Month: January 2011

Molly had “Cowboy/Cowgirl Day” on Friday.  She had a blast!  Mrs. Honaker arranged for a pony ride at school for the kids, which turned out to be a hit!  They also at beans and rice by a campfire in the class room.  Molly made sure to let me know that it wasn’t a real fire.  They ate “cactus,” which was just that yummy dessert, haystacks, with some green food coloring added.

After school they went home with our friends, the Pizza’s.  They were gracious enough to have our kids over for Friday night and most all day Saturday so that Josh and I could get away for a bit and celebrate our 10 years of marriage.  I know it isn’t a walk in the park to add three kids to the mix…especially when you already have three!!  I appreciated it more than they know.

We had a wonderful time away!!!   I am so glad Josh went ahead and made the plans…it was needed more than I realized.

the view of Buckhead from our room window

before our dinner

We had an amazing time just being together.  We missed our kids and all they add to our life, but we sure needed a bit of refreshment.  I had so much fun.

Today marks 10 years of wedded bliss between Joshua Lee and me.  Josh is the kind of guy you want to walk through life with.  See, I  have this unique way of seeing the worst in a situation very quickly.  Josh, on the other hand, has a unique way of seeing the best in every situation.

It gets on my nerves sometimes.

But most of the time I am just so glad that I have him to “do life” with.  He is a great husband.  That’s all there is to it.  He loves the Lord, he loves me, he loves our kids, and he works hard.  I love spending time with him more than any other person on the planet.  He makes the good times better and the harder times not so hard.  I loved the lyrics of a Sara Groves song I heard not long ago and immediately thought it true of Josh and me.

TWICE AS GOOD by Sara Groves

When I am down and need to cry till morning,
I know just where I am going.
When I’m in need of sweet commiseration
To speak out loud.
Raise a glass to friendship
And to knowing you don’t have to go alone.
We’ll raise out hearts to share each other’s burdens
On this road. 

Every burden I have carried,
Every joy–it’s understood.
Life with you is half as hard,
And twice as good.

With my good news you’re dancing on the table:
Baby’s born, to celebration.
The joy of life, oh what a sweet communion,
Shared with you.

Every burden I have carried,
Every joy–it’s understood.
Life with you is half as hard,
And twice as good.

I know we’re growing older,
Can you imagine what that will bring?
It’s all a mystery to me now,
Except this one thing:
It’ll be half as hard, and twice as good.

There’s been a lot of talk about anniversaries around here.  Josh’s mom and dad celebrated 40 years in December.  My mom and dad celebrate 37 years today, and Josh and I will celebrate 10 years on Thursday!  Marcy and Jesse will celebrate their anniversary in just a week or so.  Mack must be paying attention to all of this talk because today he said, while looking at my wedding portrait, “I wish you would be in that dress right now.”  I told him I had that dress in my closet.  He insisted on seeing it and then he said, “Put it on, Mama.  Let me see, let me see.”  It was so sweet!  So what did I do?  Said a quick prayer it would zip and then put on my wedding dress.  Mack thought it was great, but then he wanted to know where my head thing was, so I pulled out the veil and put it on, too.

Now keep in mind, this is 10 years and 3 babies later….I have a UTI and haven’t slept well the past couple of nights…I have been doing all manner of house work this morning…I don’t have one stitch of make up on unless you count what I wore yesterday…

However, I am still thrilled that it zipped.  If it zips in another 10 years, that would be wonderful!

 

Words keep coming up inadequate as I prepare to write this post, so I will take from what Pastor Catt said at the Celebration Ceremony….Debbie Dorminy isn’t lost or far away, but we are getting closer to her as each day passes.  She was a strong woman who loved the Lord and loved her family and loved her friends.  She always made me feel like one of her own children; she loved our kids more than I could have ever imagined a grandmother would love her grandkids.  I think that is the part that makes me cry the most–my children love Gran.  She had so much to teach them, and she loved them in a very unique way.  I am sad that that piece of the puzzle is missing, though I know she is happy and whole in Heaven right now.  I am just sad for us and what we will miss from having her in our lives.

