Our Hands Can Become His Hands: A Little Christmas Miracle

Two year old Lucy was excited for Christmas to come soon.  Her family was busy making Christmas treats, wrapping interesting looking packages, decorating the Christmas tree and getting ready for company to come spend the holiday with them.  Lucy loved the tree with its shining lights and beautiful ornaments.  As the children made their Christmas lists, Lucy could only think of one thing.  “This Christmas, I want a little Christmas tree of my very own!” she said.

A few days before Christmas, Lucy wasn’t feeling very well.  Her mother took her to the doctor who sent them off to the ER where Lucy was admitted to the hospital.  It was scary at the hospital and she didn’t like the things they did to her there to help her feel better.  They hoped she would only have to stay one night so she could go home to her family by Christmas Eve, but Lucy was still too sick to go home, so she and her mother prepared to spend another night in the hospital.  Maybe, just maybe, she’d be able to go home on Christmas Day.

Lucy’s dad was left to entertain their company and make the final preparations for Christmas morning.  Lucy’s brother and sisters were not even allowed to come to the hospital to visit her.

On Christmas Eve as Lucy and her mother cuddled together in her hospital room, an elderly lady from a nearby assisted living home came to the door.  She had brought toys for the children in the hospital and had even remembered the mothers there with their children.  She brought Lucy a little stuffed animal, but Lucy’s eyes opened wide when she saw what was in her other hand. The lady had intended the gift for Lucy’s mother, but Lucy just knew immediately that it was for her!  It was a beautiful glass Christmas tree that lighted up and changed colors.  Just what she wanted! Lucy didn’t let that tree go all night.  She slept with it cradled in her arms.

As her mother said, “Christmas in the hospital is not ideal, of course. Mary and Joseph may have preferred it to a stable. So I won't fuss too much about it. Lucy only put one thing on her Christmas list this year- her own little Christmas tree. Last night a little old lady from a nearby assisted living center brought by some gifts. Lucy got her own little light up Christmas tree. I'm sure this lady had no idea, but did what she could and that was exactly what was needed.”

While Lucy slept that Christmas Eve, Santa even found all the sick children in the hospital and remembered them with gifts, but one of the best gifts of all was when her family was given permission to come see her on Christmas Day for a little while.

Happily, Lucy passed the test of being without extra oxygen the day after Christmas and was able to go home at last!

So many people made her Christmas better…her doctors, nurses and other care givers, her family, the elderly lady, and those who prayed for her recovery.  As Pres. Uchtdorf said, “As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.”  It is not unusual for Heavenly Father to use us to bless the lives of our families and friends.

Amelia's Magic Box

Amelia and her great-grandma came to stay at our house for a few days.  Shortly after Great-grandma went shopping, Amelia discovered a magic box.  It looked like an ordinary box of Peanut M&Ms, but when Amelia opened the box, only one piece of candy was there, so she ate it.  Later she found the box on a chair and picked it up.  It rattled!  Something was inside!  It was another piece of candy! So, she ate it.  A few hours later she found the box on the table, so she picked it up again...and it rattled again, so she opened it up and ate it.  This happened several times during the day.  That magic box kept refilling itself with candy!

This morning when Amelia woke up, she found the previously empty magic box..and guess what?  A candy was inside.

I would very much like to have a box like this!

Blessing Day

Today we went to visit baby Genevieve again as it was her special blessing day.  Her mother spent some time making her an outfit to wear for the occasion. After making her a little white dress, her mom spent some time putting ribbon embroidery on it...a skill she was first exposed to years ago in activity days.  She also made Genevieve some little felt shoes which she also decorated with ribbon embroidery.  Lastly she made baby a little white bonnet, fashioned from a white handkerchief with an edge crocheted by baby's great-great grandmother.

Genevieve did a wonderful job and did not cry a bit.  Her Daddy gave her a beautiful blessing while coping with the necessary crutches due to his broken leg.  He was assisted by 2 uncles and a grandpa.  Genevieve has learned to smile and enjoys looking around.  She does NOT like to be cradled like a new baby anymore.

Worth Waiting For - Part 2 - Lucy Rebecca

We have known for some time that February would be a busy month and so it has proved to be.  After leaving from our visit with Genevieve Rose and her family, we had just three days at home before leaving again.  We caught up on laundry and packed our car again.  Included in the car were eight cases of special milk from Gossners which the grandchildren love.  After spending a day in windy Wyoming, we arrived ready to greet another new grandchild and care for more grandchildren.  Once again we waited although technically she was probably not really late.  It is just that the doctor and baby's mother had their differences on what the correct day was.  (Mom's idea proved to be more accurate.)

