Where did October go?

My niece, Amber Plemmons and her boyfriend, Seth Fish at Youth Challenge

Jaxon, JaLayna & JeNessa

Andrew is quite an artist and drew pictures on Jaxon's wall in his newly redecorated room. This DOZER is one of the pictures he drew on the wall, then painted. This talent did not come from his mom or dad, that is for sure!
Another drawing / painting on Jaxon's wall.

CAT sign that Andy painted.

We were PACKED in the hayride wagon.

Kara and Kaitlynne on the hayride.

Kaitlynne with a kitten she found at the hayride

Katie was in her glory on this pony.

Riding home from the festival.

So tiny and precious!

Kara still has the touch to calm little JaLayna

Grandmy Plemmons prepared a lovely birthday dinner.

Aunt Lelah, Cousin Ronnie and Jennifer - sharing in the special day

Mamaw is enjoying this moment.

Jason and Katie were partied out and took a nap in my wheelchair. :0)

Grandmy Plemmons still has the touch

Grandpy Watters holding little JaLayna

Jaxon - Look at those eyes!

Grandmy Watters holding little JaLayna

Grandpy Plemmons holding JaLayna

Andrew and his girls, JeNa and JaLa

Andrew & Jennifer

Baby JaLayna looking at her Mamaw

I have been receiving 'side notes' from friends (thanks), prompting me to update my blog and I opened it today to realize I have not updated since October 1. Whew! It is hard to believe that October is almost behind us!

Work has been extremely busy, with the training of a new girl in the front office (where I have worked for 17 years) and learning my new position.

On the 'homefront', I have been repainting my basement, with the help of Jason and Kara. It is so much brighter being an off-white color as opposed to the darker blue. A little paint makes a huge difference in a room. I also had blind put up in the basement, as that sliding door area was wide open and I am just a little 'scaredy-cat' sometimes. My mercury light behind the house does not work. I think the wiring needs to be replaced because I have had the fixture changed twice and it still doesn't work on a regular basis. I need to do that before winter, so I am not so afraid!

I went with Jason and Kara to their church hayride and we had so much fun. I felt like I was falling off the wagon a time or two but I enjoyed it. The wagon was packed!!! We had to go over a very narrow bridge and that scared me to death but we survived.

I traveled to Cincinnati last weeked for a Women of Worth Committee Meeting at GBS. It was so nice to be with Ryan again. With the gas prices, I haven't been going too far and this was the first time I had been at GBS this year, so it was nice to be with him. I went a few hours early and helped him with a big project that has been on his plate and that is sorting wedding pictures. He shot a wedding a couple of weeks ago and had thousands of pictures to sort, so I helped him with this project and now he will need to go back through the pictures and touch them up with a touch only he has. I don't see the blemishes he does or the different variations to each picture that he does.

On Saturday (of last weekend) Ryan was pretty anxious to be on the road by 11:00 a.m., heading to my parents for their Homecoming Weekend at their church. I kept thinking, "I would really like to just do something in Cincinnati (I LOVE CINCINNATI and always have)." He said, "I would just like to get out of Cincinnati." I thought, "Oh well. I guess we will leave Cincinnati." He was up early and ready to go. He had to wait for me and boy is that unusual! So, we started out and he led the way. I kept thinking, "Why aren't we at least going the speed limit? After all, we still have two hours to drive and I know we are tired. Let's just 'get there'. We stopped to eat and he took his dear old time. After all, he said he wanted to leave Cincinnati by 11:00 and it was only 9:45, so we had time. (????) We finally got to my parents around 1:05 and when I walked in the door, there was a whole bunch of people yelling 'SURPRISE". My family had planned a surprise 50th birthday party with the black balloons, wheelchair, walking cane, cake with 50 black candles that nearly burned the house down, scaring us to death, and lots of gifts and cards. It was so nice to have all of my kids there with all of my grandkids. We got to see the new little one JaLayna, for the first time (for many of us) and it was so much fun just being together. My aunt and cousins came over and my brother, Don, traveled over from Fort Wayne. It was a beautiful day and a lot of mysteries to me were suddenly enlightened as I realized 'why' we needed to be here at a certain time (he was planning for 1:00), why my dad was off on a Saturday and why Ryan didn't want to stay in Cincinnati.

