Look who's here! It's Caden!

This awesome little Texan was born on November 4, 2015.  His Grammy Black and Aunt Alanna and cousin Jocelyn met him first. They had a wonderful time playing and rocking and taking pictures and celebrating the happiness.

On Tuesday of this week, (Thanksgiving week) Gabe and I headed to Houston to give thanks.  It was a nice 12 hour drive. We drove through Auburn, Alabama, "War Eagle" or is that "Roll Tide?"This is actually the week of the Iron Bowl. so there was a lot of football energy reverberating onto the highway as we passed.

Travelling on I-10, the only highway to travel on in the winter, is fun for a California girl. I think to myself, "Hey look, it's Mobile, Alabama. Wow, I'm in Mississippi. Louisiana, I wonder if there are gators in that swamp? Baton Rouge, Who ever thought I'd be driving through Baton Rouge?" And on and on until I drive into Houston, TX where I remember that "Everything's bigger in TX." Mostly, there's a lot of flat land, but I'm sure it's awesome flat land. And then we landed at a special place. The place where Caden lives with his fantastic mommy and daddy.

My day of  driving was rewarded with some snuggling time with little guy. Another reward was to watch my son with his son. Such joy and pride and adoring and happiness. I watched him watch his wife and baby and saw that his heart was all tied up in that beautiful sight.

This little family reminded me how thankful I am that God sent me 9 babies so they could bless me as small children and then bless me again as they start their own families. The love just doesn't end. It grows and grows.

On Wednesday Paul flew in to join the Caden party. Grandpa thought Caden would enjoy The Hunger Games so he took us all to what I believe was Caden's first movie. He was a great date. He just hung out with his mom and dad quietly throughout the whole show. Then we ate Mexican food because Wed. is 1/2 price fajita night. We didn't feed it to the baby directly, but indirectly we contributed to what I'm sure will be a long life of salsa consumption.

Ariane and Nathan have a million skills; cooking, crafts, academics, sports, music... but one of the most enviable to me is that they are very organized. I learned a lot about running a household from them. The white plastic grocery bags are stored in a clorox disinfectant wipes container. When the container is full, that's all the bags you get. No saving millions of bags that explode out of the food closet every time it's opened. The brown plastic bags are folded into little school footballs. You know what I mean, the triangles. They are stored neatly in the baby's drawer at the ready for stinky diaper disposal. Baby supplies and diapers are stored in decorative containers over the changing table. The baby station supplies that need to be in the living room are stored in pockets in the rocking chair.

When it was time to decorate for Christmas, 2 boxes were brought out. The tree was trimmed and the nativities and crafty Christmas decorations were displayed in all of 30 minutes. When I thought of the 2 days it took to get my Christmas decoration act together I almost cried.

One might think that cooking Thanksgiving dinner in an apartment with 6 people, including a new mom and baby, might be overwhelming. That problem was solved by purchasing rotisserie chickens that frankly did not disappoint. We still had potatoes, gravy, (delicious from a mix) cranberry fluff, rolls, (one of Paul's super powers) Stovetop stuffing, and Marie Callender's razzleberry pie. And of course, Gabe's favorite part of the meal--cranberry juice and Sprite. It was delicious, and I'm definitely rethinking the turkey tradition.

Pi on the pie. Okay, they're a little nerdy at this house.

Friday was our outing day. Nathan is almost finished with medical school and we had never seen where he has spent the last 3.5 years. It was fun to tour a medical center from the perspective of a student mom as opposed to a patient mom---sooo much less stressful. Maybe I should have been more stressed for my student son, but he's almost done so yay. I did get a little queasy at some of the informative posters such as identifying an abnormal nodule on a thyroid and how to properly perform a tracheotomy. But Paul thought it was very cool.