Molly would skype her regularly on the computer.  Last year, I would be upstairs teaching Ruby Kindergarten, so Molly would come down and call Gran.  I would hear singing, math and many stories about when Gran was a little girl.  I am so thankful that they had all of those talks face-to-face on this computer.  We would all try and take turns talking to Gran, but for the most part, Molly wanted all the attention from Gran and would ask us to get out of the room.

Gran made both of the girls dedication gowns.  So precious.  She also recently made them “Little House on the Prairie” bonnets and aprons.  And she made all of our curtains in our first house.  She was one talented lady.  She made her wedding dress and all of her bridesmaid dresses, too, if I remember correctly.

Ruby was always in pictures in her library when she was a Media Specialist.  Such a proud grandmother.

I remember distinctly one day in our daughter/mother-in-law relationship. Ruby was about four days old.  I was engorged…lovely word, I know…and couldn’t get the silly breast pump to work.  She saw it “all” that day, and we reached a new level of familiarity.  She also drove me, Ruby and my raging hormones to the lactation consultant.  She parked the car and then turned around and looked at me and said, “We do not have to go in here.  You can just forget about all of this breast feeding stuff if you want to.”  She knew I was on the verge of a breakdown.  She was so supportive of whatever decision I made.

I remember the look of surprise on her face when we announced at Molly’s first birthday that we were expecting yet again.  But I am so glad we had our children so close together.  I can’t help but think that the Lord had it this way, in part, so that Gran could see and know all three of them and make some great memories together.

I could go on and on with the memories.  She will be missed terribly.  We all have a lot of adjusting to do, that is for sure.  I know the Lord will help us, as He has all along the way.

If you have a story or a memory of Debbie that you want to share in the comments, please leave it there.  You can also send it to jkdorminy@comcast.net.  I would love to have as many stories as I can to share with my kids about their grandmother.  Josh says those were the times he was most emotional—when person after person stopped by the house during those last days to tell them what she meant to them or shared a story about how she encouraged them or helped them.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of His godly ones.”  Psalm 116:15

*Special thanks to Josh’s cousin, Clay, for this painting of Gran.  It was beautiful!

It’s hard to wrap my brain around the power of prayer.  So many times you want to DO something, SAY something…not just pray.  But I know it is never just prayer.  It’s powerful and intimate and the very best thing one can do, especially in a situation where you feel helpless.

Josh is with his dad and mom and brother and grandma and many other family members right now.  I am with the kids.  I have had offers to watch the kids while I go down, but it hasn’t worked out that way.  I have a peace about where I am and what I am doing; I love that Josh can focus totally on his mom and dad.  I pray that this time is a blessing to all of them as they are together and caring for the sweet woman who means so much to us.  Gran is so close to Heaven.  It’s been two years since we’ve known that cancer was her diagnosis, but I wasn’t prepared for this.  I suppose nothing can fully prepare you.  It’s a very difficult thing for all involved, and I just don’t know what to say.

The days are difficult and the nights even more so.

“The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night.  Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”  Psalm 42

Thank you for praying for Deb and Irv and the family…..

I like to look back at old pictures to see what we were doing this time last year and what the kids looked like.  It’s funny how many pairs of pants Ruby can’t wear anymore; funny how kids grow over the course of a year even after we tell them to stop growing.  We like our little 6 year old, 5 year old and 3 year old.  They don’t listen.  And they just keep growing and growing.

I thought it only fair to announce that Mack knows his colors since this time last year I didn’t think he ever would.  Everything was “red.”

Not anymore.  The boy knows his colors.  He also is a genius when it comes to “Big A” recognition.  You wouldn’t believe how many “Big A’s” there are around.  I would love to move on to “Big B,” but Mack is not quite ready.

He is so cute these days.  We got him a Bible for Christmas. When it is time to pray he says, “Oh, wait, wait, wait.  Let me go get my Bible.”  He then flips through the pages looking for the right page for whomever we are praying for.  Just the other morning as we were talking about how to pray for Gran and Paw Paw, he said, “OK, here is Gran’s page……Close your eyes, Ruby…Molly…Dear God, Thank you for Gran and help her to feel all better.  Help PawPaw to not cry and Daddy not to cry and Molly not to cry and Gran to run and walk good.”

