In London.

She has been writing about it at www.MayDae.com There are amazingly beautiful photographs.  I am not just saying that because I am her mom.  The pictures are straight from  a Conde Nast travel mag!

Stephanie is Paris.

Stormie and her dad just returned from a trip to Honduras with Compassion International

A truck burgeoning with tomatoes

Where they got to see firsthand that the simple act of sponsoring a child really does impact their lives forever – AND you can actually meet and know that child!  She has also been writing about it, with photographs, naturally, at www.MayDae.com

Stormie and Dave (center) with their trip hosts and translators.  Everyone sort of expected Dave to be able to speak Spanish.  But, no.  He is the worst.  :)

Tredessa and Ryan, the newlyweds, are in Florida for the week.

His brother, Erik, is marrying Jen.  Congratulations Erik and Jen.  You are awesome.  We love you and wish you the best.

Erik, Cody and Jen at Ryan and Tre’s wedding. 

Rocky and Jovan are headed to Las Vegas for a little romance for a few days.

They are spending the night with the Girly-Q’s tonight so we can shuttle them to the airport early in the morning and hang out with Averi and Amelie on Friday.

Swiped from Facebook this morning.  Pretty family.  Rocky rocking the horizontal stripes.

And if I tried to document all DP and Tara’s travels, this would indeed become the Powers-Family-Travelogue.  But for the next few days?  They’ll be around.  :)

How many movies have you made based on “a true story?”  And have you set the Guinness record yet???

Love (your 30-some-year-devoted fan),

Jeanie

I really would like to know!  He seems to have been in an inordinately number of true stories.  What the heck is going on with that???

The mamala…the older my kids got, the more of my best-friend-ever she became.

I was the one who turned her into a mom.  Every year she gives me kudos for that.  :)  As the years go on, I am trying to figure out how to honor her more.  I SO wanna be more like her when I grow up!  I doubt I can ever hope to attain it, but her love (in spite of anything I ever put her through) just remains.  “And when the day is done, my mama’s still my biggest fan...”  -from a song that makes me cry every-time.

I love the children who made me a mom.

I may have mentioned it before on this very blog.  But I am crazy about my kids.  Honestly, when I go to their blogs or check out their Facebook pages, but especially when I get to be in a room with them – I just cannot get over what cool people they are.

The Kelley Fam has the most creative photographs.  Captures my grandbebes!  :)

Omygoodness.  These kids, well, they have turned out.  And I find it amazing and I am filled with gratefulness for them, for a loving God who created them right there in my womb.  That is crazy grace!

A forever fav photo of Ryan and Tredessa, even though you can’t see her face – it was all pure joy!

Tara, Stephanie, Tredessa and Stormie: each so unique, each ravishing in beauty, each creative and passionate and successful and interesting.  They are just so interesting as human beings.  They are colorful and talented across so many boards it is crazy.  And the boy, Rocky.  Well, he is the most handsome, zealous, straightforward, protective young man ever.  These five.  My universe.  My past, my future.  My pride.  My joy.  I am so pleased that God was somehow able to make these…from me.  Like: speechless awe.

The Powers fam=fun always!

But if I have to add speech, like Buddy-the-Elf in the department store when he hears Santa is coming and starts screaming: “Saaaaaaaaaa-anta!!  I know him!”  I could do the same of mine, Tara!  Stephanie!!  Tredessa!!!  Rocky!!!!  Stormie Dae!!!!  I know them!

Stormie posted this on FB this morning.  Awww.

I love that the children I birthed have brought along their loves and I get to be the {dreaded} mother-in-love to them.

My kids have chosen well – just the right people for the family.  I am so blessed.  The main thing I love about Tristan, Dave, Jovan and Ryan is how they love my children.  They are all familia.  They were born to be one of us.  I am so lucky to just get that role by legal default.  But also by the ordination of God, favored, blessed!  I don’t take it lightly.

Rocky and his girls.

I love that God has made me a spiritual mom to his Bride.

I cherish the people He surrounds me with.  His word says He puts the lonely in families.  I know this is true.  For when my physical family is so far away and when life gets hectic for the growing families my own are raising, no matter where I go, I find myself surrounded by family – and am honored more than I deserved, and received with love.

I love that I got to be the mom to Dave’s children.

Because he said that when he proposed: that he was choosing me to be the mother of his children.  What an honor.

He wanted to buy me some crazy-great camera to replace my lost one today.  And I would not let him.  Although I did allow him to get me the next step up from my last one since it was on clearance at Target (Kodak Easyshare Z5010).  I just wasn’t ready to spend the time figuring out a real-live wonderful camera.  That is a life investment and Stephanie and Stormie have that covered for me.

From the new cam, a peony after a morning rain

And I asked for a new carpet cleaner.  With the same operator {Dave}.  He complied.

Dave would buy me flowers and jewelry.  He wants to do that.  He would bring me breakfast in bed.  He would give me the moon as a thanks for the kids we share.  But they are the reward.  Having them with him is the reward of my life.

Still much to learn about mothering.  So glad God trusted me to be a mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to my friends and family far and wide.  May your husband praise you today and may your children go all out to call you blessed!

Sandy is roughly 12 years old (we hauled her home after some one abandoned her at the landfill; she is truly our “junkyard dog”).  We aren’t exactly sure of her age, but we have had her since May of 2001, right around the time Tredessa graduated from high school.    She has been proclaimed younger by veterinarians, up 4 years younger than the years she has been around.  So we call it twelve.  I think that means she is in her 60s, human-year-wise.

Btw, using the opposite calculation, I am not even 10 yet (in dog years), which is nice.

