Top Ten Things I Learned from a Four Year Old This Week...

Mina, Asteroid Andy and ice cream!

Do you know that children have wisdom beyond their years, I do!

Mina brings it home for me every time we get together.

1. This week I learned when somebody loves you they can kiss you as much as they need to.
2. That when you miss Mom and Dad, you just do. And nothing makes it better... Not even grandma hugs...
3. Toys are mostly made for playing with, sometimes you can only look at them ( like when you are eating dinner ). And sometimes they have to be picked up. But that God made them mostly for playing with.
4. That a four year old can't get close enough, especially when you are napping with them. I have the bruises to prove it! Ha Ha!
5. All songs are lull-a-byes. Really.
6. That Monkey blankies , all special blankies for that matter, have a sweet spot. She showed me!
7. Tubbies are better when they are shared. You can take turns washing the shampoo out of each others hair. As she stated, "How do I get by without her"?
8. As long as there is Ice cream she will eat almost anything....
9. That gummy bears can provide a fun bonding moment, that neither of us will ever forget!
10. That explaining New Years day to a four year old is hard. It ended up being Earth's Happy Birthday Party day! Oh and that everybody is so happy they give each other kisses. Which brings me back to the beginning of my list.

I had to share my fun revelations with you all. Every time she comes to visit I learn something from her. Mostly I have learned to just let go. To pick my battles. And to enjoy every moment I can.
Most important to share every bit of love I can with her and her cousin Ellie.
I will not waste one moment I have on this earth to share with them. To learn from them. To love them.

Happy Earth's Birthday Party to you! Happy New Year! I hope it is a blessed one for you all...

Mina and Asteroid Andy

My Christmas Card...For You...

Mary's Moment- by Laurie A. Blair 2011  

I remember the night I had my son...
I was fairly young, a little scared, and in labor for a long time. 24 hours to be exact.
Horrible back labor.

I knew what to expect for the most part. But it was still overwhelming... emotionally and physically.
But I had a hospital, doctors, nurses.
I was in a warm hospital room with lights and a bathroom and it was really clean!

I often think what it must have been like for Mary as she labored to birth our savior.
Cold and dark, a dirty stable, probably a little hay to lay on maybe a blanket or cloth covering it and Joseph. If she was lucky maybe a midwife. I am sure it was not painless. God wanted Jesus to be born into the human world so he could understand it. He would have wanted him to experience birth as well as death, in all the ways we do.

I remember feeling the urge to push, and smiling because it felt so good, I knew I was almost done at that point. I was going to meet this child that I felt I had known forever. Back then Ultrasounds did not tell the sex of the child. But I just knew it was a boy! I pushed as they ran me down the hallway to the delivery room, even though they told me not to... I couldn't help it. I had to!

Can you picture Mary, pushing, pushing! knowing this child, her child, God's son, would be the Savior of man, the world! So much pressure and pain. And then suddenly the head frees itself from her body and the rest of the child follows sliding into Joseph's hands. He places the baby on her chest on a swaddling cloth, Mary rubs the baby's back instinctively until he begins to cry, shaking, he is cold. Joseph helps her swaddle the babe, and she pulls him close...

When James finally broke free of my body and they placed him on my chest. I felt such JOY! I could not feel any pain. I know there was pain, but I suddenly have no recollection of it. All I can see is this beautiful babe, the fingers and toes, his little body shaking and crying that little vibrating cry that newborns have. The nurses take him and rub him down, and wrap him. They place him back in my arms and dim the lights. Andy stands next to me in tears. We are both crying. The love we feel is overwhelming....And looking up at us with beautiful blue, blue eyes, our son. So innocent and trusting, and beautiful.

I am sure Mary felt these things too as her beautiful baby looked up at her and Joseph. The love that must have radiated from that small family...and then it happened, a heavenly chorus! can you imagine? In that crowded little town! People had to stop in shock and awe! The bible says the GLORY shone round him, I imagine it not only as a light but a sound, and a feeling! POWERFUL! Like being in a musical tornado! But Mary I imagine like me was looking into her sons beautiful blue, blue eyes. But his eyes, reassuring, all knowing, peaceful, sure...So innocent and trusting. Full of love...

Oh what a wonderful thing! A SAVIOR, a COUNSELOR, a KING of KINGS born for all of us.

As we prepare to celebrate his birth, lets remember all the ways our Savior experienced our world so he could truly understand us, and unselfishly accepted a very human, painful death to relieve us of our sins and to give us eternal life.

