How Could I Forget?

My Mother and my Sister have been keeping secrets.

There have been rumors for months about a very special gift that was originally meant for my birthday / Mother's Day, and then for Christmas.

Because of the mishaps in Mom's life this past year, there were unexpected delays.

But finally just after Christmas, I received one of the gifts I will treasure most in my life.

I try very hard to keep up with Jocelyn's baby book, and I will do the same for her school memories books, but one day when she is grown, she will take them with her into her adult life.

But this gift is a treasured album that I can always have for myself.

Inside this album are about 100 photos of me as a little baby up to about 4ish, and photos of Jocelyn doing the same things!

Here are some of my favorite pages.

Using all 4 's (or 5!) to stand

Riding bikes

Our First School Days

Jocelyn helping Pepere and me as a little girl doing the same

I know now why this project took so long for them to finish.  Just finding the photos, I'm sure was a feat in itself, since most of the ones of me are, um...  well...  really old!  

Thank you to my Mom and my Sister for this most treasured gift!

We Survived!

I was just reading my last post and I can't believe all that's happened since then.

We certainly don't live a boring life here on the homestead, that's for sure.

So Grammy came to visit for Christmas, and not more than 24 hours after her arrival...  and two days before Christmas, she broke her ankle on the stairs at Auntie's house.  Surgery, a week in the hospital, two weeks in rehab, and now hanging out at Auntie's house for some recovery time.  What was supposed to be a weeks visit, turned into a month!

The good news is Jocelyn loves having Grammy close by to drop in on.



So, as you can imagine, this made Christmas a little more interesting!  We still have presents waiting to be opened.  Hopefully we'll get to them this weekend.

Anyway, through it all, Santa still made his appearance!

Reindeer snacks

Santa's leftovers and a note!

Jocelyn had a great Christmas!

Mommy got some very special Christmas gifts from Jocelyn this year!  A hand print soap dish and wreath banner.  My two favorite gifts by far!

Somewhere in the midst of all the insanity, Uncle Steve and Uncle Clayton came for a visit.  We went to 34th Street in Baltimore to check out the lights.  Unfortunately, with the chaos and potential yucky weather (that as is typical MD weather, turned out to be nothing!)  I wasn't able to spend as much time with them as I would have liked, but it was so nice to see them, and we hope to see them again soon!

So the fun continued after Christmas when everyone in the family came down with colds and coughs.  Just to keep it interesting...
But with any luck, we are hopefully all on the mend.  Grammy will be going home after Jocelyn's birthday but with still more recovery to do.  Jocelyn is back to school and hopefully life is returning to normal.

In less than two weeks, Jocelyn will be turning 5 years old.  I can't even bear the thought right now.  But there is no doubt my baby girl is growing up.  This week at school, she was riding a friend's two-wheel bike with training wheels.

Look at that big girl!!