Happy Birthday Nana! 2014

We had a lovely time downstate celebrating Nana for her birthday.  Due to the bad winter weather, our celebration came a little late this year.  Ok, a lot late.  But Nana didn't seem to mind and she requested ahead of time that the children recite passages from Proverbs for her.  So each of the children (except  Lil' Chunkers of course) set to work memorizing their passages and were able to recite them beautifully for Nana.

 

While the recitations were taking place, a little someone had a meltdown 

and had to be banished to the enclosed porch until they were done.

We released the little guy when it was time to open presents 

and he was very happy to "help" Nana.

After gifts there was a little concert.  In a family with this many siblings it's always interesting to watch how the influence flows from oldest to youngest.  Sissy Mom is the pianist of the family and loves to play hymns. She selected a couple to play for Nana and suddenly two other children wanted to play something for Nana even though they haven't yet really learned to play the piano.  So we got out the "Piano By Numbers" books so they could also play for Nana.

We ended the evening with Nana's favorite dessert--Red Velvet Cake!

It was gone so fast I didn't even get a picture of it! 

We are blessed in many ways to have Nana in our lives.  We don't spend a lot of money on clothing but thanks to Nana, our children dress like we do.  If it wasn't for Nana our girls wouldn't have so many beautiful dresses lining their closets, our boys wouldn't have so many fancy label outfits, we wouldn't eat as many vegetables, and we likely would run out of toilet paper.  That's right, toilet paper.  She rarely makes a visit without a bag full of brand new clothes for each child, a bag of whatever veggies she has on hand to share and a large package of toilet paper for the family. I've rarely purchased any toilet paper over the last two decades or so because Nana has decided that this is the staple of which everyone must have ample supply.  So thank you, Lord for our Nana!