more on the wedding!

I am very sorry, blog readers. Life's been sticky lately and I'm having a time getting to the blog. Blah! But I promised more about David and Chelsea's July wedding so here goes.

The exciting and also a little nerve-wracking fact of having our five oldest grandchildren, ages 2 - 5 serve in the bridal party became real on the morning of July 18. Keeping 7 little children (including the two newborns) fed and rested was accomplished by many helping hands: parents, aunts and uncles, and two sets of grandparents. The little ones also had to be washed, combed, dressed, ferried, and photographed. A big undertaking but also a labor of love for our David and Chelsea.

          Here are the girls, ages 5, 4 and 3 all ready for photos. They held together pretty well!

 

A little wilted before the ceremony. Golly it was hot for us non-Floridians.

Here we have the little ring-bearers, beating the heat at the

St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club (wedding venue) after torrential rain the day before.
 Whatcha gonna do? Boys will be boys.
One bolted during the ceremony, but

all things considered they held it together.

 

 

 

Makin' it work: pre-ceremony snacks and video in the van.

 

 

"Wake me up for the reception."

 

 

Still sleeping .... Jordan with Jenny.

 

 

Wow! Chelsea's mom and aunt made all these cookies, which were

waaaaay better than any wedding cake. Little take-home bags

were provided, too!

 

Lily with Bill and me.

 

Mark with his middle, Ethan.

 

 

 

Have you ever played shuffleboard at a wedding?

Everyone loved it!

 

 

 

Jenny, Jill and Katie: three of "my" girls!

Notice the bride and groom in the background?

 

 

Cattle call for the photographer!

 

 

 

Of course, these two were who it was all about!

Chelsea and David planned a unique, fun and God-honoring wedding.

They had a short getaway in Florida and are planning

a fabulous official honeymoon for November!

 

 

This time a year ago, David and Chelsea had only known each

other a few months. For years I've prayed for my kids and their spouses, even before we KNEW their spouses. I thank the Lord for answered prayers!

(Special thanks to Jenny's mom, Shelley DeGeyter, for

some of these photos.)

 

 

 

 

seven from heaven!

The word is out:

by mid-June, two more Haller babies will join our family, making SEVEN

grandchildren under the age of six for us!

Yes! Jenny and Jill are both pregnant.

Both have chosen not to find out the babies' genders ahead of time

and I think that just adds to the excitement!

 

The newest Haller cousins are due just five days apart

so I pray for healthy deliveries, robust babies, and strong mamas. (and daddies)

And ... it would be nice if the babies aren't born within hours of each other
 so that Baba can manage to get to them in a timely manner. (-:

 

 

God has surely blessed us more than we could ever imagine:

with our children, daughters-in-love, and now

these precious grandchildren.

 

Thank you, Lord.

For love.

For life.

For a new generation.



happy birthday, Jill!

 

Happy birthday today to my dear daughter-in-love Jill!

I could never have dreamed the joy that my children's spouses

 would bring to our family.

Jill has accepted, encouraged, stretched and loved us.

She patiently puts up with our weirdness.

She no longer feels like an "addition" to the family,

but completely a part of us.

We are blessed beyond measure and so are our son Mark

and their children Lily and Ethan.

Being a wife and mother isn't easy,

but Jill has relaxed into the roles beautifully.

A birthday acrostic for you, Jill:

 

                                                         J - joyful!

                                                         I - inquisitive and industrious

                                                         L - laughter that is contagious

                                                         L - loyal to God, family, friends

 

I love you, Jill.

Have a wonderful day that includes naps for your babes!

 

welcome home, Jill

Yesterday I wrote of my daughter Katie's homecoming from a mission trip to Paraguay. Today I write of another of my girls, my daughter-in-love Jill. She and Mark have chosen for Jill to stay home with their baby, due in one week!

When I chose to stay home with our son David 28 years ago, I had little idea what it entailed. My own mother stayed home, but since she was gone, I had few mentors to call on. In fact, most of the women around me were career women and the super-woman mentality was prevalent.

I imagined PJ'd toddlers sweetly lined up on the couch, hands folded, at Christmas. If I applied discipline just right, they would never misbehave, always eat what I served and love me because I was their mother: an ideal mother at that.

No one told me that I could kiss a solid night's sleep good-bye for a very long time. That a croupy toddler would need mommy to hold him all night long. That just because a 15-month old eats carrots on Monday doesn't mean he'll eat them on Wednesday. That little children make lots of noise. Incessantly. That at times my tears would come from sheer exhaustion and frustration. That my relationship with my husband would change, not always for the better. And that I would sometimes swim against a tide of others' opinions regarding how best to spend my life.


Jill with her niece, Ashlyn

But coming home meant more. It took me to a level of selflessness I'd never known. It gave me the time to fall in love with my baby. It taught me to slow down and realize that babies learn and grow at their own particular pace. I relished nursing him in the same rocker my mother, and grandmother, had nursed.

