Big Announcement!

I'm soooo excited!
We got the best news this weekend, and you can probably guess what it is from the picture.
We are going to be grand parents! Our daughter Laura and her husband Aaron are expecting a baby in October. Somehow they kept it a secret for 12 weeks!
They were able to hear the heartbeat on Friday.
They spent the weekend letting family and friends know the news and gave me the okay to share it now.
It's probably good that I didn't know earlier, because I would have had a hard time keeping it in!

Family times

We so enjoyed having Andy home for a few weeks over Christmas. He will be deploying to Afghanistan in February so we won't have a stretch of time with him for a while. He may be home to leave his Jeep here along with his belongings while he's gone, but if that happens it will be a very short time.
So - we tried to take in all the family time we could.
Here are a few pictures from our house during these 2 weeks.

Oliver loved crawling under the tree.

The night we opened our gifts, Oliver was in his glory. There was wrapping to play with and bags and boxes to craw into!

It's fun to watch Andy playing with Oliver. Andy hides around the corner and Oliver tried to sneak up on him. Soon there is a cat zooming around the house and Andy laughing his head off!

There was a lot of this going on too. We got the new Donkey Kong for our Wii and Bob and Andy had lots of fun trying to defeat it!


I try to get a picture of all the kids in front of the tree every year. This year Laura protested, saying she looked horrible because she had been sick, but they agreed, after I threw out the fact that I couldn't get one next year because of Andy being gone.
Anyway - I was blessed to have them all with me. That's the best gift for any Mom!

I can see clearly now...

On Friday, both of my daughters had Lasik surgery done. They were scheduled 30 minutes apart, so we all were together in the waiting room. Heather's surgery was scheduled first.
This Dr has a big window into the surgery area so family and friends can watch if they want.

Here they are doing Heather's surgery. The Dr is sitting directly in front of the window, and the screen near the ceiling shows what he is doing.

Here is a close up of Heathers eye, as they prepared to work on it. She was only in the room for about 15 minutes. Both girls said there was no discomfort as they worked on their eyes, but it was quite sore for a few hours afterward. however - they both came home and slept during that time. Now they just have a few weeks of eye drops and they are done. They were both amazed to walk out of the building and be able to see clearly. No more contacts, no more glasses!

Happy Birthday Laura!

 Tuesday is my daughter Laura's birthday.  She's my oldest child and she's turning 27 today.
This picture was taken at her wedding, a little over 3 years ago.  I'm having a hard time believing that she is this old; it seems just a few years ago she was that little baby with red hair sticking straight up!
God truly blessed us when he gave us this fun, caring, strong willed girl and we are so thankful for her.
Happy Birthday, Laura!  We love you lots!

Happy Birthday, Laura

November 17 is my oldest daughter Laura's birthday. She is 26 years old and I'm not sure where those years went! It seems such a short time ago that we were being told - "It's a girl", followed by "she has red hair!" I was 21 when she was born and although I thought I knew it all, I really didn't! She says she was our test case. If so - she turned out great! (I must admit, we learned a lot along the way) Somehow she survived having us as parents and has grown into a caring, responsible Christian women. Laura - Dad and I are so proud of you, and we love you lots! Happy Birthday!

Check this out!

I wanted to share a few links with you today. The first is Season's Flowers where my daughter Laura works. Their blog shows flower arrangements and decorating ideas for the season. I took the picture above from their site. If anyone from our area needs flowers of any sort stop and see Laura there! They do a great job.
The other site is my friend Kae's blog - All my Blessings. She started blogging recently and has been working hard to learn all the little things that go with blogging.
When you stop, tell them Mari sent you!

Happy Birthday Laura!

November 17 is my oldest daughter's birthday. I can't believe she is 25 today. It seems like such a short time ago that we were waiting anxiously for our first child to be born. We thought we were all ready to be parents and had such lofty ideas of how great this was going to be. Well - it has been great, but certainly not because we were such great parents! God blessed us 25 years ago with this precious daughter. We were shocked right from the start because we really never expected to have a child with red hair. Within a day, we also were surprised by the temper that went with it. She was a strong willed child right from the start, but what a joy also. Laura has always had such a kind caring spirit. She is the child that always cared about the other kids. We had teachers tell us about her concern for other kids in the classroom from the time she was young. When she was quite young she told me she prayed whenever she heard a siren because someone may be hurt. She was also the kid who would stand up for what she believed - even if the teacher (or her Mom!) didn't agree with her. She has grown up to be a talented young women and more importantly she is a child of God. She is such a blessing to us and we thank God for allowing us to be her parents.
Happy Birthday Laura - we love you lots!

Here she is at about 3. Looks like she is enjoying herself!

Laura and Aaron last year, shortly before their wedding.