my other names were besides “Mama”.  I told him that some people call me Christie, and that other people call me Mrs. Lyons.  He decided that he would like to start calling me Mrs. Lyons, and he has faithfully done that very thing ever since our conversation.  Often, through the other noises in the house, I’ll hear a little voice calling, “Mrs. Lyons!  Mrs. Lyons!”  I sometimes answer, “Yes, Mr. Lyons?”  The funny thing is that I often tune out all of the voices saying “Mama”, but I usually respond to “Mrs. Lyons”, so I guess Judah has figured that out.

The next change was about a week ago.  Amelia has heard Laura calling me “Mother” at times, and she must have liked the sound of that, because she announced to me one day that she would like to start calling me “Mother” if that was ok.  I told her that was fine.  What doesn’t seem to be quite as fine is when I call her “Daughter” in return.  I think it’s a fitting answer, but apparently Amelia doesn’t think so.

So now only four people call me “Mama”.  One calls me “Mrs. Lyons”, and another calls me “Mother”.  I am curious to see what happens next.

On Thanksgiving Day, the children’s Grammy presented them with their Christmas gifts. Each child received a hat, knitted by her, and most of them received knitted mittens. (The two oldest girls received beautiful gloves that Grammy had found on sale!) We got all of the kids to pose with Grammy for a photo, and despite my prediction that it would be impossible to get a good shot, everyone cooperated nicely and we were done very quickly.

Ever since last Thursday, the children have enthusiastically worn their new matching hats and mittens. After church on Sunday, once everyone was zipped and buttoned up and running out the door, a friend caught my attention and asked, “Did your kids all get new hats and mittens?” I proudly replied that Grammy had made them!

I really admire Grammy’s knitting patience and perseverance. I went through a knitting stage, and churned out more scarves than any one neck can wear. But when I decided to knit a pair of socks, it took so long and was so tedious, that when I finally finished the first sock, I declared that I would not knit a second sock. Instead, I would look for a one-legged man so I could give away the single sock.

Last night as I was tucking my little boys into bed, they both decided they wanted to wear their hats and mittens to bed. Not a bad idea, since the upstairs is rather cold anyway. So I snugged their hats down over their heads, slipped the mittens on their hands, and then tucked their blankets around them. They looked so cute laying there with knit hats on their pillows. This morning both boys came downstairs, each wearing his hat. Miguel admitted he had taken his hat off last night, but Judah seemed to think he had worn his hat all night.

We had fun snuggling on the couch, and I enjoyed taking another look at the beautiful hats, knitted with love.  Thank you, Grammy!

There’s something about me I’m starting to figure out, and it is this:  Any time I get started on a new idea or project, it becomes all-consuming for me.  I spend every spare moment working on my new hobby.  I suppose a technical term for it is “hyper-focusing”.

Whatever you call it, it’s what I’ve been doing with making movies.  I imported as many of our little video tapes as I could until I completely filled up the new huge 250gb hard drive Michael just got done installing in my laptop.  Once that was full, I seriously considered begging Michael to buy me more storage space so I could keep importing videos.  Finally I came to my senses and decided to just start working through the video footage currently on my computer.

You can check out my “YouTube Channel” to see all of my movies so far.

The children are really enjoying seeing our home movies, and it’s nice to have this stuff out where we can access it.  Keeping the little video tapes is not a safe storage option, since they will degrade over time.

So, anyway, that’s what I’m doing with myself these days.  What keeps you busy?  Leave me a comment and let me know.