I was free to stroll with my son on warm Florida days, lie on a blanket in the sun, and laugh at ourselves in the mirror. I remember him calling me "Baba" and wanting to turn off the "yite" in his room at bedtime. We read dozens of books together. I witnessed his language explode in discovering the world. It was an absolute wonder to me.

Being at home full-time was the toughest job of my life. But now at the other end, I see it was also the most rewarding. What I gained far surpassed all that I gave up.



Welcome home, Jill. May your home be a space for nurturing new life, the most precious of gifts: your child, your daughter, your new love.

And when exhaustion sets in, you can call on Baba.



my daughters-in-love

gratitude challenge day 16 -

I love the conversations I have with my daughters-in-love.

They possess different personalities,

but share similar values.

I am thankful, oh so thankful

that they regard their children not as an inconvenience

but as a gift.

Jenny, mother of two little girls, is patient and consistent

in the hard work of training a toddler.

Jill is preparing and asking other mothers all those questions about new motherhood. 

Though the days were long and the tasks never-ending,
how I loved being at home with my babies!
And I'm thankful my daughters-in-love are choosing that, too.

 

quite a ride

Summer 1942. Elizabeth Muriel Thayer, 25, set off on a biking adventure with some girlfriends. If you can imagine, they toured New York City and New England. Elizabeth says she doesn't remember a lot about it, but we found this marvelous photo which I used to make her birthday card, and entitled it "Quite a Ride" for Elizabeth is turning 95 today. Imagine all she's witnessed in her lifetime. Autos hadn't been around long when she was born. Radio, television, space travel, convenience foods, and the computer age all came about. Through it all, Elizabeth became a wife, mother, schoolteacher, widow, grandmother and great-grandmother. She is our link to a simpler time and embodies the love and grace of a life well-lived. We all love you, Elizabeth/Mom/Grandma/"GG" and wish you the happiest birthday in all your 95 years!

birthday lunch for our queen

Today we'll celebrate my mother-in-love's 95th birthday

with a family lunch out in Plain City, Ohio.

Elizabeth's sister will be there,

as well as her sons, many cousins, nieces & nephews, grandchildren

and great-grandchildren.

Some live too far away, but will join us in spirit.

And speaking of spirit,

this photo captures  Elizabeth's spirit perfectly.

Her thoughtfulness of others and cheerful demeanor

has endeared her to so many, including my three sons.

What a blessing she is to us!

(I'm thankful to my daughter, Katie, who captured this image three years ago.)

the rest of the story

It's been a wonderful whirlwind of honeymooners returning, more gift-opening, and packing up their stuff for the move to married-ness. More photos ...

At an out-of-towners shower just before the wedding, Jill opened this gift: a drawing by Jill at age 7 and sent to her Grandma. I love this photo!



Jenny and David hit the dance floor at the rehearsal dinner



Curly, Larry and Moe ... I mean, my three sons



Jill's wedding gift to Mark...










...and his to her...



special people: my sister Anne, son Dan and lifelong friend Pat



helping the groom get ready



magic trick? Just dad trying to fold his hanky ..



David figures out his little hanky thing, too..



my family who were able to join us: "Gramma" Pat, me, brother Mark, sister Anne and "Grandpa" John


two of my three gorgeous girls...



the doors of the church



after the honeymoon, the newlyweds finally have some cake




and pack off to life together...





It seems a little sad, but also very, very good.

Dish towels, dogs and dingos

We just finished a fun and interesting weekend.

Son Dan and daughter-in-love Jenny arrived, along with dog-in-law Bauer. The occasion? Daughter-in-love-to-be Jill's bridal shower. Bauer wasn't invited to the shower: no boys allowed. But he certainly brought, shall we say, vitality to the weekend.

Bauer's presence reminded me of having toddlers underfoot. He's young with lots of energy. He clamored through the house, chewed up tennis balls, enticed our dog Ellie to play, and left slobber on the glass doors. I hadn't heard so much thundering up and down the stairs since Christmas morning when the kids were little.

We looked for activities to wear out the dogs. Dan and I took them to a nearby park to romp the trail, a sort of mowed mile-long path around a meadow. Now, Ellie generally, obediently follows the trail, however Bauer had other ideas. Off he lunged, into the thicket to see what he might find. Ellie willingly followed. Trouble was, the weeds and wildflowers are high and every so often, the dogs bounced up to get their bearings. Dan called them dingos.

OK, enough about the dogs. I like dogs, really. Better than cats or goldfish and certainly better than birds, who shouldn't qualify as pets. Ever. But dogs aren't the beginning and end of life and please stop me if I ever get too long-winded about them. They are, after all, just dogs. Not people. And not "children with fur."

