First Grandson!

Yeah! Carter has arrived! Sarah is recovering and she and Bryant are thrilled with their new baby boy. Katie and Ella have visited the hospital and had the opportunity to hold their baby brother, and they are so cute with him. I know that Sarah's blog will soon be filled with the whole experience! (;
I am grateful for the opportunity I am having to enjoy this wonderful phase in life of grandparenting. I feel that it is indeed a blessing in my life. To watch your own child parent children is fascinating. When our children were really small, it seemed as if they would always be that size, and Randy and I sometimes felt that the work would never end. It is physically challenging to raise a large family when they are small. However, now that they are all grown, and some of them are"growing" their own families, I realize how quickly that time of their childhood went by. It seems like yesterday that they were just babies themselves. For any of you who may be reading this who have young ones, please know that the time will go swiftly by. There is nothing more precious than the time you have with those little ones as you guide and nurture them. I am just so grateful that even though they are grown, I can still be a part of their lives and we can continue to grow and progress in new and wonderful ways!

Family Traditions

As I was contemplating some of the traditions we have in our family, I realized how they truly do bind families together. It is that special something that makes each family unique. In our family, during a designated time on Christmas Eve, the cousins all run down my parents hallway and out the door to see if Santa has come They are joined by their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who line the hallway banging pots and pans. This is tradition that was brought over by my German great-grandparents. We have done it every Christmas Eve that I remember.
On birthday's we used to hide the kids presents under our bed, and then when it was time to open them, everyone jumped up on our bed and the siblings would take turns bringing a presents out from under the bed. This is another tradition I adopted from my growing up years.
A tradition I started about 10 years ago is "dinner-in-a-pumpkin" on Halloween....Initially no one wanted to eat the yummy stew-like substance I cooked into a real pumpkin, but now if I say I'm not cooking dinner in a pumpkin on Halloween....I receive death threats! (J/K)
Anyway.....I was wondering if you guys have some traditions that you would like to share.
Or traditions that you have been thinking of starting.

Party Central

I hope that on my tombstone they put :"she loved a good party." It's funny how some people think you need alcohol and other stuff like that to have "fun." That is so not true. Give me some good old rock and roll, and some fun people, and it's a party for sure. I love it when fun people get together and laugh and share time together. The other night, for my birthday, the kids and grandkids were over, and we played pictionary. It was a simple game, but it was such a blast. It doesn't take much to have a fun time. Ella (almost 3 years), kept drawing in a circle for her turn at pictionary, and we kept guessing...what was funny about it was that she didn't know what she was drawing, but kept saying "no, no" to anything we guessed, until she finally liked what someone guessed she was supposed to be drawing. But in the meantime, she just kept drawing circles on the dry erase board. Simple fun!