In the afternoon we decided to take Caden to the USS Texas so he could tour a battle ship and learn about being in the navy in World War I and II. Once again, he loved his outing. His dad took him up and down the stairs and the sea breeze blew and he was a champ. Ariane and Nathan secured us a tour guide even though there weren't supposed to be any official tours on that day. Paul asked a lot of questions and was so excited to find out more that I couldn't help but learn something, like the sailors were in battle station for 52 days. That meant no one left their gun room for almost 2 months. I won't ever forget that fact, and I'm thankful for their service.

Ben Affleck's bunk in Pearl Harbor.

Friday night was time to relax. We watched the ever popular Muppet Christmas Carol  and drank wassail.I The script actually stayed close to the book plus there was some great music. Okay, I'm not a fan of Miss Piggy, but she kept a low profile so the movie was enjoyable and very Christmasy, and I slaved with the baby while we watched :)

So now we're ready for the Christmas season where we celebrate the birth of our Savior, that through him all mankind may be saved and families will be together forever. I'm thankful for each dear person in my family. I'm thankful for their imperfections that help me see my imperfections. I'm thankful for their gifts that bless my life and make me proud. Not only is it a privilege to know and love them, but because of loving them, I am changing into a new and better person. I'm thankful that they have married wonderful spouses and have homes full of love and devotion. I'm blessed to have each little new one that has expanded my heart and filled the world with more love. All this, because of God's love for each of us, his children, and the precious gift of His Son, our Redeemer.

Let the celebration begin.

Crocheting: a tutorial on life.

When I was a little girl, spending time at Grandma Miller's, one of the skills she would attempt to teach me was crocheting. I dreamed of the day I would be able to crochet my own doilies for my own table with my own vase of flowers on top.

 We started learning with yarn. Grandma would create the slip knot, and I would begin my chain stitch. Some were too tight, some were too loose, but no matter, I was doing it! Then she showed me how to go back and make double stitches and triple stitches. I held the yarn in my fingers just so and went in and out with my crochet hook. Somehow, my project didn't always look like Grandma's. Did it really matter which hole I put my hook into? One loop seemed as good as any so if I lost this one I'd use that one. When Grandma came back to check on my work she would identify the problem areas and suggest I pull it out to the point of the error and then start again.  Noooo! The agony of wasted work was more than I could bear. I was all for just moving on. I justified that "no one would notice" and continued to the end. When my work was finished, and I really considered the pattern created by my time spent, I had to admit, my mistakes were definitely noticeable and obviously interrupted the pattern I was trying to achieve. The project was not acceptable. Failing to right my wrongs was not acceptable. I continued to try, but since repentance was hard I tried perfection. Well, as anyone who tries to live a perfect life knows, I was always frustrated because I was never perfect. Besides that, this was all taking way too long. I wanted to be good at crocheting much sooner than was happening, so I quit. That's right, I quit before practice made crocheting easy, and the need for the re-do became much less frequent. and the desire for a quality outcome became greater than my aversion to starting over. I learned as much as my impatience would allow, but not as much I could have had I perservered and humility and desire.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. My friend is in charge of achievement days for the 8-11 year old girls at church. She wanted to teach them how to crochet a trim on a burp cloth for newborns. She called on all women who were free during the hour to help give the girls the one-on-one help they needed. I was not unrealistic about how much help I could be, but I was free that hour and thanks to Grandma, it was not as if I'd never crocheted in my life.

In came the little girls, full of enthusiasm and confidence. The needles and thread were distributed. Okay, I did hyperventilate a little when I saw it was thread, not yarn, but I remembered my doily dream and got excited. I listened to the instructions and then realized that I needed to be shown again. I was the person that was actually supposed to be helping, but no. "Could you show that to me one more time? Could you turn a little bit so I know which hand you're using?"  After monopolizing the instructor's time and attention for as long as I could, I understood enough to help my adorable 10 year old apprentice at least get started.

I was pleased to see that she was ready to go. Her face was full of determination and desire and hope. I showed her how to make the slip knot. (I had at least retained that.) She picked up the burp cloth and the crochet hook and the thread. Well that was definitely too much to hold at once. I decided I could help her best if I held the burp cloth so she could conquer needle and thread. As one could predict for a first time experience there was lots of dropping the loop, failed attempts at finding the right hole, and tension problems, At one point, my wisdom from many years of experience suggested that we throw the entire project across the room and never pick up a crochet needle again and have a nice doughnut, but cute 10 yr. old never wavered. Eyes fixed on her task she continued on.