We spent the week preparing freezer meals, catching up on laundry and other similar activities.  We read with grandchildren and helped with special school projects.

At last, our wake up call came at 4:30 AM as they decided to go to the hospital after a couple of hours of serious contractions.  Just before 7 AM, little Lucy Rebecca made her way into the world.

She was soon the recipient of a fancy hat and matching socks.  Her parents chose pink because they were sure that would be popular with the big sisters who were waiting with us at home.

After church, we all wanted to go meet little Lucy for the first time.  Her older siblings were very anxious to see and hold her!

They were all anxious to shop at the present store where they found a soft star that played Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, a pink and white bunny and a lady bug washcloth/puppet.
Mother and baby were doing well and were bored at the hospital, so arrived back home around lunch time the next day.  Lucy was great entertainment and the center of attention for the rest of the day!

It is hard to believe that we are lucky enough to have 22 grandchildren.

Worth Waiting For - Genevieve Rose

An early morning phone call changed our plans for a recent Saturday and soon I was on the road to a town a couple of hours south of us.  A new grandchild was due on February 4th, but on January 24th, it seemed like things might happen early.  By the time I arrived, all progress had stopped.  After that, baby teased us by giving us false hopes every few days.  While we waited we finished a quilt which was supposed to be finished before baby's older sister was born. 

Then we looked for things to do to pass the time.  We did lots of walking at the local grocery store, at Target, Cal Ranch, Walmart, Quilted Bear, a nearby mall, and any other place we could think of.  Cabelas was a favorite with the 2 year old.  Feeding the fish was fun.  The self-flushing toilets were NOT as fun.

We made pie.

We invited a cousin over to play.

When baby's actual due date came, family members demanded to see new baby pictures, but the best we could do would have required x-ray vision to actually see baby.

Finally the doctor said he didn't want to wait any longer, so the date was set.  The night before, the hospital called to schedule the time and then we all went to bed to try to get a good sleep.  Two hours later everything changed and a quick trip to the hospital ensued.  Three hours from the first wake up, there was a beautiful new family member.

Genevieve Rose

Three hours after her birth, her big sister Amelia awoke to find that her parents had disappeared in the night.  She was feeling a bit sad about that until I told her I'd show her a picture.  When she saw the picture her dad sent from the hospital she was like a kid at Christmas...so excited to see that the long awaited sister had appeared.

After eating breakfast and getting dressed Amelia and I decided we wanted to go check this new sister out in person.  On the way, we stopped at the present store (in this case it was the local Dollar Tree) so she could choose a birthday gift for baby.  It is always interesting to me to turn a child loose in the store to see what they might choose.  After going up and down the aisles and surveying stuffed animals and various other possibilities, she narrowed her choices down to two.

Would it be the pink, fragrant bottle of baby lotion?

 

Or would it be this fabulous dish washing sponge on a stick that was left in the baby aisle by mistake?

We surely hope that baby Genevieve loves her sponge!

Then she chose something special for her mother.  Fortunately it was close to Valentines Day, so there were some pretty decent choices.  She ended up with a Valentines balloon that said 'I Love You'.

Then it was finally off to the hospital to meet baby Genevieve in person.  Amelia was enchanted.

Instead of the traditional little bows for little girls, someone crocheted little hair doodads for all the new little girls.

We loved that one of the nurses fashioned this fancy hat.

Amelia was anxious to scramble up to observe the changing of the diaper.  She appeared to be shocked and horrified when she saw the diaper had a full load.  She clapped her hands over in mouth in shock.  It was at that point that baby made her first noise since Amelia had been there and started to cry a bit.  Amelia looked around in panic until we all reassured her that this was a normal thing.

We took a quick picture of the happy family before  we headed back home.

A couple of days later, it was time for mother and baby to come home as well.  Baby Genevieve somehow looked older in real clothes.

I am sure fun times are yet to come!

Christmas Scavenger Hunt

At Christmas,  we trade getting gifts for a family.  This year one of our daughters and her family had our names.  When we opened the box on Christmas morning, we found 6 smaller boxes and envelopes inside along with a letter explaining that we should open box #1 first and then do what it said before opening the next box. Pictorial evidence of compliance was to be posted where they could see it.

