Belle

This morning Ellis drove to Redwood Falls MN to help with inventory at the HogSlat store. 

I drove to Blooming Prairie and rode with Krysta to her doctor appointment in Winona MN. I heard Belle's heartbeat! A beautiful sound. We are all excited about meeting this little girl very soon.

Deanne stayed with the babies. They took long naps - catching up on sleep apparently. 

Krysta and I went to a coffee shop and found some delicious peach muffins. I had coffee with mine. Krysta had a smoothie - or was it a slushy?  

This was taken at Arby's on Saturday. I forgot to add it to the blog then so I'll fit it in now.

After the coffee shop we went to a goodwill close by.

That was fun. We found all sorts of treasures.

After supper Ellis and I helped Deanne with the little ones. (Allen and Krysta had a meeting) These little people are sitting still long enough to look at books and "talk" about the pictures. 

Off to bed so we can get caught up on our sleep after the very short night we had Sunday night/Monday morning. 

Sunday with friends

Now the fun weekend is over and we're safely home. Sadly, I didn't get any pictures. 

Several years ago our daughter, Deanne, met a spunky young lady from Wisconsin. They taught school together in western Montana.

Both girls decided if they were going to be friends then their mothers must be friends,  too. They each bought a ticket and planned for our visit to Montana. 

If I remember right they also gave strict instructions that the resident snake at school must be kept out of sight when their mothers were visiting. 

Chris and I had never met until we saw each other at our gate in the airport. It was quite easy to get acquainted as we talked the whole way to Missoula, Montana. In spite of the Mennonite game we didn't come up with any blood relationship between us. But we discovered that my cousin's daughter worked at the same place as Chris.

The girls had every thing planned for a wonderful weekend. By the time we flew home we had all decided that we'd get our families together sometime that summer.

Deanne and Essy planned another weekend and we drove over to Marshfield so the "father figures" could meet. Neither one of them could understand why we were getting together to meet perfect strangers. They both cooperated with their daughters' plans, but at the same time felt it was unnecessary to add any more people into their lives. What in the world would they find to talk about?

It turns out they had many things in common and there was never any danger of running out of conversations. 

A happy heart is good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing. 

Proverbs 17:22  Amplified 

I think we are very healthy after this visit if we're going by all the laughter that took place. 

We are already looking forward to the next time.

Tuba Christmas

This morning I made the favorite cheese ball. We packed our clothes to go to Wisconsin for the weekend, then met Deanne and started out. The first stop was Tuba Christmas in Austin. 

Years ago this event was held at the Oak Park Mall. Since that closed they have met in different places. This year it was at the Historic Paramount Theater. 

The first Tuba Christmas was held in New York in 1974. It's quite simple -- tuba players get together and practice Christmas songs for an hour. Then they perform for an audience. This event took off and now many cities across the country celebrate in December by hosting Tuba Christmas. Look it up and find an event close to you and join in.

Some fun facts about this group today:

The youngest player was 11 years old and the oldest was 74. One person came from Oklahoma, another from Wisconsin. Otherwise the players were from Minnesota -  several towns close by.

We ate lunch at Arby's then started off for Marshfield Wisconsin to meet up with friends. We're spending the weekend here then back home Sunday evening. 

December Writing Challenge

December 2023

Some first cousins and distant cousins had a writing challenge in November to write every day. It was hugely successful from a reader's view point. I loved reading their posts. Thank you Arla, Luci, Shilah and Emily

I started to feel inspired and wondered if I could do the same in December. The first day went by. I can tell you what happened after the fact.  =)

I was invited to a nesting party for Krysta. Her house was humming with gals dusting, washing, sweeping and preparing freezer meals. A young girl came along to be a baby sitter. We all contributed lunch items to make a delicious meal. I ended up slicing cheese, washing dishes, providing a recipe (which I just happened to have on my phone) and reading stories to the twins after they got home from a visit to their birth mom.

When the babies took a nap I also caught up on a nap. Drove bus and swept it. I took care

of the expense reports at HogSlat so Ellis can be reimbursed for the items he pays out of pocket. 

Ellis had a delivery to make after work. I rode along for the fun of it. We stopped at Aldi on the way back through Austin. I bought several kinds of cheese, sour cream and cream cheese to make a gigantic cheese ball.

Ellis helped me clean the township hall down the road from our house. It was overrun with box elder bugs -- the pesky critters.

When we got home we had tea and a seasonal Scandinavian treat - rosettes. 

December 1, 2023 - a long, full day!

Thanksgiving 2023

Monday was the six week mark for my hip replacement.  I was supposed to have an appointment that day, but it had been canceled and rescheduled for 10:00 Tuesday  morning. 

