Special Birthdays

Our lovely Erica sketched and coloured this gorgeous card for me earlier on this year when I had a special birthday. To celebrate we went out for a nice dinner with our kids. I considered that to be a suitably low key way to mark the day - I am not a fan of a big fuss and am a bit averse to surprise parties but I did enjoy that our girls secretly organised a birthday cake for me and Pete did a beautiful impropmtu speech. All these special things gathered up together made for a perfect day and I was really touched. The cake was crafted by Amy's lovely friend Karen. I'm not sure if you can really see it in the photo but the 'lace' around the edge of the cake was pearly. She is a true artist.

Karen also made a cake for Amy's 21st Birthday Party which we went to last night. Pete and I sometimes can't believe that our baby girl is 21 and we don't know where all those years have gone. Other times we are just relieved to have got to this stage in the life of our family and wonder how we did it! We had had four daughters and our family was complete just before my 30th birthday. So that's the reason Amy and I end up celebrating our 'special birthdays' around a similar time. Milestones in family life are little opportunites to pause and reflect, give thanks to God and to savour that sense of heart-overflowing blessedness.

So we were the 'oldies' at Amy's birthday party but we did enjoy the beautiful 'young' people - they are so fun and interesting to chat to. The lovely cake-making Karen came especially to encourage Pete and I before she left - telling us what a lovely friend Amy was and what a good job of bringing her up we had done. Such things are very nice for parents to hear and we so appreciated that she took the time to do that. Our son-in-law Paul made Amy a 21st key which was also very thoughtful. People do sometimes moan about young people but personally I 'rate' them. I love their energy, creativity and freshness.

The Boys

I have just finished knitting a hoodie for each of our two lovely little grandsons. Kaedin recently celebrated his first birthday and Floyd is 6 months old now. They are so darling and give us so much pleasure. I love to talk about them and I especially enjoy refering to them as 'the boys' after having all girls ourselves. It just sounds so nice to me and different. They are beginning to take more notice of each other now and sort of 'play' together. Kaedin is very enthusiastic about Floyd and likes to kiss and hug him a lot. Floyd is however a little unsure of his exuberant affection at times. I asked the girls to do me a little photo shoot when they tried the hoodies on yesterday....

... so now I am all ready to start something for our new little grandaughter. Lola Adele Maria Verhij joined our family 2 weeks ago much to the delight of us all. 'It's a girl' YAY! I met up with Annah and Lola at the wool shop to choose a shade of Debbie Bliss cashmerino so I can knit her a little cardy for next winter. She has been given so many lovely knitted things for now so I can relax and take my time over this next project. She is pictured below wearing a gorgeous little set made by her great-grandmother and my mother. When I was a baby it would have been called a layette. I love the way Mum has adapted her knitting to keep it stylish and relevant to today's babies. She also made Lola a beautiful blanket that Annah really loves.

 I know I haven't written my blog for ages and you may well be thinking I am only using it as an excuse to brag about my grandies - well it is true - I confess. However to get back into my blogging I did need to up-date you with what has been going on in our lives and it has been quite a bit as you can see. Three grandchildren within a year has been pretty full-on - but very lovely!