I am grateful for a beautiful weekend in Texas with my daughter and her family.

I am grateful for Memorial Day, remembering last year of walking through the cemetery in Haviland with my Dad and my brother and sharing memories while placing flowers at each grave. I missed the experience this year, but Dad was able to go and carry on the tradition and spend some time…

I am grateful for time spent singing in the van with Anissa, Andrae, and Annistan: “Skinnamarink-y-dink-y-dink, skinnamarink-y-doo, I love you! I love you in the morning, and in the afternoon. I love you in the evening, underneath the moon…”

“Six little ducks that I once knew, fat ones, skinny ones, fair ones, too, but the one little duck with the feather on his back, he led the others with a quack quack quack!” 

“This old man, he played one, he played knick knack on his thumb, with a knick knack paddy whack, give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home.” 

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray, you’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away.”

I am grateful for these six words spoken from a sad little face, “I don’t want you to leave.”

I am grateful for the warmth and comfort I feel in Dad’s apartment.

I am grateful for “new truck smell,” and grateful that Sam will smell it every day now.

I am grateful for time spent cracking eggs with Anissa and slicing cheese with Andrae for our breakfast cheesy scrambled eggs. Not quite “baking cookies” I expected to do with them this past weekend, but it was time spent in the kitchen, so it’ll do just fine.

I am grateful that Ron and Pam put this quote in their bulletin, that it meant something to Dad, and that he shared it with me:

God’s love still stands when all else has fallen. In my life, everything had fallen. Every day I stood on roll call in a concentration camp where 96,000 women had died. In front of us stood a guard who enjoyed demonstrating his cruelty. I could hardly bear to see and hear what happened around us. But then a skylark started to sing, and when I looked up to see the bird and saw the endless sky, I remembered Psalm 103: “As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is God’s mercy and love toward them that fear Him.” I awakened to the reality that God’s love still stood. God sent that skylark every day during roll call to keep my eyes turned in the right direction. – Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

I am grateful for pony tail curls and bows and grateful that Anissa and Annistan have a Daddy who does a great job of making them look pretty for church.

I am grateful for training wheels and the feelings I had of seeing two little precious children riding their bikes down the sidewalk on Saturday morning.

I am grateful for the smell of baby lotion on a chunky beautiful baby Anjalie after her bath.

I am grateful that there is not a “clean” page in my purse-sized notebook – it’s full of hearts and stars and pictures of Mommy and Daddy and doggies and kitties and flowers and my name and Mommy’s name and Daddy’s name and bumblebees and butterflies and snakes and houses and suns and clouds and and and…

I am grateful for laughter in the kitchen with Mandrae and Karissa as they told us their horseback riding story.

I am grateful for a little girl who quietly said, “I love you, Ama,” when the light was turned off for the night.

I am grateful that we took the time to sit on the porch in the quiet of this morning to enjoy the cool air and listen to the birds and reflect on the weekend.

I am grateful that my Dad is still climbing nine flights of stairs every day and he no longer needs to stop to catch his breath at the 6^th floor.

Finally, we’re no longer expecting.  What a beautiful sound. It has been a long wait, but the big day arrived this weekend, and now the nursery is full and Mama is busy busy busy. Robin’s babies are here, and I am grateful for the sounds of very hungry little ones.