When I headed out the door Tuesday morning I  saw the European mount on a bench beside the sidewalk. Our neighbor had dropped it off for Evan. I stopped to take a picture of it.

I was going to send the picture to our family chat so Evan could see it. That's when I noticed a missed call from Gunderson.  I listened to the message which said my appointment was canceled. "Please call this number to reschedule." I'm glad I caught that! 

 After calling Ellis to let him know I called Gunderson to reschedule. Looking at their schedule the gal said I could see Shelby next week on the 30th. The message had said it looked like there were several openings for Wednesday. (Maybe a half hour had gone by) When I mentioned that she looked again and said Shelby had no openings. "But I could get you in with Aaron/Erin." I didn't ask if this provider is male or female.  I just said, "I'll take it." (Who knows if Shelby would be available next week when the day came. I didn't want to risk it.)

So I had another day to putter around my kitchen and attempt to bring order out of chaos.

My reclaimed stove - minus a stack of dirty pots and pans.

A beginning of cleaned off counters and empty sink. The dish drainer is still drying dishes. 

I found the top of my work station. An old table that Ellis redid for me. It is a flat surface so guess what? It was piled high with stuff. 

Now I can roll out some pies or make a pumpkin roll and have a place to cool baked items. 

Of course this stuff has to go somewhere. 

I will say right now I have a war going with mice. They're using the kitchen drawers as a maze/exercise tower. If the dish cloths are in the drawer the mice either chew on them (depending on the fabric) or leave evidence that tells me they were there.

All the traps are empty. Do you have a method of reducing mice in your house? 

A cat is not an option, unfortunately. 

At 9:50 I noticed a message on my phone saying Are you here? You have an x-ray scheduled for 9:50.

I called again and repeated my line. My appointment was canceled but now I see the x-ray wasn't canceled, etc. The gal I talked to was very nice and said she'd cancel it and reschedule it for tomorrow. 

Wednesday morning we drove to LaCrosse WI. We listened to Odyssey on the way. The exciting episodes when Eugene and Katrina disappear and Whit and Jack's car is  rammed into at the post office. They give their pkg. to a woman with a gun. And we find out Mitch is dead!? How is this possible?

I cannot believe how efficient they are at Gunderson! Ellis dropped  me off a smidgen past nine. I walked to the elevators (no wheel chair) and Ellis met me there after parking  the car. We checked in on the second floor. Went back for an x-ray. Then we saw Aaron who showed us the x-ray taken today compared to the one taken during surgery.  He said everything looks good. He said it's okay to start driving bus. He answered all our questions.  

I was startled to see that the clock in the car said 10:00 when we pulled away. I don't have to go back until next year! We are so thankful!

We got supplies to put together sweet potatoes for our Thanksgiving lunch at Maranatha Bible School.

Ready for the oven.

                    Happy Thanksgiving!

this brought back memories

This morning I read Krysta's blog post here and immediately started forming my own blog post in my head.

.... a  weird thing that writers do every now and then.

Thoughts on preparing for birth.

In 1982 when we were expecting Jeremy to join our family we were in the middle of putting a chimney in our house. It was the last week of September in Montana. We still had a week before my due date. I mean, what's the rush? The weather is cold - we have no heat in the house - what could go wrong? We just moved over to Dad and Mom  Harshbarger's for a day or two while the guys worked on that. 

Jeremy announced that he was on the way in the middle of the night (early morning) of October 1st. We drove to the hospital and as we were driving lazy snowflakes slanted across the darkness in front of our headlights. 

I remember Ellis talked to my sister-in-law and told her my contractions were 4 - 5  minutes apart. She later mentioned to me that she couldn't understand why we rushed off to the hospital if my contractions were 45 minutes apart.

Jeremy Ellis arrived later that afternoon. Before I came home - after two or three days of lollygagging in the hospital - the chimney  was in and the furnace up and running. We moved to Minnesota when Jeremy was about five months old.

In 1987 the guys at church were in the middle of building a new church/school near Blooming Prairie, Minnesota. Instead of prayer meeting September 2nd we had a work evening. The women gathered in Frieda Yoder's dining room and worked on sewing projects. The guys were getting an area ready for school. One bathroom was being finished and the front entrance was set up to be our little (temporary) school room.

I remember we brought Jeremy's bike along and he was zipping around the driveway. I felt the familiar contractions 4 - 5 minuets apart right in the middle of hemming a baby blanket for the church nursery. We hugged Jeremy goodbye and went off to the hospital  to get a baby brother or sister for him. He spent the night with Grandpa and Grandma.