 After 45 minutes she observed, "It's getting easier." It was true, each inch of progress yielded more accuracy and less disappointment. I was amazed at the determined strength of this little girl. As I looked around the room I saw other little girls with the same fixed resolution to succeed as they concentrated and pressed forward. It occurred to me that I was in the presence of greatness. This idea was confirmed when cute girl shared that  every day she makes a list of her goals and puts them on a poster by her bed.

So just learn a little from my young friends. We must not give up. We must be patient with ourselves and allow our abilities to catch up with our dreams through work and repetition and commitment, and know that our future is in good hands, hands that don't give up, that are patient and persevering, and focused and hopeful and ready to serve.

Grandma goes to Omaha aka the baby+ toddler battle front.

Another little cutie baby came to our family this month. Her name is Emmaline Elizabeth Erickson. She's my 10th grandchild. Gabe's music teacher asked me if it's still exciting. My honest answer was that each new person is as amazing as the first. More posterity, more love, more life, more goodness. So, being a blessed Grandma, off I went to visit the goodness. When I go to help a new mother I don't pack much in my suitcase. I never need any nice clothes. I take 2 pair of yoga pants, 3 short sleeve tees, 3 long sleeve tees, some comfortable walking shoes and a toothbrush. I mean who are we kidding? Baby/toddler bliss includes sloppy kisses, sticky hugs, floor sitting, delicious little new people that are practicing their food processing, and lots of walking and bouncing.

My life-long friend, Joyce, who used to help me rock my own babies, picked me up from the airport and drove me to my daughter's house.  Joyce took the toddler and I took the baby and my daughter was excused for a shower. With 3 adults, we had the 2 children handled, no problem. But then Joyce had to go and there were only the two of us and that wasn't quite enough. We had to step up our game. Luckily, with baby #2, at least my daughter didn't need to learn how to nurse, just the baby.  This shortened the learning curve considerably, so there was definite victory in the baby corner.

However, the smart and wonderful 20 month-old was moving at lightning speed in his mind and body, and it was a stretch for me to keep up. Out of the dusty corners of my mind I was trying to pull out children's songs that were relevant to the moment. You have a bus? "The wheels on the bus..." Oh look a train, "Little Red Caboose..." What does the duck say? "When ducks get up in the morning..." You want to go to the park? Let's get our shoes on. You want to swing? You want to swing higher? You're done swinging? You want to climb over the fence? Did you know that we can just walk around it? You still want to climb over it? That's cool. And then Dad came home and we had the perfect 3 adults to 2 children ratio again.

Toddler went to bed at a beautiful 7:00 bedtime. Baby girl was performing top notch with her nursing and sleeping so the evening was spent recouping and preparing for the next day. I'm pretty sure I went to bed at 8:30. A grandma needs her beauty rest. Actually, beauty shmeauty--I was beat.

I had the advantage of being from the eastern time zone so when the bright and amazing toddler started bouncing in his bed at 5:30 I was at least awake.  I hadn't necessarily planned on being out of bed, but I was flexible. I thought if I brought him into my room and I kept the light off and sang songs, he would relax and rest a while longer. That was a good one. He did enjoy the songs, but he was a little confused with the darkness and put his sweet little hands on my face to make sure I was "Maya". Later I found out the rule is he can't get out of bed until 6:00 am. Good rule.

It wasn't getting any earlier so we went downstairs for breakfast. This family eats a lot of whole foods which I admire, but I usually just pass out the cereal at breakfast time. I'm game for healthy eating so I made the oatmeal and stirred in the frozen blueberries. All was well until I poured a little too much milk which resulted in soupy oatmeal. Toddler doesn't like anyone helping him with his spoon so we definitely had a recipe for disaster. Well lets be real. Food messes aren't a disaster. War, earthquakes, drug addictions-those are disaster. We were just headed for some inconvenience. There was some successful capture of blueberries and then some dribbling of sticky oatmeal on the unbibbed pajamas (sensory issues). Then there was the decided doneness which involved dumping and pouring. This scenario is not new to any mother, it just seems so vivid going through it after a few years of eating with adults.

