Announcing Baby Graham

Our most recent addition: Baby Graham. Born to Jay & Becca earlier this week. He weighed in at a hefty 10 lbs 7 oz and is already making his stamp on the world. Becca labored for 30 hours and because of his size and lack of progress, they ended up doing a C-section. We are thrilled with his arrival and are so glad he broke the family NICU curse. He and Mom are doing fine.

This picture as well as the last two were taken from Becca's sister's blog. She was there right after the birth and is an amazing photographer. The others are ones I have taken over the last few days. Enjoy! Owen, finally enjoying having a new baby brother.

Liesl, thoroughly in love!

Clara, curious as a two year old can be.

This was Clara's reaction to going to meet Graham for the first time..."I want Mama."

A sweet repose between father and son.One of the best newborn shots I have ever seen. He's literally minutes old. Becca's sister, Emily sure has the right touch. Enjoy this face:

Good work, Becca. And congratulations on your wonderful addition.

Birthday Girls 2

Both Robynn and Nikki recently had birthdays. So hard to believe they are both growing up so fast. Robynn and family came to our house to celebrate. Her best friend accompanied her and they swam in the spa with Mari. We had a nice birthday dinner and cake and ice cream. Sweet day. She got her ears pierced the day before and was so excited to get clothes. (That's growing up!) I don't have birthday pictures of Nikki's birthday celebrations. They were on the other side of the country :( But we had a great Skype call with her and she, too, enjoyed her fun presents which included new clothes.

We love our big girls and can hardly believe they are so grown up. Happy (late) Birthday wishes to Robynn and Nikki. Sweet girl cousins.

Birthday girls!

Having a broken camera makes blogging a little difficult. (Or at least a little boring). So these pictures were from Christmas. But I wanted to celebrate the birthdays of our cute little granddaughter cousins. They were born 27 hours apart just two years ago. We celebrated their birthdays earlier this week.

Here is Juliette. We were able to go see her on her special day and enjoy our visit with her and her family. She's a cutie. Here is Miss Clara. She lives too far for us to be with her in person, but we had a fun Skype call with her. Love the web cams! She's a cutie, too.

This is birthday season for our family. So many to celebrate. We love our family!

Catch up

It has really been a crazy time for me since I returned from Texas. I also have let my blog posts go since joining Facebook. But I hope I can catch up with this. Most of you who read this blog know that Renetta has had a relapse with her kidney disease. Please continue to keep her in your prayers. She goes up and down with her emotions and physically she is not responding, yet to the meds, so that is also discouraging. I wish I could go to WI and be with her, but I have a cold, now and cannot expose her to anything as her immune system is so compromised right now. I cannot tell you how hard it is to see my baby girl suffer and knowing I cannot do anything about it, but pray and have faith the Lord will bless her. Her faith is amazing and I learn from her everyday.
I finished the quilt for Caleb. It turned out so well. I will be starting the one for J&B's baby boy as soon as I am feeling better. I have a pattern picked out.
We will be getting company next week. Lyle's sister, Janet and her family will be coming. Then Becca and the kids will be coming near the end of the month/beginning of April. Looking forward to grandchildren. Maybe I will give them a cold, not the other way around. :) We also have other company coming later in April. So life never gets dull around here.
Thanks for all your prayers on behalf of Netta. She feels them and knows everyone is thinking and praying for her. I love you all.
Mom/Maryann

Caleb is Home!

Caleb is home from the hospital! Yay! He came home yesterday. I told his mother that he had a 5-6 day bump in the road in coming home. We are so grateful that he is well, now and able to be home with his family. So many more things could have gone wrong or not gone as right as they did. We are so pleased with the care he received and that modern medicine saved his life and solved his problem.
His big brothers are adapting to him at their own age level. Timothy has been talking about his "littlest baby brother" and you can tell he loves him very much. He showed some relief emotion when his mother and baby brother were finally home. He was worried about them without showing it much. Andrew hasn't realized how much impact he is going to have on him, yet. But he has not been too jealous, yet. These pictures were from the night before he came home, at the hospital when the boys first met their baby brother.

This is a proud grandmother enjoying her newest grandchild. I'm loving it! This is what occupied the boy's attention a good part of the time, especially Andrew!

Andrew willingly gave the baby kisses, but pretty much ignored him the rest of the time. (This is unusual, as Andrew is a little stubborn about giving away kisses.)

This sums up Timothy's reaction to his new baby brother. He was so thrilled to finally meet him and get a chance to hold him. Since we have been home, he has held him a lot. He will be a big help to his mother and father.

I am going home to California on Friday. I'm glad I was able to come and help out. I'm looking forward to going home, but have enjoyed my time here.

Pictures of Caleb

I have been unable to access my blog because of all the crazy and exciting things that have been happening. Our latest grandchild to arrive is baby Caleb. He arrived earlier this week and came early and in a big rush! He was born to R&T in Texas. Immediately after he was born he started having problems breathing. What had happened was his fast and intense delivery tore a hole in his lung. This made air enter his chest cavity and collapsed his lung. (It's called a pneumo thorax.) After attempting to aspirate the air out of his chest with a syringe, and his lung not sealing over right away, they inserted a chest tube into his chest later the day he was born. He has since been recovering from that procedure and the healing of his lung. Over these last few days he has done very well and his chest tube is out, his feeding tube is out and as of today, he was finally able to be picked up and held and nursed by his mother. (They had to keep him still to heal the tear and protect his umbilical IV) He is doing very well and they estimate he will come home on Monday or Tuesday of next week. Instead of flying on the 22nd as planned, I changed my flight and came out here to TX the day after he was born. I have been taking care of the big brothers while Mom and Dad are taking care of themselves and the baby. I will be here until next Friday. I left Grandpa at home to deal with stuff there. He wishes he was here!