Sandy-the-Dog came to us wild and woolly and looking so much like Chewabaca we wonder now that we didn’t name her that.  But we chose Sandy for the dog in the Broadway-musical-turned-movie the kids so enjoyed over and over and over when they were little, “Annie.”  Serendipitous that a couple of years ago, she actually got to play Sandy in the community theater.

She still loves to run the back yard and cheat at the game of fetch, meaning you can throw it and she’ll run to get it, but then she will jet around like a banchee and never bring it back.  You have to chase her to get it.  That is Sandy for you.  She still seems playful and puppy-like to me because she is sweet and kindhearted and loves people like crazy (so much like my mom, I tell ya!).

Tuppy-the-Puppy of Martha Stewart pet products fame CLICK HERE

But then a real puppy comes calling.  Yes.  Tuppy-the-Puppy (shown above) spent 3 days with us last week.  And holy-moly, that little booger moves fast, jumps high, can switch from forward to reverse and back again on a dime and even though Sandy has at least 50 pounds on her, Tuppy was not shy about trying to be alpha.  Sandy was rather unaffected by her cuteness, but they get along just fine.

So there we were.  Two dogs.  One is super-colorful-fast-forward.  The other living in black-and-white-slow-mo’…

Quite the sight.  I realized how old Sandy really is getting to be.

Tuppy is less than 5 months old and is the picture of a tiger-by-the-tail.  She made me laugh constantly, jumping on my head and biting my nose, snuggling close for a quick nap then on-the-go at 95mph.

Sandy (with an extra-short haircut)

Sandy, true to her German Wiredhaired Pointer characteristics, lives to please us.  She is like a trusted friend, always ready with a warm greeting when I come home, edging as close to my feet as possible when I sit.   In fact, where I go, she goes.

Sandy is going to die and break my ever-loving heart, isn’t she?

And I shall need full use of Anita’s kelly-green dress and the yellow polka-dotted dress with the orange bolero.

The dashing man:  Now I shall see you again?

The American girl:   I don’t know.  You see I’m rather afraid of you.

The dashing man:  Afraid?  Of me?

The American girl:  Well not because of your reputation.  You see, I’ve discovered you have an exciting mind, something that handsome men rarely have.  And the uh – combination –  might be too much for some one as responsive as I am.

Think he fell for that?  You betcha!

Netflix Instant Queue is just such a wondrous thing.

Hans Solo:  I love you.

Princess Leia:  I know.

You go, braid-bun girl.

You know we just don’t recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they’re happening. Back then I thought, well, there’ll be other days. I didn’t realize that that was the only day.

From “Field of Dreams”

Field of Dreams is one of my favorite baseball movies.  Heck, one of my favorite movies of any kind.

But no.  I actually went with my mom and dad to the church where they worked for the day.  I tracked the contractions, gentle, strong, but building.  My mom and I went shopping.  Then home for dinner.  Then packing a hospital bag.  Then YOWZERS: need to go now.  But a one-car family and my dad says, “Can you wait until I am ready to go to church for Wednesday night service,” and I do so we can drop him at his convenience.  And You are born 30 minutes after I arrive at the hospital.  Not one single scream.

It is kind of funny to think about that now.  NOW, I would tell my dad: Heck no.  I need to go have this baby.  You’ll have to get another ride!  Hahhaha.

I am revisiting past blogs I have written about you because you are one of my favorite writing topics.

2011

I did the photos with words to try to say everything I saw and adored and there just isn’t really enough space, though I got braver as 2011 went on and I can actually see space where I could have kept adding.  :)   Tara is the firstborn.  I have known her a long time!

I said, “You have the wisdom of some years now.  You are not just a pretty girl.  You are a ravishing woman…”

2010  Click to read.

The year of your surgery, I recalled the night of your birth.

“But later, in that room,  just us two, I knew that you were mine, a gift straight from God.  ‘I don’t know you yet, but I know I love you,’ I whispered, wondering who you’d be and if you could ever love me back.”

2009 ~ The year you turned 30

I wrote 30 wishes for you including lots of good hair days, health and vigor and for the songs of the Lord to be increased through you.  Write, girl, write!, I admonished!  :)

2008

I quoted Lord Byron’s poem, “She walks like beauty in the night,” because that poem has always made me think of my sweet daughter.

I was praying for you then to understand your pivotal role in God’s great story on this earth.  I urged you to speak up and speak out and sing as His anointed!  SO thankful to God for a  blog recording my love for my children and His great faithfulness in their lives!  I LOVE it!  He answers.  He hears and He answers!

And I told you, “I am so pleased with you, baby girl, I bless the day you were born.”  I still do!

2007, the first time I blogged about your birth

I had started bloggin in November of 2006 and got to start telling the stories in ’07.  I revealed the blessing-name “Liquid Joy,” bestowed upon you by dearest family friends.  I spoke of the sensitivity and healing you had brought to my life by your birth and I even spoke of times I feared for your heart and life and how God so faithfully-faithfully-faithfully restored you and there was great rejoicing!

Through the years on this blog so far, the recurring theme about you is: you were a gift to me.  And you are joy.  And God created you for amazing things.  And on your birthday, I celebrate all of it!

O I love you.  Happy Birthday, Tara Jean.  You are a shining star in my night sky!

And I just wonder if, besides wanting to leave a powerful legacy, I have given enough honor to those who paved my way, enough homage to real people whose lives made mine possible?

It feels like, sometimes, we write them off as unsophisticated, or as people whose lives didn’t matter quite as much.  We are so intent on “bettering” everything.  Just like they were, I suppose.

My Grandpa Baker in the mid-1940s….

I wonder what I have yet to learn as I contemplate the people who made me?

Proverbs 22.28 NIV, “Do not move an ancient boundary stone

set up by your ancestors.”

These are the altars upon which we build.