Morning activities included washing dishes, drawing, and making a track for the train out of paper. I felt pretty good about these activities until I realized it was only 8:00 am. When do we develop our sit around and waste time skills? Not early enough. Toddlers have much to learn from Grandmas.

Speaking of learning, one of the most excruciating lessons first-borns have to learn is that they are not the only person in the world. There they are, living the good life with Mom and Dad all to themselves and then along comes a baby. It's fine when baby's tucked quietly in Mommy's tummy, but then she come out to stay with her cuteness and neediness and littleness. Mom is feeding her when it's time for books, Mom is carrying her when it's time to swing. Toddler just wants to have fun with Mom, but there's a diaper to change. Daddy wants to hold the baby when he gets home from work. It's rough.  This problem is solved by taking a teeny bite of the baby's finger or picking up the baby to show Mom who's the strongest or grabbing the end of the baby's swaddle wrap and pulling hard so the baby unwraps. (That was actually hilarious.) Being a first born I empathize, but it's all for the cause, the Eternal cause, and the sooner a person gives up the idea of being the favorite, the nicer they are to be around, and the happier they feel.

I had a lovely week. I'm so proud of my children, and my grandchildren are beautiful. But here's the truth. Moms and Dads of babies and toddlers are warriors. They don't get enough sleep. They are constantly sacrificing for others. They put duty over pleasure a thousand times a day. It's a loud, dirty, stressful job and they do it. They do it until the battle's over. And the battle is over when all their children and their children's children are safe--safe from sickness, safe from danger, safe from evil and sadness and pain. I guess that means as long as they live.

The Old Testament becomes new.

2015 is my 3rd time teaching the Old Testament in seminary. And guess what? I'm learning a lot. This past week has been glorious as we've been studying my all time favorite Bible hero-Joseph of Egypt. Isn't he just the greatest? For one thing, while his brothers are dealing with morality issues i.e. Reuben and Bilhah, Judah and Tamar, and their anger problems: Levi and Simeon  Joseph chooses to be a champion temptation resistor.  When Potipher's wife presents him with a bad option, he, of course flees. So, Joseph is already on my good side. But what really inspires me is the way he processes.

Today in seminary, the assigned exercise was to have the students consider their future plans in the following areas: School/Education; Occupation; Accomplishments; Church and Family.We talked about it a little and they shared their lofty educational and occupational goals. (Probably 80% want to be some kind of doctor.) Then we considered how Joseph would have completed the assignment. We're pretty sure he didn't list being sold by his jealous brothers into slavery and spending 14 years in prison in Egypt as his educational goal. How could he have imagined his position as being 2nd only to Pharoah as his occupation? And yet, that's how it went down. It's important to make plans, but the take away for me is to be open to and seek to know God's plans because they will be a lot more amazing than mine.

Like Joseph, I want to process the development of God's better plans with more courage and faith and hope. When Joseph was cast into prison, he didn't sit in the corner and pout. He didn't isolate himself because all hope was lost and he didn't like to associate with prisoners. He prayed and followed God and developed relationships  and improved. Mostly Joseph learned to listen to the Lord's voice, so when someone needed him to interpret what God's message was, he could do it. When he was given the opportunity to lead, he was ready because he didn't wait for conditions to be perfect. He and God used imperfect conditions to educate and learn and become.

And my favorite lesson taught by my favorite character is to come through the trials without bitterness and ill will and anger and doubt. He beautifully perceived that his brother's selling him into Egypt was the Lord's way of preserving their family. He freely forgave them and rejoiced in his reunion with them.

How much time do I waste replaying injustices in my mind, when I could be looking for the Lord's hand, learning to hear his voice, and preparing to serve in meaningful ways?