So. The focus of the weekend, when it wasn't dogs, was Jill's bridal shower. She was a bit nervous, but it went beautifully, thanks to Jill's long-time high school friend Jamie and her mom Becky. This photo: Jill and Jamie.



We played shower games (this is why boys aren't invited) and Jill opened lots of fantastic gifts, including many, many dish towels. In an envious moment, I wished it was me opening all those gifts. I sure could use some new dish towels; ones I don't have to pick out myself.

Every shower has food. Jamie and Becky made a mountain of quiches, all delicious. And now, I will brag. Jenny, Katie and I made white chocolate pound cakes. I don't like the expression, "to die for," but they almost were. One of Jill's relatives told me it tasted like some special German recipe her grandma used to make.

Well, this cake uses a cake mix. With a classy name like White Chocolate Pound Cake, no one's the wiser! Here's the recipe. Feel free to impress at your next gathering!



White Chocolate Pound Cake

1 plain white cake mix
6 ounces white baking chocolate
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 stick butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla

To avoid burning it, melt chocolate in a double boiler. Empty cake mix into a large mixing bowl and begin adding all ingredients, mixing with electric mixer until smooth.

Recipe says to oil ("Pam") and flour 3 loaf pans; I used one bundt pan and it was perfect. Pour batter into pan(s) and bake at 350 until done. 35-45 minutes? You know how to test cakes.

Let cool after removing from pan. Sprinkle w/ powdered sugar through a little strainer. Sliced strawberries and mint leaves can be added for beauty.

You might even be able to hire these beautiful young ladies to serve for you!

Happy birthday, Jill!

A sweet side to having raised a houseful of rambunctious boys is when they marry. The smelly rooms and horse-like appetites fade as distant memories once a cheery, feminine girlfriend enters the picture. . . especially a girl you grow to love.

Four years ago my son Mark brought home a cute redhead and, thankfully, she's been part of our lives ever since. In fact, Jill will become my daughter-in-LOVE in just a few weeks.

Jill brings laughter (really, a wonderful laugh), an upbeat attitude, thoughtfulness and love to our family. When she's not around, I truly miss her loving and laughing spirit. I am enormously blessed to have her for a new daughter. Jill also loves God. I watched her grow in this regard and it was about the neatest thing ever.

Today is Jill's 22nd birthday and I wish her the happiest birthday yet! (And, as you can tell by the photo, our Ellie absolutely loves Jill, too!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JILLY BEAN!

falling in love … again

It happens every single year. Recently I’ve been holed up in our 65-year-old cottage in northern Michigan. In almost five days, we had roughly 36 hours of really nice weather. But the high yesterday was 45 degrees with a relentless, driving rain and wind.

Some might see this as jail time, but as the days progress I am settling into a lake rhythm. I read and write. I laugh with my family and challenge them to games of speed Scrabble. I visit an old friend, the 170-year-old lighthouse up the road. I cook simple stuff, making do with what’s on hand. I gaze up the lake, a majestic and ever-changing waterscape of God’s handiwork. He outdid himself in this part of the world.

About a year ago I wrote a piece on this topic and submitted it to … I’m not kidding … the northern Michigan electric cooperative magazine Michigan Country Lines. They ran it (entitled Loving Michigan) and you can read it here. (Well, maybe you can; I'm experiencing techno difficulty.)

Anyway. After a winter of identifying the many reasons not to keep this cabin, being here lures me right back into a love affair with her. Wind and waves. Chilly nights and crackling fires. Gleaming birches. No microwave or dishwasher. Hauling out a kayak to paddle in the bay. And lots of chores. For now we’ll keep her.

This time next year, I suspect I’ll be in a new love affair. Do you think my son and daughter-in-love will allow us to keep our new grandbaby up here for a month next summer?

in-love, not in-law

The word is out! My youngest son, Mark, will marry his high school sweetheart, Jill, in about a year. He proposed to her last night in front of her house, catching her completely off guard! It's been a fun few weeks with Mark ring-shopping, talking with her parents, planning the proposal and generally keeping me a nervous wreck because I'm a terrible secret-keeper.

I once heard someone refer to her mother-in-LOVE rather than mother-in-LAW because it best described their relationship. It was one of love, trust and affection and one she would have chosen, as in a love relationship. I like that. So I've adopted it for my own. So far, I boast one daughter-in-love (Dan's beautiful wife of one year, Jenny) and now another, Jill, on the way.

Before it's all over, we could have 3 daughters-in-love and one son-in-love. (No hurry, David & Katie.) We'll see. For years, I have prayed for my children's future spouses....that God would protect them and grow them into women and a man after God's own heart. It's about the coolest thing ever to see him honor that prayer. I am thankful!

And someday, we might have grandchildren. From what I hear, there's no love-label needed for those.