This weekend, I traveled with Dan, Clayton and Amber to the Cincinnati area again, to attend the Youth Challenge. What a special time that was. We all had a great time and it was fun being together with YOUTH. I won't be 50 until October 29th, so it was fun interacting with YOUTH again before the big day. :-)

I will share a few pictures of recent weeks and will try to better at blogging more often. We'll see how a 50-year old brain functions and if it remembers to blog. hehe

New Room

I have decided to re-do Ryan's room, as the carpet was so bad in there and it was bothering me. So...Jason and Kara came over one day and started getting the carpet out of the room in preparation for new carpeting. We had went to a local store and chose a remnant (boy, is carpeting expensive!) and I had made a deposit on the carpeting. The next day, while Jason was tearing out the carpeting he made a wonderful discovery. Beautiful hardwood floors were under all of that carpeting and padding. What a blessing!!!!!! I cancelled my order of carpeting and got my deposit back and now - wah-lah - I have beautiful hardwood floors. I little sanding and revarnishing goes a long way. This gives this room a totally different look. Here are some pictures of the new room. We put up new wallpaper border (boy, that's a treat to do when you are inexperienced), put some of Ryan's pictures that he has framed in there and also some of his Ansel Adams prints. It gives the room a totally different look, that is for sure.

It is a bit more feminine that Ryan would probably have decorated but I have a young lady who graduated from Lenawee Christian School (where I work) who is going to be moving in with me while she is teaching at Adrian College and working at the University of Michigan. I am looking forward to having someone in the home in the evenings for company and it will help me financially. This is a God-sent blessing, for which I am grateful. Like someone at my office told me the other day when I had a miracle transpire in my office (in front of her) "God always takes care of you!" Yes, HE DOES! He promised He would and He never goes back on His promises! Enjoy the pictures.

Ya busy??? I am!!!

JaLayna Mea Riann Watters - notice how little she is in front of the roses and next to the Bibles.
JaLayna's name tag and information.
Andy is showing us the shirt that he has used since JeNa was born. He has the baby's first footprints printed on the shirt and their time of birth and their name. He does this on the same shirt for every child. It is a very special shirt and is known as "The Shirt".
The Marion General Hospital's policy on the maternity ward stinks!!!! They would not allow the grandparents back there to see the baby or even touch the baby until the baby was back in the room. Most hospitals allow the siblings to be a part of the process if the parents request it, but not this hospital. Andy and Jenn tried to reason with them, but no way! So, he improvised and took a video of the new baby and brought it out to JeNa and Jaxon and showed them their new baby sister. It was precious!

JeNa was one proud Big Sister. She is going to be a big helper. On the way to JeNa's soccer game on Saturday morning we went to McDonalds and we were having trouble keeping the kids from running in the parking lot, so Jason had everyone (kids) hold on to a pocket on his pants. This kept them all together.
JeNa and Katie were waiting for their breakfast.
JeNa was waiting for the ball. She was so cute out there on that field.


Our little JaLayna
I am one proud grandma!
She looks so much like JeNa did as a baby.
This is a picture of Jaxon's first experience with his new sister. He is always saying, "I want to hold him!"
He's more relaxed here!

It's been a big joke around here lately and people will say, "Ya busy?" It's then that you know that they want you to help them do something. I have been having to say that a lot lately. I've had a lot of new changes in my job (new position), Ryan going back to school, adjusting to being at home alone again, garage sale in August, painting and re-doing flooring in my house, changing churches, and the best thing of all . . . becoming a grandma again for the fourth time on Friday night. It was quite a journey in getting her here, with some real scares with Jennifer's blood pressure dropping drastically and the baby's heart rate way out of whack. The cord was around the baby's neck, so that was not good. God provided a real miracle in her delivery and we are blessed. She was born a little before 8:00, Friday evening, September 19. She is 8 lb. 6 oz. and is 21 inches long. Her name is ... JaLayna Mea Riann Watters. No, I didn't mispell anything, that's how it is spelled. I went down Thursday evening and we did the traditional Bob Evans dinner / snack before going into the hospital. We enjoyed our time together. I spent the night at Andy & Jenn's house and took care of Jaxon and JeNessa while Andy & Jenn went to the hospital. Mom and Dad Watters went with me to Marion, Ohio, to be there for the baby's birth and my mom and dad met us at the hospital. Mom Watters and I spent the day Friday trying to occupy two anxious, excited and hyper children. We truly did have fun but mom was totally exhausted. We wondered who was laboring more, Jennifer (having a baby) or us at babysitting. We know why God gives you children while you are young! We went to two playgrounds, took them out to eat, went shopping and just played together.

