Six Girls

Girls

During the visit with my brother and his wife Sharon i was able to spend some quality time with my nieces. My brother and his wife have three and her sister and brother in law have three. It was so great to get to know her sister's girls and to take care of my nieces for a couple of days.

My mom made these adorable slippers for the girls...aren't they cute.

From Left Brooke, Ellie and Bethany (her sister's girls)

Aubrey and Cambria (and missing Brenna) are my brother's girls.

Aubrey and Cambria

Missing little "B"
Ellie and Aubrey I let the girls take pictures with my camera

Aren't they so cute.
I enjoyed them so much.
Love you.

Precious Chloe Sue

Chloe Sue

I haven't posted in awhile because of a family tragedy. It hurts.

As i'm writing i'm getting teary, but feel like i should just type and express myself.

I don't think there is anything tougher.

The day after Christmas in the morning.
I got a phone call I still remember it so clearly.

"Shelly"

yep.

"This is Jeff we are going to the hospital"

Cool.

We will be praying for you and keep us posted.

"Can you call mom and dad and let them know."

Sure Jeff

"I love you"

"I love you too"

bye.

bye.

I went to the bathroom brushed my teeth and prayed the baby would come quickly and that it wouldn't be too long of a labor for Sharon.

(she usually has long labors and i just desired for her to have a little quicker one)

I felt nervous for them this time. I don't know what it was...so i prayed for them again.

A couple hours later.

My mom calls.

My knees buckled.

"No"

"Are you sure"

O'mom.

Time passed, nope i think time just stopped.

"Lord please be with Jeff and Sharon right now."

No one was sure what happened and then it was for certain.

On the way to the hospital the placenta broke and the baby didn't make it.

I flew down on Sunday night to see them in the hospital and to hold and say, "goodbye" to baby "Chloe Sue"

Who is more perfect now than she will ever be here on earth.

I didn't want to let her go.

It seemed so wrong to hold such a perfect baby, but like pastor "Joey" so calmly reminded me this is her earthly shell and she has a new body with God forever. How hard is this to say "goodbye" to a niece you will never see laugh, smile, enjoy allow to braid your hair...o my goodness.

I just cried and cried with Sharon and Jeff.

At the funeral I read the lyrics of a song for Sharon that are so touching.

by Twila Paris

A Visitor From Heaven

"A Visitor from Heaven

If only for a while

A gift of love to be returned

We think of you and smile

A visitor from Heaven

Accompanied by grace

Reminding of a better love

And of a better place

With aching hearts and empty arms

We send you with a name

It hurts so much to let you go

But we're so glad you came

We're so glad you came

A visitor from Heaven

If only for a day

We thank Him for the time He gave

and now it's time to say

We trust you to the Father's love

And to His tender care

Held in the everlasting arms

And we're so glad you're there

We're so glad you're there

With breaking hearts and open hands

We send you with a name

It hurts so much to let you go

But we're so glad you came

We're so glad you came"

I posted some songs in memory of "Chloe Sue"

Please continue to pray for healing and peace for Jeff and Sharon.

Life is so precious and is so short. God is teaching us sooo much each and every day. I just pray that i can be more and more attentive to what He desires for my life on a day to day basis.

"All the days ahead He alone has planned for me and were written in His book before I was even one day old" as well as for Chloe sue (Psalm 139).

We all know that this was in God's plan.

Chloe you've changed my life forever...

Tell me i'm not alone?

Ever since we came out of the "infant phase" from last year i have wanted to get a family picture. Still can't believe we are a family of five. It takes a pretty calm and collective person to take this family on, o'my. We've got our challenges. I guess some more than others, but we definitely have our photo challenges. We haven't gotten all the pictures back, but she did email some of them. We had a rough weekend and the kids weren't feeling reall good, but it was our last weekend to try to get a picture of all of us before the end of December.

Which family one do you like so far?

(saying this i know some of you aren't logged into the blog, but would love your opinion)?

Photo #1..

Photo #2 Photo #3

I'm so thankful for these few pictures, but bummed at the same time we didn't have more fun taking them. Is it just my family or do others have a rough time taking family pictures?

Firsts (Continued)

Taryn and I had a little Sunday outing to my cousins house in Gilroy to celebrate the graduation of his daughter. All my mom's sisters were there and what a joy it was to introduce Taryn to them. I wish they were all closer to shower on the love, this was a first for Taryn and boy did she seem to soak it all in.Aunt Joan, Aunt Pat, Aunt Sandy, my mom, Aunt Sharon & Taryn

My thoughts Feb 2001 (she titled it)

So oddly enough i found the below in my folder of docs on my computer. My grandma must of written this sometime while she was visiting. So i thought i would post it to remember her and the life she lived...so sweet at the end...

