BREAKING BREAD TOGETHER

Last night was a fun night at our house as we entertained guests. Actually we had 2 of our favorite friend couples (Don & Barbara & Jack & Mary) in to meet our daughter, Jacque's, special man in her life, Benny. So counting Mickey & I there were 8 of us.

We have such great friends and we love getting together and seems like a lot of the times we spend together are eating at each other's homes. There is something special about "Breaking Bread Together".

I am putting the finishing touches on the table setting in this picture. I had been cooking all day because the meal I prepared was a family recipe I've had for years. It is spaghetti, but it is made not only with home made sauce but also a big roast. It is yummy and one of my specialities. We also had a big tossed salad, home made dressing, and garlic bread. For dessert I had a chocolate cake and then Mary (who was not suppose to bring anything!!!!) brought not one, but two home made pies. Apple & Cherry. Apple because she knows Mickey loves Apple Pie and Cherry for me. Thank you Mary, you're always such a sweetheart. So you could have your choice or sample all!!

We had a fun evening of laughter, talk and just enjoying each other. Sweet, sweet fellowship. Lots of talk about everything from The Lord to Benny's new boat he just bought and Jack's new motorcycle, our upcoming trip to Nova Scotia. We have no shortage of talking material. Dinner was at 6:30 and we broke up about 9:30.

The Lord blesses us so much and one of our true blessings has been the wonderful people he brings into our lives.

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OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES

As you know I posted, just yesterday about our son, Marc, being a single dad. Well this morning, on the phone Marc shared the following with me.

Marc & Oksana had a counseling session yesterday afternoon. Usually grandpa and I pick Aric up from school and then Marc & Oksana come in when they are finished with the counseling. This time we had a mix-up on the counseling date and since I had already scheduled this dinner for the 8 of us there was no way we were available to get Aric. Marc said, "No problem I'll just take him with us".

Well, seems 8 year old Aric got a little bit upset because HE wanted to go into the room with the counselor and "have a little talk". The counselor spoke up and said, "We'll perhaps we can just do that next time. We'll have to ask "Dad"." To which, Aric replied, "HIS NAME IS MARC". Gotta love these kids!!

Early Years

I was going through some old photographs and decided to post this one of me and my 12 year old sister, Marion, taken in 1938.

Marion was so beautiful. She had dark brown hair and blue-blue eyes. I was blond with hazel eyes. My mother was 19 when Marion was born and 31 when I was born. My father was 52 when I was born. (I invite you to read my tribute to my father which I posted earlier.)

Marion died in 1985 of cancer. She was 60 years old and far to young. She preceded my mother to Heaven by 5 months. My mother grieved horribly over her death. I missed them both so much.

Addendum

This is the conclusion of my post yesterday about the challenge of raising children. It is really two examples about how life changes and how often we have to adjust our attitudes, either good or bad.

#1 - During the time my two daughters were very young I had a very dear friend, Bev, who had a little boy, Larry, 1 year younger than my girls. As stated in the original post my two little girls were usually very well behaved and obedient. Larry, on the other hand, was a typical, rambunctious little boy. The type that was always getting into some type of adventure that usually ended up with his getting in trouble.

Fast forward about 10 years...... my David is the age Larry use to be. One day Bev and I were shopping. David was doing the usual: peeking under the dressing room doors, hiding under the clothes rack, just being his normal rambunctious self. Suddenly my dear friend said, "Susan this does my heart good!" I said "What do you mean?" She related how when Larry was that age and we'd be out together and I would act like I didn't even know her. I said, "I DID not". To which she replied: "Oh yes! For example, I remember once in a furniture store when Larry was jumping on the furniture and you, with your 2 girls, just walked about 20 feet ahead of me and pretended like you didn't know me". I didn't specifically remember doing that but I probably did!!! The moral of this one......be careful of your judgements on other people the circumstances can change and you'll be "eating your words" or in this case, my actions.

#2 - I had the 4 children. Their ages were about 2, 7, 15 & 16. David's friend, Rodney, (who I spoke about in the previous post) was an only child. His mother, Mary, and I became friends. Rodney's father was a lawyer and they lived in a much bigger home down the street from us. When I would visit at Mary's everything was always in perfect shape. Everything clean, shiny and in its place. Not a speck of dust on the Ethan Allen Furniture. Mary would come to my home and it always seemed like I was in the middle of folding a large pile of laundry, toys would be strung out across the living room, the girls school books would be all over the kitchen table. You get the picture. Seems like I would begin each visit apologizing for how messy everything was.

