Graduation Day

Eighteen years ago I was holding my five month old baby son in my arms, with his two big sisters close by wanting to hold him, or sometimes we would all be curled up on the bed singing lullabies together. Then there are the memories of Willie holding Josh, both of them sound asleep and the girls giggling at their Dad's mouth hanging open. Whatever the scene, those were some of the most treasured days of our lives. Not perfect, and at times very difficult, but oh so sweet. And they really did go by too quickly! Josh was such a bundle of joy to all of our family. (I mean, just look at that picture, couldn't you just pinch those chubby little dimpled cheeks?!) From the way that he would hug you and just make you know that he loved you, to the way he would aggravate his sisters just to hear their ear-piercing squeals, to the way he would make us laugh when he would watch the Ray Stevens video and sing every song and do all the motions. It was HYSTERICAL and brought smiles to our faces.

I remember his first day in Kindergarten. He had never been away from his mom very much other than with my family and going to church. And with him being the "baby" of the family, I knew it would be a traumatic day for him and that he would NEED his Mom. I was ready, willing and able to be there for him. Ready to be strong and ignore the tears, to urge him to be a big boy and to cut some apron strings. Little did I know he was a bigger boy than Mom was ready for. He went right in, sat down by a little boy named Peter and began a new friendship that would last for several years. What did Mom do? Went home, curled up on the couch and cried until there were no tears left. So much for cutting the apron strings, huh?!

Fast forward to 2009, and my "baby" boy that is now eighteen years old, and six foot three, has just graduated from High School. To say the least, his Dad and I, as well as the rest of the family, are extremely proud of him. After hearing the shocking statistic tonight that EVERY DAY twenty nine students drop out of high schools in Alabama, makes us realize even more what he and other graduates have accomplished. He has really worked hard this year - with the exception of some paperwork in mechanics class - and should be proud of himself. He has been volunteering at our town's volunteer Fire Dept. for the last three to four years and is going to pursue that as his career. He is planning to attend Bevill College in the Fall.

We are not only proud of him for graduating high school, but also for the kind hearted person that he is, always ready to help someone, he's a hard worker and he still gives great hugs. And my prayer for him is that he will follow hard after God, that just as David was in the bible, that he would be a man after God's own heart. That he would love God with his whole heart, soul, mind and strength. That while he is pursuing his career, that he will be a person of integrity and not sway in his beliefs. That he will honor God with his life, with his mouth and with his actions. I pray that his life will be filled with the peace and joy of the Lord and that if it's God's will for him to have a family someday, that he will take his God-ordained role as the spiritual leader in that home and that he will lead his family with love, patience, conviction and wisdom that comes from having a close relationship with Jesus Christ.

We love you Josh!

Mom & Dad

Footnote: Although my family usually tries to follow rules, we have a confession. At the beginning of the graduation ceremony, it was asked that all noise and applause be held until all the names were called. Sorry, but when they called out Joshua Franklin Roe, we could not contain it: Todd, Hannah, Caleb, Erica, Gina and I screamed as loud as we could. Okay, so Mom, Dad, Steph, Willie, J.D., Kensley and Kayla followed the rules. That should count for something, right?!! :-)

Blessings,

Dee

Mother's Day

This is a hard post to start because we didn't know where to start and we knew once we got started it would be one of our longest post! It is really hard for us to put into words how special Mother's Day is to us. We have had and have many special women in our lives and we wanted to celebrate all of those women on here today.


Let's start with our Mom (that is momma chick Ann). She loves the Lord and her family and has always made sure that we were close to one another. Sometimes when we talk about our family people always want to know why we are so close and it is definitely because of mom. She is strong and protective! Please do not mess with her Baby Chicks if you know what is good for you. One time some guys made crude advances towards one of the Baby Chicks and mom chased them down the mall they looked very frightened as if they were running for their lives! She always made sure we had anything that we needed and a lot of the things we just wanted. She always sacrificed for us to have things. She was always our biggest cheerleader and was always their for us from making our backyard birthday parties special to making Christmas mornings exciting! She always drove us and our friends wherever we needed to go. She passed along things to us such as cooking, music and kindness. She always drilled it in our heads that "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all", the other sisters are better at that than I am I have a lot of Rosalie in me!! As for music we would all sit around the piano and sing together but I think Berby lip sync a lot of the time. When Deanna & Berby were small before my time she would pick roses and make corsages for them to wear on Mother's Day and then when I came along she still made sure we had our red carnation to wear on Mother's Day. One of the hardest memories to talk about is the first year she had to wear a white flower because Gran had passed away. We were all still heartbroken from the loss yet we were thankful that she was heaven and no longer in pain. When Gran could no longer live by herself because the cancer was so advanced our mom moved her into her house and took care of her it took so much strength and love. Our mom is a special woman and a blessing to our lives, she has been there from the time she put our first dress on to our prom dresses to our wedding dresses to helping us dress our own baby chicks and we are so thankful for her and could not begin to list everything on one post.