The first directions from Liliana were to find a moose...but not in our house.  I guess she knew we had several moose items easily at hand and just wanted to make it harder for us!  There are wild moose around our area but I haven't actually seen one for 4-5 years now but I thought I knew where to find a moose that would work, though it was not readily available on Christmas Day.  We went to the sporting good section of a local store to see if they had a target with a moose picture on it, but they only had zombies.  Fortunately as we were leaving we found this cute moose.

Lincoln wanted us to find a race car.  We managed to find that, also.  I really wanted to find an Indy type race car since that is what I grew up with, but we decided this one would work just as well.

 

Emmaline came up with quite a challenge.  At first I thought it said to wok a dog.  I think we had a cookbook like that once.  No, we were to walk a dog.  We don't have a dog.  Most of our neighbors don't have dogs.  We couldn't just walk up to some stranger walking a dog and grab the leash!  They would think we were dognappers.  Then we remembered that long ago, the woodworker was the high school yoyo champion!  Sure enough, he still remembered how to do the yoyo trick called walk the dog!  

Imogene thought we needed to feed a horse.  Again...we have no horse.  Fortunately we knew where there were some horses that were friendly where we volunteer in the summer.  It meant we had to sort of trespass a bit since they are closed right now, but we managed it.

Coralie wanted us to swing at the park.  Hm.....our park HAS no swings!  Hopefully we found a suitable alternative!

The very last box had the instructions to go out to dinner and included a gift card to HuHot  Mongolian Grill, where it seems possible to get food that fits any diet.  It took a while to figure out the best day to treat ourselves with dinner but we finally decided we'd just kill two birds with one stone and go on my birthday, which we did.  Don't judge the quality of the food by the facial expressions.  Pictures taken while eating never turn out well!  It was delicious!

 

 

Christmas Ornaments With Stories

Every year we seem to acquire new ornaments for  our Christmas tree.  This year I made them myself.  I took a round piece of plastic mesh about 3 inches in diameter.  Then I cut out 4 pictures the same size as the mesh and laminated them.  I placed them on the mesh and then used a needle to poke holes all around the edges of the mesh.  Then I used yarn to fasten the edges together and to hold the pictures in place.  It would be easy to use any sort of picture to make similar ornaments.  In this case, the color side of the ornament has pictures of the woodworkers parents and my parents.

The reverse side of the picture, the black and white side, has the same couples on their wedding days.  They were married almost 2 months apart back in 1946.  I rather liked seeing them on the tree.

The other ornament with a story is really not new.  I am sure one of  our kids made the star many years ago.  It was made from a piece of poster board, cut in the shape of a star, then covered on both sides with festive carousel pony wrapping paper.  Over the years it has been a stalwart ornament for the bottom of the tree while the more breakable ornaments hang higher, out of the reach of small children.  This year we had 7 grandchildren here to help in decorating the tree, so I handed the breakable things to the older children and gave the more sturdy things to the younger children.  Over the years we have had 3 different angels residing on the top of our tree.  The angel always goes on last.

The youngest child this year turned 2 in September and was thrilled to help decorate a Christmas tree.  At home she apparently has a storybook which shows a picture of a baby being held up by its father to place a star on top of the tree. When I handed her the wrapping paper star and told her to put it on the bottom of the tree she resisted strongly and pointed up at the top of the tree and let us know quite emphatically that she knew very well where that star belonged.  After all, she'd seen it in her book!  We called her dad into the room and he lifted her up so she could place that star right where she wanted it.  I kind of liked it there.  Maybe we'll put it there again next year.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving lasted 2 1/2 days at our house....for which we were very thankful.  Some folks sat patiently at the table waiting for the feast...although one was busily signing 'more' before he even got any food!  Some folks had to get a close up preview of the meal to come.

 In the background on the right, under the window is a fully loaded pie table to go with the rest of the feast...pumpkin, key lime, eggnog, cherry, chocolate, banana cream, rhubarb and pecan.   It is amazing how much damage 14 people can do to a turkey in a single meal!

In addition to feasting, during the weekend we made Christmas ornaments, watched some movies, made candy canes, sang Christmas carols, prepared toys to be donated to a local charity and played at the local park. 

Spending time with family is the very best part of the holiday.

Making Toys

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we were excited to have many visitors...among them 7 of our grandchildren.  Over the years they have helped the woodworker with various projects in the garage.  This weekend was no different.  The woodworker has been busy tracing and cutting out wooden toys.

Some of the grandchildren helped out with sanding the toys...

and adding the wheels.

There was quite a fleet of toys by the time they all finished.

Later they took the toys and donated them to a local agency that helps children and families.

At this season, doing a little giving is a good way to show gratitude for all of our blessings.