Thanks, Joseph, son of Jacob, for showing me faith, love, courage, hope, obedience and forgiveness. Maybe I can be a little more like you today.

The trek west.

Sometimes, I decide to drive from GA to UT. I'll admit it sounds horrifying, but it was actually a lovely trip. I was taking that one girl to college and she had a lot of stuff, like musical instruments, that are hard to carry onto an airplane and besides, I didn't want to miss any of the beginning of "I'm going to BYU!" so it was an easy choice.

This is all old news as it happened a month ago, but I was kind of sad for awhile since I was down a child and didn't feel like blogging about it.  Here's something to look forward to for those of you who are younger than I am; the older I get the shorter my memory has become. This contributes to shorter sadness, anger, jealousy, hurt, pretty much any emotion, because I just kind of forget what the problem was. So I'm doing great now. It also makes for some interesting story telling. I forget things that really happened, think things happened that didn't and can just embellish away without purposely telling falsehoods. So many perks to aging.

When googling our route, google maps gave us first the bad news: It is a 27 hour drive. Then the good news: You can fly it in 3:55 hrs. for $330. I ignored their attempts to discourage me and took courage in the fact that I personally know at least 5 people who have made the drive and lived to tell about it. I reasoned that Rebecca and I could take turns driving, and we were taking 5 days to get there, so it would be fine.

Except for the fact that in order to fit everything in the car, Rebecca had a duffle at her feet and several bags and a pillow on her lap, it actually was fine. We just couldn't take turns driving, because no way was I going to sit in that spot with my knees to my chin, buried in snacks. Bring on the 27 hours of driving. Thanks for being brave, Rebecca

The fun thing about driving cross country is that everything's on our way. Why not stop in Iowa and see our cousins? So we drove through Chattanooga and Nashville. In St. Louis, I commented, "Don't we know someone here?" Rebecca answered, "Yes, your son moved here 2 weeks ago." I knew that.

New midwesterners. We will see them next time.

I love GPS. It has changed my life. Millers are pretty famous for spending a considerable amount of time lost. Now we can drive right to the door. No more multiple calls, unlosing our way and guiding us in. But I know GPS can have it's quirks. At about 9:00 pm Garmin told me to turn right. We then drove along a road with a river on our right and a sheer mountain cliff on our left. Definitely the scenic route, except it was dark and we couldn't see the scene. About 20 minutes later we were back on our original road. No explanations or apologies. Garmin acted as if nothing weird had happened. I still depended on GPS, but my trust became guarded and any suspicious directions were quickly backed up with a smart phone inquiry,which is still better than unfolding and refolding a new road map at every state border.

We arrived in Cedar Rapids, IA and spent 2 lovely days with my sister and her family.  Her youngest girls are the cousins Rebecca grew up with. They have had many great adventures together and made a music video recreating their childhood memories including making up dance routines, learning how to pump so there's no need for someone to push, swinging and kicking their flip flops over the telephone wire, and other games on the swing set. They reminisced about playing in and eating the sand and that one time when the shower nozzle broke and Gwen had to hold it for Rebecca. There was dress-up and make believe in the basement, surprising unsuspecting (more like totally suspecting) family members with their whoopee cushion placement, spying, tea parties, and the "Parent Trap" handshake.The final memories were of Rebecca driving off and the cousins waiting for and receiving a letter.  Good times, good times.

And this darling song:

My sister showed me some cool apps that I shouldn't be without, the best educational TV, and she demonstrated that people who quilt and do handwork all the time have way better memories than those who spend their spare time on facebook. And she took us to the Brucemore garden show which was very fun in the cool, overcast, where's the humidity? weather.

The next leg of our trip was a breezy 4 hour drive to Omaha, NE where our other daughter lives. As a bonus, some family friends were also trekking west so obviously drove through Omaha, NE. We all went out for Mexican food (Thanks John) and enjoyed watching the newly returned SoCal missionary from Alabama speak Spanish like a pro.