The next wonderful woman that we had in our lives was our Gran (Rosalie, our mom's mom). She knew how to spoil a kid. One of our greatest memories would have to be lunch at Gran & Pops house on Sundays after church. We would eat and play and enjoy the day together. I personally loved spending the night on Friday nights and eating Fudgecicles. I still to this day love a fudgecicle. She liked Halloween and she would dress up and always gave us a $2 bill in a card which was neat to get. She was fun, adventurous, strong and giving. She had battled and beat cancer before but her last battle with it she would not survive but she fought a good fight and stayed independent and strong throughout her battle and at the end she knew she was going to heaven and that gave her peace. Her strength and faith were so admirable.

Our Ninny is our dad's mom. She lived down the hill from us and she would make the best homemade fried apple pies. I can remember her letting me press the edges with a fork. Dee's favorite dish of ninny's was blackberry cobbler. When our Paw got sick from Alzheimer's she took great care him. She served him with a loving heart and that was so admirable.

Now, let's give a little love to our aunts; Aunt Kay is the Momma chicks sister and she has always been special to us. She has helped with many weddings and other important times in our lives. She is a very loving and giving woman whom we are all very thankful for and we love and appreciate her and hope she knows how special she is to us. We have lots of special memories with Aunt Kay from going on Women Retreats to have Christmas Eve at her house. We love You! Aunt Nancy is married to our Dad's brother and lived next door to us most of our lives. She is another one that can cook, I personally love the potato salad and pecan pie. She attempted to teach us to crochet which we are sure was a bigger task than she had anticipated. She has crocheted blankets for our kids too. We Love You!; Next is our Aunt Jeanie and our memories with her are all the kids at her house and playing in her back yard. She also always would hug you as tight as she could and kiss you all over your face!! Even as grown ups, when she sees us, we always get a squeeze and "how ya doing sugar"? We Love You! And last but not least Aunt Linda. We have many memories of going to her house she lived in Huntsville and Cullman so it was a treat to get to go visit. We have had many gatherings at the lake which are always fun. I guess our most fondest memory is of her playing the piano at Ninny's at the family Christmas party. We would all gather around and sing songs and you know our family loves music! We Love You!
All the sisterchicks have contributed to this post but since I am the one writing it I cannot leave without posting about my sisters. Of course I have cried the entire time I have been typing this and it took me two days but I am going to continue... Deanna for those of you that are blessed to know her know that she loves everybody and is a very compassionate person. Even though she married and moved out when I was only 7 she has always been involved in my life. She is a great mother and wife and now grandmother and I am sure her children rise and call her blessed!! She is not judgemental and is always there to listen to me when I am raging. She has the sweetest spirit and Lord blessed me when he made us sisters! For those of you that are blessed to know Berby (some of you know her as Beverly but I always got beat up for calling her that!) know that she is a strong person but she does have a sweet side. She is compassionate and very strong in her beliefs. She has persevered through alot and has come out victorious. She is a great wife and mother. She has been there for me and I can always depend on her. Both of my sister are women that love the Lord and serve him with a joyful heart wich is one of the things I love most about them. They have been role models for me and I love them both!
Now if you have cried and laughed while you were reading this post then I have done my job! Now to the fun part. I am sure many of you have great memories of you Moms, Grandmother's , aunts, sisters or friends so we want you to add comments and tell us some great memories. At the end of next week all the names of the people that have posted a comment will be put into a drawing and somebody will when a gift. We will go ahead and tell you it's not a car or anything close to it but it will be a sweet gift sent with love from the sisterchicks. We pray that you all have a wonderful Mother's Day and we leave you with a verse; We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3