After the baby was born, we went home and on the way, Jennifer's mother, Judy, developed severe chest pains and they had to turn around and head for the hospital. They saw a police along the road, Wes (Jenn's dad) stopped, told him of his wife's chest pains and the police said, "Follow me." Lights, sirens, 65 mph through Marion, with Wes right behind him. The police ran into the hospital and got help. What a blessing to find help so quickly. They admitted her and ran tests. It turned out not to have been a heart attack, for which we are grateful. So, we had Judy and Jennifer both in the hospital.

Saturday morning, we went to JeNa's soccer game, then went to the hospital to see Judy and Jennifer, and of course, JaLayna. We had been at the hospital only a few minutes when my father-in-law, George, said, "I am dizzy! I am dizzy!" He passed out and the action began. We were running down the hall, trying to get help. Here we are, on a maternity floor, and dad passed out. The nurses were great!! They rushed him to the ER and he was admitted to CCU. What a fiasco! Mom and I ended up going back to the same motel and spent the night again. This is the same type of episode that we dealt with in June when dad passed out like this at church. The doctors reluctantly released him tonight and said he is to go straight home and make contact with his cariologist. NO DRIVING! And get to the doctor right away!!

We were SOOOO glad to get home tonight. It was a busy weekend, for sure.

Wes, Jenn's dad, said, "The next time we plan to have a baby up here, I am reserving three beds so we have things ready in advance."

I just thought I would let you in on my weekend.

Did you think I got lost?

Ryan and Amber practicing. Ryan sang a solo and Amber was his accompanist. Buddy was supervising the practice session. Ryan and Amber are VERY CLOSE cousins and enjoy being with each other. Ryan laughed more this weekend than he has laughed in a long time. It was good for them to be together again.
Amber's boyfriend, Seth Fish, was doing his part with the assembly line meal preparation. Opening the cans of biscuits. Somebody's gotta do the hard jobs...
Kathie, Travis, Olivia, Jacynda, Heidi and my mom came up to Adrian to ice skate at the Adrian College Ice Rink. What a blast they had. Jason, Kara and Katie came over to skate also. The ladies all sat in the bleachers (BRRRRRRR) and watched the skaters. The neat thing about this skating session was that they had the rink to themselves for most the evening. It was so awesome! Jason and Ryan helped to girls with their skating techniques. Olivia was a real 'hit' for the night with her skating abilities. If only I could skate half as good as her. She did a fantastic job and learned so much that night. It was fun to watch the boys with their cousins and how they were so patient with them.
August 8 and 9 was the Relay For Life at Lenawee Christian School. We went over there to see what was happening. We were a little uncertain as to whether or not we could emotionally handle being there, as we used to go to this event before Steve developed cancer. It brought back tons of memories. The luminary lighting was a powerful event. I dreamed about Steve that night. It was so filled with so many good memories of our time together. There were 88 luminaries purchased in Steve's memory.

Clayton was in the dishwater while I was trying to do dishes and had a blast with his beard of bubbles. Clayton is sure growing up. He's nine years old and almost as tall as me.
At the Relay for Life, the theme was Race to the Cure. Katie enjoyed sitting in the car at the display.
We took the 88 luminaries and lined them up in front of the booth and formed the word LOVE. A little crooked but that's OK.
Standing around the lit display while they read the names of the survivors and the ones who lost their lives to cancer. The reading of the names took about 50 minutes but it was nice.
My beautiful mother, sitting in the COLD bleachers, while the kids were skating.

Amber is holding her dog, Buddy. Talk about a dog with an attitude, this dog has a major attitude. I believe he is the most arrogant dog I have ever seen. He's so ugly he's cute! I don't think there is a dog alive though that is more loved than Buddy. And spoiled by Dan too! Can you believe it? Dan, my brother Dan, the one who never likes dogs, is the number one hero in that dog's eyes and Dan lets the dog sleep on his chest.
Amber is helping in the asembly line for the pizza sticks. We made 42 pizza sticks in quick order. Too bad she had to work for her own 17th birthday party. She didn't mind though.
Seth Fish and Amber Plemmons - showing those pearly whites...
One of the pictures that Ryan took this year for a bulletin board project. I love the rose with the Bible and especially the highlighting.
Amber and Buddy - you would almost think that dog was her protector.

I know these pictures are out of order but at least I have an updated blog.

It's been a very busy summer and I have been very negligent in posting frequently. So, I thought it may be a good idea to just put up a bunch of pictures. Other people get away with that, so why can't I?