Fast forward about 6 years.........Mary had 3 more sons in a space of about 5 years! Right after the birth of her 4th son I went down to visit and see the newest baby. Her mother had come in from another city to help out, there were wet clothes hanging all over the living room, the other 2 infants were banging items or rolling cars on the Ethan Allen Furniture. You get the picture. I said to Mary and her mother, "This does my heart good!". They said, "What do you mean?" and I relayed the story of how I would feel years before when Mary, with her only child, would come into my disheveled home of 4 children. The moral of this story.......times and circumstances do not remain the same and I've learned not to be so harsh, critical or judgmental of either myself or others.

The Challenge of Raising Children

I was blessed this morning to begin my day seeing this beautiful sunrise compliments of Seeds From My Garden. Next to seeing it with my own two eyes was getting to view this beautiful shot:-)

Ginger has once again inspired me to write in an entirely different direction than I had on my mind. Go over and read her lovely post about the child in the Dr. office and then the comments relating to that post, especially hers about her third daughter Jenna. Hence my story!

I had two little girls born 1 year and 9 days apart. I use to say it was like having twins the hard way. Suzette and Jacque were basically very obedient and docile children and naturally, being mine, I adored them. Because they were obedient and docile I took great pride in being such a good young mother!!!

Fast forward............8 1/2 years later our first son was born. We were so delighted. We had wanted a son and had waited a long time for him. Well, almost from the beginning David was a challenge to this young mother and her pat child rearing skills.

First of all he never really crawled. He would kind of scoot but never got up on all fours. What he did do was begin walking at about 7 months and by 9 months he was running. He was into life and finding out all about this great big world in a big and fast way.

I also found out very quickly what a strong willed child he was. The first real test that I remember was we had a small TV on a TV stand. The stand had a shelf where we kept the newspapers. David would pull down the papers....I would say "no-no" and slap his hands and put the papers back on the shelf. Suffice it to say, he could hold out much longer pulling down than I could putting up. His little hand would literally be red from my slapping it but pull he would still do.

By the time he was two years old he was climbing the fence in our back yard. He would climb over the fence, run across the next yard, climb that fence and be into the 3rd yard before I could hardly get the back door opened and myself outside. An aside, years later when he was grown we ran into the neighbor who lived in the 3rd yard who said "I always will remember David for climbing the fence like he could!".

When he was 5 years old our second son, Marc, was born. Shortly after Marc's arrival my in-laws came from Tennessee to see our new son. I had put David down for a nap and the 4 of us were visiting. Sometime later I realized David was still napping. He usually didn't nap that long so I went to check on him. Guess what greeted me?.......an open window (he had opened the window) and no David. Across from our house was another row of houses and behind that was empty fields. He had opened that window, climbed out of the window and was gone. We hunted and hunted and finally found him playing in the dirt in the treed field. He was like "What's the matter? I'm just playing."

This incident occurred when he was in the first grade. His bestfriend was a boy, Rodney, who was the same age and lived down the street. Rodney went to a parocial school. One day I get a call that David is not in school. First grade and this kid is playing hookey!!! The story....the parocial school had a holiday that day and Rodney didn't have school. David decided he didn't have to go to school either and had gone to Rodney's house. His sister's at the time said "Well, look at it this way Mom, maybe he's going through the bad teen years early." That was a nice thought but it turned out not to be true.

Another very vivid insident I remember is this one. We had one of those above ground plastic swimming pools. A big one that was about 2 feet high. One day David threw our cat into the pool. I was horrified. I'd heard these programs on TV about kids that were mean to animals turning out to be murderers, etc. and I just paniced at the fact David had thrown the cat into the pool. I became a screaming manic myself as I yelled, hollowed and spanked him. Years later when we discussed this incident David said in his mind he was just having such a good time playing in the pool that he wanted kitty to share in the fun!!!

David has a brilliant mind. So often the really adventuress ones, the what we call, misbehaving ones, are very smart. And as Ginger so aptly stated they are exactly the way God made them to be.

By the way.....my Marc turned out to be the most docile, gentle child of our 4. He would entertain himself for hours playing with matchbox cars, etc. God knew that I was not up to handling another David.