I will never forget a single moment of any of my children's births.

I am sure Mary remembered every moment of her son's birth as she stood before the cross.

Happy Birthday dear Savior... Thank you.

Blest be The Tie that Binds....

Beautiful Ribbon!

This is going to be hard for me to write. I am crying already...
This Blog has been in my head for months. Oh, who am I kidding, years...

You see, like these ribbons, my family is everywhere.
Some of us meet in places quite a bit, others we only meet occasionally, and some, well we're lucky if we can get together once or twice in a 20 year span...

But if I could, I would squeeze them all in my tiny apartment for hours and fill myself up with LOVE and JOY.
Oh the remembered days of gathering at both my grandparents with family at Christmas!
How I miss those days!!

Being woken up by our own children at 5 am in the morning, pretending we did not hear them when they really got up at 3 am. Listening to them wrangle about who would come and wake us and what time did they think we wouldn't say "go back to sleep!". They too are now spread out and far enough away that it can be a chore for them to come on Christmas. And I want them to have the opportunity to form their own Christmas traditions.

But, at this time of year more than any other, I miss my sisters and brothers.
I miss the ability we have to sit in a room and just get each other. maybe not always agree with each other, but certainly accept and love one another. When we were younger, and times were hard, we used to tell each other that when it came down to it, we were the best friends we would ever have. Each other!

I have never laughed so hard, never cried so profusely, never played so freely, or danced and sang so joyfully as I ever have with them.

But more than that, I respect them, I like them! I like what makes them each who they are. All their quirks
( and believe me I have more than a few of my own ) , only serve to endear them to me. Watching their family's as they have grown and changed and wishing I could be closer to share in each special moment.

I still remember getting up with them early on Christmas morning and looking for reindeer tracks on the porch roof. Opening our presents and being so happy at the coming day full of Family and visiting. You would think it was the presents. But, no, not so much for me. It was the people...

Now years later, as Christmas draws closer, that" tie that binds" tugs at my heart more and more. I can feel them, as bright and wonderful as those colorful ribbons, familiar and comforting. So close, but so far. Time, like the silky ribbons slipping through my fingers

I wish I had paid better attention, appreciated that time and the people more.
Because I see that it is getting harder and harder, with life and distance, to align the ribbons of our life and to come together.

But in my heart, we are all together, all our family, here, squished into my tiny apartment. There is LAUGHTER and SONG, TEARS of JOY and SHARING. Because distance and life can never take away the tie that binds, LOVE!

I love you, Bonnie, Naomi, David, Michael and Chris. Merry Christmas.

Laurie, David, Bonnie, Michael, Naomi, and Chris

ROY G BIV!

Beautiful Rainbow!

I am a foolish woman...
At least that is what some people have called me.
A daydreamer, my head in the clouds...
Most of my life this name has been attached to me in an unflattering way.

They think I am not realistic.

I see reality every day, it strikes me in the face every morning when I wake up.
I see people struggling, hurting, hurting each other...

I watch the news.
I have troubles. Hurts, pain and sorrow...

But somewhere along the way, as a child,  I found a way to see hope!
Believe in love and forgiveness. To believe in the seemingly unbelievable. The goodness of mankind. Faith in an unseen God.

My favorite story in the Bible is Noah and the Ark.
Noah had faith, he saw something other people just couldn't see. They thought he was foolish. A daydreamer, totally unrealistic. I mean really, an Ark built in the middle of nowhere, no rain in sight!
But he saw the world in a different way. And God brought him into that world because he had Faith. Because he believed in what some said was unbelievable. Unrealistic!

In the past I let that reference to me as a daydreamer scar me.
Now, my scars are a badge of honor.

Yes, I have HOPE and FAITH, I see JOY and LOVE and FORGIVENESS all around . I see the goodness of man . I look at sunsets, and smiling children. I giggle and laugh and seek to help others find the same HOPE I find everyday.

Why do we feel the need to make people look at all the ugliness in the world? Why do we feel that if they are not wallowing in it that they don't get it? That they are foolish? Daydreamers....

I think a God that made a promise in a RAINBOW, and threw it across the heaven's for everyone to see, I think he wants daydreamers, believer's, hopeful people. People who see the colors of life and beauty that surrounds them as well as everything else.

Today, it rained all day, and I listened to everyone complain about the rain. The news, my husband, people at the store.

Me? I was the foolish woman at the window looking for the little bit of sun and a RAINBOW.

They are there. Keep looking....