Sweet booger.  I love that he runs to get his Bible as if he has to have it to pray.  It’s such a good picture for us adults.  The Bible, God’s Word, is full of promises for believers that we can claim in prayer.

This time last year the sun was out, too.  It was warm enough for the kids to be out and playing!

I sure hope the kids get to go to school tomorrow.  We’ve been in this house together since Sunday.  It has gone remarkably well.  We did all the school work that we could.  We’ve colored, watched movies, cleaned their rooms, baked cookies, and just laid around being lazy.  It has been nice.  I won’t complain when the temps break into the 40’s though!

There are many things a mother has to do that she doesn’t want to do…today I had to do one of those things…go out in the snow to take pictures of my kids (and husband) playing.  I hate being cold.  Hate. it.  I like how pretty everything looks, but that is about it.  If I can just sit inside with coffee, a good book and a blanket, then I am happy.

We rode on our neighbor’s ATV to his barn and then Josh rode the kids on the four wheeler while we watched Jeff clean up his horses poop!  Molly and Mack had a lot of questions for him.  He was probably thrilled when he could drop us off back at home.

I was telling Mack to smile, but I think he was frozen.

Mack and Molly had fun riding with Josh.  Ruby didn’t like it at all.

See?  I was there!

“Why do horses poop on the floor? Why do you have to rake it up and put it in a wheel barrow?  Why don’t they use a potty?  Why are you dumping their poop in the snow?”

And this is pretty much how Ruby and I felt about the whole snow-ordeal by the time we got home.

Snow, snow melt away.  Please don’t come back any other day.  Please.  I beg you.

The week after Christmas Aunt Cacy, Jud and Kaybeth came to see us. That same night, Uncle Jason and Merrilee came over to do Christmas with us, then my parents came to stay for a couple of nights.  It was all a lot of fun.  Here are some shots from that week:

 

You would think he didn’t like this book from Uncle Jason…..however….

we all got a good laugh out of it!

Pillow Pets were a huge hit from the cousins!!!  Thanks, Jud, Kaybeth, Vance and Renn!

Eating ice cream

Sweetie

Sweetie and PawPaw helped the kids make a “house” out in the woods.  They played LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE.

I got a new lens for my camera…from the Dorminy’s!

This checkers game was from Merrilee….poor Mack didn’t really get a chance to play.  He was not happy about it.

 

That should pretty much catch me up from my Christmas posts.  Now I need to get going with the snow pictures from today.  It is FREEZING here.  Ruby said today, while riding an ATV out in the snow, “I WISH WE LIVED IN HAWAII!”  Oh, at times like these, I couldn’t agree more.

 

I have over 100 pictures that I just downloaded/uploaded…whatever.  They are on my computer, and I don’t know where to start.  Since I have to finish up some school work (it is hard to get back into the swing of things!!!), I think I will start with the many faces of Sherriff Mack.

Don’t mess with Mack.

More to come….

Crazy how time flies.  Already a few days into this new year of 2011.  2011.  That’s a weird year to type out.  Maybe by April I will naturally write the correct year in my checkbook.

I usually LOVE new years…new starts, new goals, a time to clean out drawers, buy new calendars, start a new journal, and on and on the newness could go.

I seem to have a different take at this new year.  It’s not that I don’t still love the new calendars and journals; it’s just that I am not so much into setting any plans this year.  We are in such a place that I have never planned for that I have to fight throwing up my hands when it comes to planning.  I mean, really, we are in control of so very little…almost nothing…maybe nothing at all.  I still haven’t figured that out.  HOWEVER, this isn’t meant to be a hopeless sort of non-planning…just a new freedom that is coming from trusting the Lord, I hope.

So instead of planning what size jeans I intend to wear by Spring or how many miles I want to be able to walk or how much savings we should have squirreled away by this time next year, I think I will settle in on just a couple of very simple things.

1) Spend time every morning with the Lord and learn to practice His presence throughout the day and night.

2) Depend more on His Word and less on people and/or circumstances to provide true life.

That’s it.  That’s enough.

“Seek the Lord and His strength.  Seek His face continually.”  Psalm 105:4