MY SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY

1939 and here I am at about nine months old with a Cloth diaper and a ribbon in my hair.
1941 I'm two and a half with my grandma Lillie. This isn't a very good picture of her but I like it because we are together. Notice the huge ice cream cone in my hand. They used to make really big ones and with real ingredients too. Cream, sugar and vanilla.

1944 I am five years old and the war is going strong. Two of my uncles were overseas and Grandma prayed without ceasing. Both my uncles came home but with wounds, both physical and emotional. We were just thankful they came home alive.
My love for gardening had begun about a year and a half before this picture was taken and I was helping mom and our neighbors plant their victory gardens by the spring of this year.

1951 and I am twelve and a half years old. That one half is very important to a twelve year old girl. Do you remember the circular skirts made from drapery print fabric that were so popular then? Mom made mine and bought me a new peasant blouse and new strappy shoes too. Boy did I ever feel pretty!

1955 and sixteen and a half. I thought I was a grown woman. I could just laugh myself silly about that now. This marriage lasted for sixteen years and gave me some of the most wonderful children in the world.

1968 and I'm twenty nine years old, have four children and we have moved into a new home with lots of space. The kids are growing and in school and hubby's business is doing very well. I feel an emptiness deep within my soul that only another child will fill. And he did. The Lord gave me a second son a little over a year after this picture was taken. I finally felt complete.

I wasn't going to post this picture for obvious reasons. It makes me feel so ashamed, but it was a phase in my life and I thought of how many times I have seen a young girl dressed inappropriately and felt judgemental about it.

How many of us have only to look back a few years and remember some of our own mistakes.

I need to frequently remind myself 'don't try to take the splinter out of someone Else's eye when you have a log in your own...'

Yes I was wearing a skirt. It's just not very noticeable when sitting.

Aren't style fad's stupid?

1992 and I am fifty three years old. I am in the pink and black shirt with mother Irene beside me. My younger sisters bonnie and Barbara are sitting.

Mother is with the Lord now but we three sisters are thankfully still here and get together occasionally for our 'Sister Days.'
We are blessed

1998 and at fifty nine years old, I am holding the son of my oldest grandson. Little Brandon is my great grandchild!!! Do I look pleased with him? Oh if you only knew!

They live in Virginia and I'm in Washington state so we don't see much of each other. I pray this is not always the case. I miss them terribly. I can't believe that Brandon is eleven now.

2009 January eighteenth and my seventieth birthday is four days away.

I am blessed to be a Christian with four living children and three waiting for me in heaven, Three wonderful son's-in-love and one precious daughter-in-love, twelve incredible grandchildren and fourteen of the sweetest great grandchildren. My two little Yorkie's. A little blue cottage with no mortgage, I am debt free, fat and sassy.

God has been so good to me.

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