Written by Mickey Beck

"I was thinking today of the area in which I was raised, the San Joaquin Valley. My grandparents settled there in the very small town of Hanford, California. Strictly an agricultural area.

The town had one high school, one theatre. The weather was, and is, very hot in the summer, 100 degrees, and above on ocassions. It is cold in the winter, lows of 28 degrees, foggy, and raimy at times. We did not have a car, but the bad thing about having a car in the foggy season, and driving in it was there weren’t any lines down the middle of the streets. If you were on a country road you couldn’t tell if you were still on the road or not. One time after I was married, my husband had a l934 Ford convertible, I had to get out on the running board, and direct him so he would know if he was still on the road.

Being the foodbasket of the world, if the weather wasn’t hot the fruit wouldn’t open. Also in the winter if we had hail after the blossoms set on the trees the fruit was inedible because the hail made pock marks in the fruit even if it was just in the blossom stage.

There wasn’t any air conditioning and many of the houses had screen porches so that we could sit out there in the hope that a breeze of some kind would come up to temper the summer heat. There were also a lot bugs, gnats, flies and mosquitos. I remember out at my stepfather’s ranch trying to play when they were butchering the hogs in order to make linquesa, there were so many flies you couldn’t sit any place and be comfortable. The mosquito bites were many because we had no way of getting away from the mosquitos. We got used to persperation running down our faces and our clothing sticking to our bodies. They have mosquito control in the valley now, but you also have the side effects of the pesticides.

I love figs, but have you ever harvested any? The leaves are sticky and the juice from the figs even worse. Its gets all over you and you itch all over. You have to climb up into the trees to get the figs because if they are allowed to drop to the ground they mash. Add to that the flies, mosquitos, and hot weather and you find you do not have a very pleasant day picking figs. But the figs are delicious there, and very, very sweet. My brother had a fig tree, and I’m sure it was in memory of the hours he and I spent picking figs at the ranch.

One thing I did growing up was stand on a box and cut apricots with my grandmother. This is something she did for extra money because there were no jobs, and money was hard to come by. We went to the farmers property where the apricots were grown . They gave us lugs of apricots, which we cut and laid out on trays to go to the processors to be dried. The pay for a lug as I recall was 10 cents a lug. I thought I worked hard, but I know I was allowed to rest if I got tired. Apricots are ripe in the summer time, so there was no school.

Of course there were happy times when we were given a penney to go to the store for a candy . When the ice man came by on his truck, and just accidentally dropped ice so we could get ice to suck on. Occasionally a house would be having a new tar roof, and we would get some and chew it. When I went to high school we used to go to one of the trees near our school and dig up the roots, which were licorice roots and made good chewing.

There were concerts in the downtown park next to the County Courthouse. It would be in the early evening in the summer and grandma would take blankets to put on the ground, and a picnic lunch to eat while we listened to the music. Of course we children didn’t listen much. We would play games, hide and seek, mostly. The teen agers would find places where they could hang out and neck.

The good thing about those days was that no one was afraid to be out on the streets after dark. Everyone felt safe, secure and loved. The important thing in any household is to feel loved. If you have that you are rich."

A Tribute to my Grandma Mickey Beck

A Tribute to my Grandma

Phil 3:20-21

"For our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself"

My Grandma died today December 10, 2008 at 87 years old.

She was a very sweet woman, even at the end of her life.

When i was in third grade my grandma taught me how to play jacks on the driveway in Encinitas. We just laughed and laughed.

One of my grandma's favorite things was playing cards and when we would beat her she would say, "pooey"...or "Jerry you cheated".

My grandma LOVED CHOCOLATE; chocolate ice cream, rocky road, nut cluster candies, just loved chocolate. I remember one time at my parents house. She wanted my dad to get her some rocky road and the doctor told her to watch her cholesterol...my dad said we pro baby shouldn't and i said, "come on dad" if she wants chocolate ice cream give her chocolate ice cream, you only live once...Grandma just loved it that i stook up for her and we had a bowl together. I've never know anyone who loved Chocolate as much as my Grandma. I fed her in the hospital on Sunday and she wasn't too into eating anything, but they gave her a little dish of Chocolate ice cream. I said to her "Grandma you've always loved chocolate ice cream, what do you say we go straight to desert." She was so sweet and I fed her four bites. My mom said that was a lot. Chocolate to the end...