Evan Jared arrived in the wee hours, September 3rd.

Life with two boys was exciting. It became even more so when a little sister joined them May 10, 1989.

Did I have freezer meals made ahead? I can't remember. I had a suitcase packed and arrangements made for my sister to come over and stay with the boys if we had to leave in the middle of the night.

May 9th was a beautiful spring day. We went on a school picnic at Todd Park. In the afternoon when we came home we briefly talked about planting the garden, but then decided to call it a day. Fortunately,  we were able to wake Trenda up around midnight. We piled in the car and headed for Austin the minute she drove in our lane. Florence Deanne arrived a couple hours after we got to the hospital. 

Getting a name ready is part of the process, right? I think Ellis and I spent a lot of time reading baby name books out loud to each other. Oh, the many conversations involved in naming a child. For instance, why did we name Deanne - Florence Deanne - instead of Deanne Florence?  We wanted her to have her Grandma's name, but also have her own name. We thought Florence Deanne flowed better than the other way around. 

We looked for names that were unique but not too far off the wall. Ellis overheard a news reporter asking the nurse, "When's the last time you had a Florence here?" And he could almost see the eyes rolling when the nurse replied, "It's been forever!"

The reporter was doing an article on Mother's Day and talking to the nurse on duty. Since Deanne was the only baby in the nursery at that moment she got her picture in the paper. Held by the nurse who thought, "This baby has an old-fashioned name, poor darling!"

Jorgan Thayne has to spend his life explaining his name to strangers. When they first hear the name almost invariably the first thing they say is, "Jordan?" 

I started saying, "It rhymes with Morgan," when I said his name. Thayne is a variation of Thane ... an author's name. I have enjoyed reading Elswyth Thane's historical novels through the years. Her Williamsburg Novels begin with Dawn's Early Light, Yankee Stranger, Ever After and The Light Heart. She follows up with Kissing Kin, This Was Tomorrow and Homing. 

That's where the name Thayne came from. Another point of interest is my sister is named Maria Layne. Ellis and I both like Layne and thought about using it for Jorgan's middle name. Then we thought, "No, better not. What if Doug and Maria want to name one of their children Layne?"

When Jorgan was just a wee baby we got the exciting news that Doug and Maria adopted a little girl born in Haiti. Her name is Jaimie Layne and her birthday is five days after Jorgan's. We have twins in the family! Jorgan Thayne, born April 10, 1994 and Jaimie Layne, born April 15, 1994. 

That brings us to Krysta Dawn who arrived March 30, 1998. 

I got to choose Krysta's birth date. She kept on moving around and being sideways instead of head down. The Dr. said, "Choose a day, come in and turn the baby and induce labor." I said, "How about Wednesday?" She looked at the calendar and asked, "Do you want your baby to be born on April Fool's Day?" 

Maybe not. 

So I chose Monday of that same week. That's how it happens that Krysta does not share a birthday with Aunt Edith, Ellis's sister, who turned 50 that year.

Wash the baby clothes. Fix the freezer meals. Prepare for child care. Clean the house, but don't go overboard with that nesting instinct and get all tired out before the big day. Take walks. You're getting ready for a marathon. Drink water. Choose the soothing music and comforting Bible verses.

I'm so happy to think about a little granddaughter coming to that busy house on 2nd Street!

Brooke's Wedding

My favorite color is blue. Isn't this beautiful?

At each place a charcuterie in a jar (plastic cup). Originally Trenda thought about rounding up cute jelly jars for this. I'm glad she simplified that. I didn't get there in time on Friday to help. Maria got in on washing the fruit. Fruit, cheese, slices of meat folded in fourths, cucumber slices, small tomatoes - all arranged in the cup - why didn't I take a picture of one? 

My mom with five of her great grandchildren.

Where was Ezra? These beautiful people are Trenda and Jerry's grandchildren.

                   Here comes the bride!

There's the invitation which was hanging on my bulletin board at home. Ladina sent a picture so we had an address for the church.

Inside the church. I've never been to an orthodox wedding. At first Allen was going to keep the babies in the basement until the ceremony was over and join us for the reception. Then Allen and Krysta changed their minds and brought them to the service. They sat right behind us so we got to help show them books and keep them distracted. Jasper was almost sleeping. The twins had wonderful naps ahead of time. They all had lunch in their tummies. All in all they were quite charmed with looking at the chandeliers, pictures, stained glass windows and hearing the words chanted along with soft, harmonizing songs. 

The pictures are backwards I realize now - starting with the reception and then the ceremony. In real time it was the other way around, of course.  Credits go to my sisters.

Thank you!

Welcome to the family, Will.