In the meantime, here are some of the few pictures we have. I have only seen him once and did not have my camera with me. His Daddy took these.

These first few were taken when he still had his feeding tube and chest tube. You can see the chest tube and paraphernalia in some of the photos. The last one was taken the day he was born and before they inserted the chest tube. He is even more better, now than these photos show.

Taken the day he was born and before the chest tube. Once that was in they could remove this oxygen hood.

I will try to update as often as I can.

Latest Project

This little beauty is what has kept me so busy the last few weeks. This is the quilt top for Caleb's quilt. I loved the challenge of doing it, but it was SOOO time intensive. There are 28 pieces in each block and 20 blocks. I plan to take it with me to TX when I travel to help after Caleb's birth and really want to get it finished. Next up is the quilting which will take several days. I am going to machine quilt it on my home machine. My next big project after this one is a quilt for J&B's new baby boy who will come in about 3 months. He is nameless at the present time. My love to all of you. (I also joined facebook which has been a little time consuming on it's own!)

This is a test!

I am trying an experiment. I need to see how a small resolution picture from the web looks on a blog, so I am going to post one here and check it out. Forgive me if I don't explain any further right now. I'll explain more later.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Hello everyone. I have been away from blogging for awhile. I am still working on the something new. Be patient. I finally got my Christmas pictures uploaded. I will post some of them very soon. I took about (believe it or not) 800 pictures over the holidays. And a lot of videos, too. Then just a the end of the holidays, my camera started acting up and is getting worse, so that is really making me sad. I love this camera. For now, I am using my waterproof camera and it will work fine for me for awhile. I also joined Facebook, which is almost overwhelming me, but I just have to pace myself, I guess. Last, but not least...I'm working on a quilt for our soon to be grandson who will be born in late Feb. So that is keeping me busy! Love you all. I'll post again very soon.

Look for Something New

This is a little teaser post. Very soon, I will doing something new and telling all of you about it. It's an idea that my sister, Ria and I have been cooking up. I hope all of you will be as excited about it as we are. Please continue to read my blog to find out just what this new venture will be. See you all soon.

Favorite Photos (honorable mention)

This photo represents the love we have for each other. It's been a whole new year with retirement and time spent together. We love it! I love to take photos of flowers. This was one of my best. It was at D-land.

Also at D-land. Sleeping Beauty's castle at Christmastime.

Mari after our trip to Build-a-Bear.

Timo and 'Lijah making Christmas treats together.

My second favorite pool pix. Timo and Papa.

Clara NOT wanting to ride the Merry go Round at D-land.

Nikki and Liesl. Girl cousins wanting to do everything alike.

Mom's visit to Wisconsin in Sept. We are standing in front of Lake Michigan.

Owie and Liesl dodging the waves at the beach.

Becca and kidlings looking at little critters at the tide pools.

Lyle catching a much needed nap after a wrestling match with Owie.

Nikki, JC and JC's friend watching the Angel game in May. They won!

Matching dresses for two cute sisters.

Watching Grandma curl her hair before church.

Smile! Sheer happiness!

Nikki and JC in front of the makeshift memorial to the Angel player who died.

JC, Nikki, and Timo where??? This is on Tom Sawyer's island at D-land!

Well....I could have put dozens more photos up. But I am done. These have been some of my favorites. So far this year...I have taken 432 photos already. So be prepared for another list of favorites next year. Hope you enjoyed these. I'll blog and post about the holidays as soon as all the kids leave. That will be in another few days. Love you all. Mom

12 (of my) Favorite Photos of 2009

In reading Stacy Julian's Sprinkles blog post http://stacyjulian.com/sprinkles/ about picking your 12 favorite photos in 12 minutes, I thought I'd give it a try. Of course it took me way longer than 12 minutes (lots of distractions here with kids visiting) and I had the hardest time picking 12 photos out of hundreds. But these 12 finally made the cut. Tomorrow, I will post all the honorable mentions that I chose. Here they are with a small explanation of each.

This is Elijah at the Newport Beach temple grounds. (A special child in a special place). Clara, reacting to a sound outside the window.

Juliette hamming for the camera.

Mari on her 9th birthday. Sweet.

JC doing what he loves...enjoying Angels baseball on his birthday.

Liesl climbing the walnut tree in their front yard.

Timo underwater in the pool. (My favorite pool pix, by far)

Elijah riding on the Autopia ride at D-land. Never have I seen a child enjoy a ride more.

Owie enjoying the tide pools at the beach.

Nikki looking amazingly like her American girl doll, Megan.

Andrew thoroughly enjoying his spaghetti. (The only photo officially taken by someone else. But still a favorite.)

Robynn with her best friend on her birthday.

I hope all of you have fun looking at these. Stay tuned for my honorable mentions in a post tomorrow. Love you all. Mom