More pictures, mostly of Brendan

Kelly and Dylan visiting at my little house ... I'm not quite moved in yet

Dylan, making beautiful music ...

Brendan sitting at my piano a few days ago

Brendan and Kelly ... Brendan TALKS to her!

Sleeping soundly ... back in March

Brendan's blue jeans ...

At 3 months, Brendan is wearing size 9 months to 1 year ... Brutus!

Brendan's darling shoes ...

Kelly, Dylan, Brendan, Terry, Ruthanne, David, Mom at Roy's funeral

Brendan, with his really great aunt, Ruthanne!

Baby Brendan with his great-great aunts Sally, Jean, Janice ... and his great aunt, Ruthanne

Dylan gets "the hood" ...

 Dylan graduated from Calvin Seminary on Saturday, May 19, with a master's degree in theological studies.

 I tried to take some pictures of the event, but I do not photograph people very well at all. Also, I don't seem to understand how to zoom in from a far distance, get the lighting correct, and actually have a picture turn out! This is the best I could do.

 Dylan is glad to finally be finished with his studies. He loves his job at Acton Institute and will now be able to concentrate full time on his work.

 I love this picture of Dylan and Kelly!

"THE HOOD"

 You would think that with all of the $$ it takes to get through graduate school, they would at least GIVE you the hood ... but NO! So Dylan rented this one for the occasion ...

 Baby Brendan was a sweetie all throughout the ceremony until the actual presenting of the diploma ... thankfully, Kelly knows all of the tricks of the trade and walked Brendan to the side of the auditorium where she still got to see Dylan walk ...

 We tried the cap on Brendan, but he wanted nothing to do with it!

Look at this little fellow's double chin! 

Congratulations, Dylan, on completing your studies! Very proud of you in every way!

In honor of my step-father ...

I would like to try to write a tribute for my step-dad, Roy Cook. I took this picture of him at Dylan's graduation from college back in 2009. I love this picture of him because it is so exactly LIKE him ... sweet, kind, honest, wonderful, true. Would you believe that he was 89 in this picture? He never looked his age or acted it either! I think he was a very handsome man, inside and out.

My mom and Roy were married in 2007 and had four healthy years together before this last kind-of rough year. My mom says she has never been loved like this by anyone in her life. I am so glad that she got to have these years with this sweet man.  

 I can't seem to find any pictures of Roy and my mother together. I have a bunch of them on this computer somewhere, but I cannot locate them at this moment. So ... I give up! 

At Roy's funeral last Tuesday, his son David gave the most beautiful eulogy I have ever heard. It was so honoring to his dad's memory and gave all the glory and praise to the Lord, who gave His life for all of us.

Roy's son, David, and Roy (2008)

When I think of Roy, I always call him "Cookie." This was a nickname given to him long ago by his friends. The name just seemed to fit him so perfectly, that I always referred to him (when talking to my family and friends) that way. I never called him "Cookie" to his face, although I don't think he really would have minded it because he was a humble man. Truly humble. I loved this about him.

Cookie always had a good story to tell about days long ago and I loved to listen to him, even if he had already told me the same story many times over. He was a very interesting man and had a wonderful sense of humor. Whenever I would ask him how he was doing, this was his response: "I'm able to sit up and take nourishment." I don't know why, but that always made me laugh. I also loved to hear him pray: "We come to you, Lord, in the noon hour of this day to give You thanks ..."

Roy used to plant and harvest an abundance of tomatoes each summer. He had a way with plants and flowers. He just seemed to ... understand them!  The entire back yard of their house was a garden, full of the most beautiful wild flowers, rose bushes, birch trees, and bird feeders too.

The front yard of Roy and mom's house (2008)

I am happy that I got to be Roy's step-daughter, even if it was only for five years. He was a man of deep faith and personal integrity. I know that he is with the Lord, more alive than he has ever been ... but we will miss him very much, we who are still on this earth. My mother is mourning this loss and I am sad for her. But I am not sad one single bit for Cookie. We will joyfully meet again ...

Last month in El Paso ...

