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We just got back from Idaho from Phebe's memorial service. It was wonderful to meet people that for years I've only known through Christmas photos. The boys loved seeing their cousins most of all:

They spent a memorable time playing with them, both at Grandpa L's house and after the memorial service. Incredibly, everyone's clothes ended up OK.

Grandpa L's house served as a central location for visiting. I know Phebe must have been smiling at the good times we all had there.

It's been 6 months since we had to put Roswell down, so it was a treat for the boys to have not one but two affable dogs in the house. Here they are, hitting up Grandpa L for food:


He must be an easy mark. I think he shares.

We also enjoyed walking through extremely tall, wet grass in the morning with the dogs. Here's Dominic with Aunt Mel:


And this is Rowan with Grandpa L and Aunt Mel:


Isn't that a gorgeous scene? Basically next door to where Grandpa L lives.

The boys continued their problems sleeping anywhere but in their own beds:

An air mattress was a good idea; being so close to the floor they can't get hurt falling out!

As soon as we got back, Dominic lost a tooth and put it in his pillow last night. He got up, though, and showed me another tooth he'd pulled out. I told him to put it in his pillow too. Soon after he came back with another tooth out! He lost three teeth yesterday, including his two front teeth, scoring six gold dollar coins from the tooth fairy last night. Amazing.

We're looking forward to baseball and fireworks this weekend, and I'm looking forward to the boys not killing each other after spending a lot of time together in a small space this past week.

Project 12 May

The deadline for May's Project 12 was approaching; though I'm not really doing this for a prize, I like a deadline, so I worked diligently to meet it. Here's the sketch for this month:


Not many photos on it, which was fine for me, because there was only one event that stuck out for me this past month: the death of my mother-in-law. I have been scrapping her a bit lately, so I wanted the page to be about her. However, I wasn't there for her passing. Derick didn't make it either: she died while he was in the airport on his way to say goodbye. I felt the month was about her--May is the month for mothers--so I made the page about her and the way I see her in the daily lives of our family. Here's what I did:

I followed the sketch pretty faithfully, using mostly My Mind's Eye, Prima, and Jillibean soup. I flipped the design to show off the most beautiful parts of the die cut paper. The most fun was the stitching, using my beloved Bazzill and Stampin' Up! templates. If you look closely, you can see I used variagated DMC floss. It changes color as it goes.

I have a confession for this page--that wonderful photo on the left was not taken in May. As I said, Derick didn't quite make it in time to say goodbye. Since this month was about her, I felt it would be a crime not to have a photo of her, so I used a grainy photo taken in February when the whole family was there to celebrate my FIL's birthday. This is the last photo we have of her with the family. In this picture she had undergone months of chemo to tackle her pancreatic cancer, and look how gorgeous she looks. What a woman. We'll miss you, Phebe. Rest well with God.

The best mother-in-law

My mother-in-law Phebe passed away tonight, succumbing to a brief but valiant battle against pancreatic cancer. She was a woman who lived a life of faith and love, and that matters. I wanted to say what a terrific mother-in-law she was.

The stereotypical MIL is bossy and critical. Not Phebe. If she wanted to show me something--a product or a new way of doing something--she would never say, "Here's how you do it," or "This is a better way." Instead, she would say, "I really like this, and here's why." This gentle instruction invited me to see other ways of doing without being unkind, and I treasure the times I spent with her. They were always loving, and funny, and warm. I should mention her son inherited this way of instructing from her.

Please pray for the peace of God to be with our family. I'm posting a page I did of her last fall, honoring her immense talent in photography: