Christmas Eve

A very special gift.....a baby boy born with a different set of expectations than most...arrived this morning in the wee dark hours 2:52 to be precise!  4 pounds 13 ounces and 18 inches of pure joy.  Such a strange Christmas this year with young Warrior far, far away; babyMomma with hubby and grandson Charlie in the hospital in the big city; my dad in a nursing home/rehab; and the two of us taking care of  big sister.  I'm so glad Christmas is so much more than family traditions.  Merry Christmas to all!! 

                                                               and to all a good night!!

An Almost Wordless Wednesday...on Thursday

  
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening  Beautiful illustrations!  Not on my bookshelf yet, but I think it will be soon.

Some glimpses of our home.  

My elf made snowflakes and hung them from the doorways.  She also made gingerbread people with our names and hung them.  This is something she remembers from Christmas parties that my sister's mother-in-law always had.  We did not go every year, but apparently my daughter had very fond memories of getting a gingerbread person with her name on it.  It is so very neat sharing my home with my adult daughter and her young family, to see traditions passed along as well as combined and created.

Tonight Grampa and Grammy did the bedtime routine while babyMomma is in Boston awaiting the arrival of her baby boy.  It is hard to fathom that he will be here before Christmas.  It is strange to know his diagnosis ahead of time.  I can't wait to meet him face to face.  

December Already??

I'm not exactly sure what happened to November.  My young warrior came home after 3 months overseas, so I was bustling around trying to set up a cozier guest bedroom than he had here a year ago.  He ends up in the "Music Room."  Sounds great, but after merging two households and then acquiring more and more medical supplies for the grandbaby, the room has become a very large storage closet!  It now has full length curtains that are actually hanging from decorative curtain rods!  Unfortunately, he still has to sleep on an air mattress on the floor....I'll have three months till he gets to come home again so I'll have to hunt down some sort of bed.  A murphy bed would be awesome except the best wall would be the wall the piano occupies, so we'll have to rethink that.  With another grandbaby on the way, I need a decent guest bedroom so the babies' other grammy can come visit!

My granddaughter had been enjoying a long stretch of good health.  With two adults in the kitchen (one for her, one to cook), she would sometimes even help with the baking. She had begun really moving around on the floor and had started going forward a little bit in her fancy walker!  We were enjoying "dancing" to Christmas music while making supper in the late afternoons.  Thanksgiving morning she began to be sick and by Sunday calls were made to her Palliative Care Team and Hospice.  A lot of tears these last few days and just inability to do much of anything other than pray and try to support the babyMomma!  A very tough week for young warrior to be home as we can't really do a whole lot.  He's been amazing, though, and has hired a friend of his to finish and do several home improvement projects that have been sadly neglected.

God's timing is amazing as a new day nurse began Monday and walked into the front lines of a battle for Amber.  She has been amazing and has advocated for new equipment, made calls to doctors and pharmacies and suppliers, and does everything with such confidence but with a great deal of respect for the babyMomma.  We are so glad she came when she did and that she had been out once before on a different visit to see Amber healthy so she could really understand just how sick Pale Peanut has been this week.  We would still covet prayers for a full recovery and safe arrival of her baby brother.....due mid-January but probably/possibly earlier than that. 

In the midst of all this, we are trying to lift spirits and each day add a little more Christmas.  Lights went up last night, just a few white twinklies outside on two bushes and a blanket of lights on a big rock; and candles in the windows.  Christmas dishes came out the day after Thanksgiving.  These were a gift to the babyMomma last year.  They just make us smile.