I had lived in Lincoln, NE for 8.5 years and never made it to the Kanesville, Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, IA. As luck would have it, it was on our way to church so...Bucket List!!!

The third and final leg of our journey was the beast. I-80 goes through the entire state of the beloved, friendly, flat and very cornfieldy state of NE. For awhile it was a treat to see for miles with nary a forest or hill to block the view. Soon, that ceased to be exciting, but lucky for the midwest they have this yummy little  fast-food restaurant called, Runza. It's famous for award winning hamburgers, but their signature bierocks (Runzas) are what make them special. It was bucket list time for Rebecca. She actually didn't know about Runza, so I put it on her bucket list for her.

An interesting phenomena on I-80, other than Cabella's in Sidney, NE, is how, compared to the cornfields in NE, the rock formations in Eastern Wyoming are downright
breathtaking. It's all about perspective I suppose. The car functioned perfectly and all was well. There was a time, however, in the middle of WY with no cellphone reception  or signs of civilization, that I realized that a flat tire would be a very inconvenient event. I had a short burst of anxiety, a "We're gonna die!" moment and then I was good.

 One travel game that we enjoyed is called, "See how long it takes the lowlander "Doritos" to explode as we increase our altitude." We decided when it happened we'd eat them. Guess what? We won!

We arrived in UT to the welcome of this dear friend and her family who's company I always enjoy. We were treated like royalty, entertained with lovely conversation and fed yummy blueberry bread. I washed my clothes which needed to happen since the car wasn't filled with MY stuff. I kept everything in the carry on which I would use on the return flight.

It's fun to take my children to the special place that is UT. Little southern girl commented as we drove by a church, "Hey it's not Baptist." Being part of the majority religion in the region is a shock for the members of our family. And, although we live in the peach state, we have never actually seen peach orchards. On this banner day in August, our destination was Brigham City. When we saw the peach orchards and our first peach stand I thought I needed to stop because we had happened upon a rare find. The reality was that fresh peaches were plentiful. On that day, I had peach shortcake, a fresh peach and almost had a peach milkshake, but I talked myself out of it on account of the wedding food consumption of the day which was delicious.

The reason we were in Brigham City was that this beautiful niece got married. Can I tell you there are few things more joyful than being in the temple with family, especially family that I don't get to see very often? After the beautiful wedding, the luncheon. After the luncheon, taking time with sisters and nieces to catch a show at the downtown theatre which was showing...(Bucket list drum roll) "Once There was a Beehive." I'd been dreaming of seeing it, but being a GA resident, felt like the odds were not in my favor. But Brigham City, UT was of course showing the comedy and feel good movie depicting a Catholic girl who finds herself  at a Mormon girl's camp...laughs, tears, it was all that I dreamed of.

After all that driving and playing and visiting, reality made its appearance. It was time to drop baby girl off at the BYU, the place where dreams come true, especially if your dreams include lots of studying. It was fun to have my brother, Charlie, and Son and daughter-in-law, Aaron and Clarissa, there to help with the move in.  Actually, I couldn't help but be excited for her. I have a list of all the things she should do, or maybe she has her own list, but either way, so much to do. Just being close to the mountains is thrilling to a southern girl. And how fortuitous that BYU football is gonna be great this year. The list goes on.

I got to visit with my parents in Manti for a little bit. Charlie (my brother) and his wife Meg live in Lehi now, so I loved seeing them. (Thanks for housing me and feeding me.) My niece, Amy, just moved to Provo this summer. Andrew is going to school at UVU and I got to hang out with his cute self. The Rees family did so much to help the Stoker family and they were in the middle of wedding prep. It was fun being with them again. Who knew Utah is such a happening place?

No pictures of Mom and Dad this time, but I did want to capture how Dad likes to combine art with nature.

Oh, but she's not in UT anymore. Utah's loss

This little miss moved to CA with her mommy and daddy right before I got to town.

And then I came home and everyone was still alive. Add me to the list of the people who have driven from GA to UT and lived to tell about it.