BROTHERS

Being a Big Brother seems to just come naturally to Casen. He has been so sweet right from the start with Liam. At first it was, "BABY!" but now the little guy is Liam to Casen. It is pronounced by Casen as one syllable - it sounds so sweet out of his mouth!




Casen reminds me so much of Amanda when we had Jordan. She was so in love with babies and to have one of her own put her over the top. Casen is that way with Liam.

At home, Casen will be busy playing and he will spot Liam. He drops whatever he is doing, runs over and gives Liam some love. It is so sweet to watch him rub his check against Liam and give him little kisses.

I love the thought of them growing up together. I am praying already they will be friends as well as brothers.

Our Second Grandson

Liam Benjamin Nichols

Born Monday, Dec. 28th

At 4:36 p.m.

Weighing 8 lbs. 3 oz.

Length 20 inches.

He is a bundle of blessings!

Tea Parties and Little Boys

If you know me at all - you know I have dreamed of grandbabies for years and years before we were blessed with Casen, our almost 2 year old grandson. I couldn't wait to hold them, love on them and to eventually do all the things Grandmas do with their grandbabies. One of the dreams I had was to have tea parties with any granddaughters we might have. I figured that dream would be on hold for a while with having Casen and now his little brother on the way, but today I was proved wrong.

I have a toy chest that holds bags of fun things - a camouflage bag with toy soldiers and tanks, an ocean print with pirates, treasure and a shark - you get the picture. One the bags is definitely a girly bag - big, bright daisies on a bright green background. Inside is a children's tea set. It has not seen the light of day since our "faux" grand-daughters in Arizona had played with it. Well this morning, Casen discovered the girly bag. I thought, "Oh well this might last a couple of minutes." I began to show Casen how to set up the tea set and "serve" tea. I found out that having a tea party with a little boy differs from having one with a little girl.

Difference #1: when setting up for a tea party, boys - unlike girls, do not like setting it up in the traditional manner instead it is much more entertaining to stack the tea cups, saucers, plates, teapot, sugar bowl and flatware until the tower comes tumbling down (reminded me of Jericho's wall - I think I know why little boys love that song and story!). This action demands a break from the tea party to hunt up the tea set - thank goodness the tea set is made of plastic!

Difference #2: when pretending to add sugar to the tea in the cups - little girls daintily stir the imaginary tea with a spoon but little boys apparently stir it so vigorously that the tea cup eventually is spinning (sometimes off of the table!) which brings lots of laughter and more stirring!

Difference #3: instead of pretending to delicately sip from the teacups, boys like to make slurping sounds and end the drink by tossing the cup aside and immediately repeating with a new cup. I'm still not sure why this occurred, Casen has pretty good table manners and doesn't toss dishes from the dinner table. Maybe he thought since it was pretend it may as well be fun?

My tea party with Casen may have been different from the tea party than I had dreamed of but I wouldn't trade it for anything! I love my Boy!

Haunting The Zoo!

We took Casen to the Haunting at the Zoo. They had trick-or-treating for all the children. Of course Casen went as his favorite - a Lion . . . ROAR!!!!!

Waiting . . .

I think God is teaching me about waiting on His timing. Brian and I thought we would be settling into our new apartment in OKC, making it our home by now. We thought we would have already taken Casen to the park (several times), the library and probably to Target for a new toy or book. We believed we would have eaten a few meals with Amanda, Josh and Casen, maybe even took supper over after their long day at work. We had hoped to have begun our search for our new church home. We thought we would be taking a trip up to Kansas to see my family and would be receiving and giving some TLC.

But here we are, in Sierra Vista, in an almost empty house - still waiting for everything to be finalized so we can get a firm closing date. We tried to mess with the timing, even reserved the U-Haul, made calls to see how things were progressing and got to the point we actually had to take a card table and folding chairs out of the storage unit (see earlier post). And still we are waiting.

Yesterday, I was praying, asking God to hurry up and get the ball rolling - please. It dawned on me as I was finishing up by telling him that I was trusting this to him that I haven't been trusting it to Him! I was convicted. We have been trying to do this in our timing, not leaving it to Him and His timing!

Psalm 27:14, "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."

Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I am asking Him to write His words on my heart! Asking Him to let it be in His timing for He sees the whole picture!

Friendship

If you are a female and if you were in Girl Scouts or Brownies, you might remember a song about Friends. I remember it going like this:

Make new friends,
But keep the old.
One is silver,
And the other's gold.

There may be more verses, but that is what I can remember.

I met my friend, Joyce about 28 years ago. We became friends because we went to church together and were pregnant during the same time and became mothers with babies around the same time. Through the years our friendship has grown. Truthfully, that growth is mostly due to her and her heart.

She has always been there for me, not just in words, but in deeds.

Joyce was there for me those months Brian was at the BP Academy. She had me come over every Tuesday after picking up Jordan up from Kindergarten. We watched a soap together, she cooked lunch (with enough leftovers for the kids and I for dinner) and I ironed (a task that weirdly - I love doing). The boys played. It was a win-win deal.

I can't count the number of times she picked up my relatives flying into Tucson through the years. Normally, it was because someone else I loved was having surgery. She brought snacks up to the hospital waiting rooms, sat untold hours waiting for the doctors to come and deliver news of our loved ones and often would taxi people back to the airport to catch their flights home. She even housed some of us through the years during those visits.

She loves my children. She rejoices over the good things in my childrens' lives and prays over their struggles. She always wants to see them when they are in town even if we can only meet for a quick supper somewhere.

When she had her first grandson - Landon. She graciously let me share in Grandmothering him. She did this because she knew how I longed to be a grandmother and knew I would fall in love with her grandbaby. He was just a day old when she called and asked me to come and see him. I worried that his mommy and daddy wouldn't appreciate me coming so quickly to meet him, but I shouldn't have worried. They apparently have Joyce's gracious spirit.

When my family comes now, she (and sometimes her husband Martin) come down and share a meal with us or spend a day with us. She calls my Mom - Mom and my sisters - her sisters. She even calls Sharlene by her family nickname - Sissie. Joyce is family now too.

Joyce is my "gold" mentioned in the song above. She is a blessing in my life and has been for almost 30 years. The hardest part of leaving Arizona for me is that I won't have Joyce just an hour away. I will miss her.

In Storage and Out of Storage

I knew it would happen and today was the day. It began last night, Brian and I were going to play a game of Hand and Foot on the bed. Keep reading . . . that is a CARD game. We struggled trying to keep our cards lined up and keep ourselves comfortable. The cards didn't keep lined up and we weren't comfortable. This morning after our walk, Brian comes in and tells me that we are going to go get a card table and two folding chairs from storage. I just smiled. I knew it would happen since almost everything we own is in the unit. Now we have a card table with chairs to play a card game and for meals. Oh and by the way, I won the game last night.