It's been four weeks now since I was in El Paso to see Jesse, Diana and the grandkids. Time has just zoomed on by and I am just now getting to looking at the pictures I took while I was there. It's way past time that I post them and journal our time together.
This is the first time that I landed in El Paso during a sandstorm. On our approach, visibility was less than one mile. I usually take such delight in the view of the Franklins, but I could not even see the mountains one single bit! After landing, Jesse drove me up into the mountains so that I could SEE them ... the sun was trying to shine through the sand blowing everywhere. When we stepped outside of Jesse's car to take a few pictures, the wind was blowing really strong ... I got sand in my teeth even!
It's always wonderful to be reunited with the children. Matthew surprised me by quickly sketching the Cat in the Hat. It was the week of Dr. Seuss's birthday, so we did a lot of Dr. Seuss stuff!
I thought Matthew did a pretty amazing job with this drawing ... it took him less than a minute!
This is Emma Joy, cuddling with their kitty, Belle. I love Emma's smile in this picture. We smile a lot when we are together!
And Christopher drew me a whole bunch of robot and transformer pictures. He is very confident with his art work, and always spontaneous about it. He really enjoys drawing, so I tell him every time I am with him that he is an artist. His teacher, Ms. Foreman, agrees with me!
We had a very early celebration of Matthew's 7th birthday. I brought a few silly presents for him to open up, but all of them were fun and we had a wonderful time playing together. I'll show you more pictures further on down of all of the kids playing with our favorite toy.
These two pictures of Christopher show that he can be totally serious one minute and absolutely goofy the next. He was using these pieces of licorice as a huge mouth. He reminded me of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz when he tried to talk to us with this on his face.
We worshiped together at Sunshine Community Church. I went to the kids' class with them where we studied about David and Goliath. The teacher did a nice job presenting the story to the sixteen kids in class. I got to share with the kids that I went to the Valley of Elah (where David fought Goliath) the last time I was in Israel (2004) and picked up a few stones from the wadi bed while I was there. Christopher was SO impressed that I had actually seen the two hillsides where the Israelites and the Philistines had fought. The teacher had all of the children draw the story.
She kept holding up Christopher's drawing as a good example of telling the story! I loved all of the detail Chris captured in his drawing! Look how HUGE Goliath is and how little David is! And look at the soldier on the horse and the army lined up on the hillside. Isn't it great? I really appreciated how the teacher emphasized that although David was just a boy, he trusted in a BIG GOD to deliver him from Goliath. She talked about David's courage and trust in the Lord.
This is Emma's drawing. She listened well to the story. I love how her river goes in between the two hillsides right up to the sky! But see David down there picking out his stones? And speaking of Bible stories, we read so many together. Every single day we had a Bible story time along with tons of other story books. And sometimes in the afternoons when the boys were playing outside, Emma would bring me her copy of the Children's Bible Storybook and ask me to read it to her. We would read a story that was quite an abbreviated version so I would ask her if she wanted to hear more of the story ... and she always said yes! So then we would open up my New Living Translation and read the entire story together.

The following pictures are of the children playing with Matthew's stomp rocket. This is such a great toy! For only $15 you can get hours and hours of fun launching rockets more than 100 feet in the air. We actually did this for hours, honestly!
Everyone wanted to see whose rocket would go the highest. But these little Styrofoam rockets go SO high, sometimes we couldn't even see them in the air!
If you want to order this toy, just go to www.stomprocket.com and order a set for yourself!
Matthew was kind enough to share his rockets with everyone. It comes with four rockets and I ordered an extra three rockets ... just in case we lost some to the wind and the roofs. I was there for eight days, and we did not lose one single rocket. I'm not saying that none of them landed on rooftops, though, but we just waited until they blew back down and retrieved them!
We recruited Jesse to stomp a rocket, and his single stomp was the highest launch ever.

We also made hundreds (yes!) of paper airplanes. A friend of mine checked out a paper airplane book from the library and shared some of the designs with me so that I could take them to El Paso. These are the best paper airplanes I have ever seen in my life. We learned to fold The Missile (which flies awesome!), The Dragon (I think it is my favorite), and The Fish. What is so fun is that you just need plain copy paper, some markers or crayons to design them, fold them and fly them everywhere! I wrote down the name of the book where these designs originated, but I can't find it anywhere ...
I also had a book of simple origami projects. Emma folded this paper cup all by herself and was so proud that she was able to follow the directions successfully. She even filled it with water and drank from it.

The children were on their spring break part of the time I was with them, so we walked to a new playground one day. Matthew plays his heart out every time we go.


I'm not sure why Christopher was looking so serious in these pictures! He is eight now and has so many questions about life ... and it was really great to just sit and talk with him. Especially during story time. I loved the questions he asked about God ~ how honest he was and how sensitive he is about wanting to be the kind of boy God wants him to be.

We spent our usual amount of time sitting around the table sketching and coloring and making stuff. It's my favorite thing to do with kids.

Chris likes to tape a few papers together to make a really BIG picture. We were doing lots of fish and undersea drawings and etchings ... beautiful, aren't they?
For Matthew's birthday, I got him a little pirate game that comes on a pad of paper with a treasure map and secret hideouts, etc. Emma and I played the game together first to see if we could figure out the directions ... and she beat me! Can you tell by the happy look on her face? Matthew and I played it too, and I lost that game as well. What's nice about this little game is that it comes with 50 copies of the treasure map and you can play it again and again.

Emma and Matthew showing me their new bike helmets.

Some of Emma's beautiful artwork.

Eight days always goes by too quickly and then I have to leave. As usual, I didn't take many pictures of Jesse or Diana ... they were there, honest! And I enjoyed my time with them very much. I'm already counting the days until June ... hopefully I will be there when the baby arrives.