Where is My Baby?

Today I had one of those moments of realizing how quickly time passes. When Conrad sat down today to play his new song for piano lessons this week, he played Brahm's lullaby ("Rock a-bye, and good night") I used to sing it to him as a baby, and now he is playing it for me on the piano!

Texas!

Last week I flew to Houston on my way to our National Convention for Homemade Gourmet in Dallas. My sister-in-law April picked me up at the airport and I got to spend a day with her, my brother, Jason, and their four kids: Sierra, Dylan, Madison, and Noah. Then, I went to my other brother, Kevin's, house, and got to see him, Trena, and baby Eliana (I had not yet met her!)

From there, I flew to Dallas for my convention. In the pictures, the first one is of all the nephews and nieces from both houses since Eliana came over to visit at Jason and April's house. The second picture is of Madison (she is going to Kindergarten this year) and her cousin, Eliana. In the third, Eliana was yawning at me. And, in the last one, it is my Homemade Gourmet Executive Director, Courtney Wright, at our convention. She is fabulous!

Going Away Party

Tonight at church we did a going-away party for Gary Bomar who is moving to Arizona to be with his family. He was just diagnosed with agressive cancer. Conrad is taking his leaving very hard--Gary loves horses and Conrad loves to listen to his stories. When we went to visit him at the hospital one day while Caden was in summer school, I told Conrad on the way out that he had been very patient because we had stayed quite a long time. Conrad said, "That is OK. I enjoyed it. I really like him--I think he could be my uncle!" Tonight, he asked me if he could sit by him while they ate and he did, and then he cried himself to sleep tonight.

We did a Western theme tonight, and tried to make it as light-hearted as we could even though our hearts were heavy. We all gave him a big card we had all signed and then we sent a local boy to church camp with a scholarship in his honor. Robin made herself her "R" belt buckle, and I wore a belt buckle that used to be Chuck's. Caden was sure that "M" on the buckle must be for "Mom"! The kids both have more pictures of this on their blogs.

Moving Days!

We helped Donna and Eli move this last week. Conrad, Caden and I helped on Thursday, and then we all went on Saturday to move the big stuff! Chuck and I decided we were older than the last time we helped someone move--we were so sore! Donna and Eli have a great apartment that will be all ready for Jason's return. It is a ground floor apartment and will be perfect for them.