Awhile back my mom and i were in San Diego for a wedding and due to a odd situation at my grandma and Aunt's house my mom and I decided we should go back home at 2 am (my mom found a cockroach on her back...we were ready to leave...funny) Anyway, I was in charge of waking my Grandma up and seeing if she would come home with us at 2am, she said, "okay I'm ready" and she wasn't even fully awake. She just perked right up and went along not knowing what time it was, she was always such a good sport. It was such a great trip home, we laughed a lot and stopped at diner for Breakfast. My Grandma was always flexible and went along with the rest of us, no matter how goofy.

When my grandma was eighty for Christmas I gave her a "cool" vest from old navy (i wish i had the picture in a digital print) and she put it on right away and posed for me at eighty, so funny.

Since she moved to San Diego with my Aunt after my grandpa died my grandma was involved in a autobiography class with other people her age. She used to tell me about the people in her class and all the odd things "old people" did in their life.

When I went to visit her for the last time on Sunday, she did something funny that i would like to share. A nurse in the hospital kept saying, "I'm your granddaughter, I'm your granddaughter" and my grandma who barely spoke and was in a lot of pain looked at her and said, "your not my granddaughter". So funny.

She will be greatly missed.

I love you Grandma

We look forward to seeing you again one day.

San Diego two years ago

Misc from September

My goodness September has flown by.

This month we had school, parties, grandparents visit and of course we were Johnny Apple Seed...see below. In any case, just some fun photos of this past month.

Johnny Apple Seed

My parents with Dylan outside. They were on their way back from a vacation up North

Dylan and Grandpa reading a story

Taryn busting out one of her cute smiles. When asked Dylan what he likes most about the twins, he says sweetly, "their smiles". Very cute! They do smile a lot.

Feeding time with twins is always a little challenging. One still nurses and the other takes a bottle and i tell you it's a juggling act...talk about multi-tasking. I always tell Dylan, "mommy wishes i had one more set of hands".

btw: the last post of Dylan in the kitchen with n in out...yes that is our make shift kitchen. We are looking forward to settling down and taking advantage of the housing market in the near future. If any of you remember to pray for us in this area that would be awesome! We are excited about what God has in store for us. I'm looking forward to a little more space in a kitchen, especially with the addition of twins. I know no one really cares, except for us, but just thought i would ramble...

BTW: Jason and I planned on taking some pictures of each other with the kiddos this past weekend, but once again we got caught up in misc...catching up around the house before another week.

Grandpa, Dylan & Nolan (the weekend before the storm of medical)

Grandpa with the boys

Alright now we are on a ten week countdown. Ten weeks meaning, I'm at 26 weeks now and ten more weeks until 36 weeks, which is what my doctor hopes I will make it to.

I'm thrilled it's ten more weeks, I NEED A RUN!!!

Is that selfish or what! Give me a little grace though I've been running consistently since college and exercising since six, so a little grace is needed... Running can be addictive you know...and it definitely was a "love hate" situation for me (as the gals in Bakersfield can testify).

In any case, I have a goal, which is to do the Nike half in October of 2009, which is a fair goal.

I met a gal at church the other day with 12 month old twins (we've never met so many people with twins, there are tons of twins up here). Anyway, the gal said she ran marathons before twins and at about six weeks after giving birth she started running again (although it was tough) she stuck with it and just ran another marathon.

Okay so i will not be running a marathon, but Nike Half Fall of 2009 is a fair goal and if anyone wants to join me they are welcome.

Hey, just because we have kids doesn't mean we can not have goals and hobbies.

(Notice time...having a little issue with insomnia again tonight, i've actually done a lot better lately, but for whatever reason i'm up tonight).

BTW: For those that know us well know we were strongly opposed to the idea of ever owning a mini-van, but we bit our pride and took the plung over the weekend. We found a loaded Honda Odyssey in Petaluma and it was the exact color Jason wanted. We still can't believe we did it, but you know we really like the van. We looked and looked at different automobiles and finally God just provided the right one for our family.

On the side: Jason and I had this talk about saying we will never do things...every time we say we will never...ever...do something we always end up coming around to, so ENOUGH already.

Life is changing for us...and we are embracing the changes ahead.

Our first home in Bakersfield California

The below picture was taken on moving day in April 2007. Actually right after we took this picture, my parents and Jason and I got into cars and a moving van and ventured up North to San Jose.We enjoyed our home and were able to work on it as a family. See that rose tree in the back and the grass, we dug and planted all on our own...we put a lot of work into this home. We were thankful God provided it for us. One of the things we learned as a couple is you don't have to have a morgage to call a place home. We grew a lot in Bakersfield as a couple and a family. Our friends and times there will never be forgotten.