April

In April we were blessed to have my Grandma and Grandpa Bailey come and stay with us for 2 weeks.  I love my Grandma and Grandpa and have always had a close relationship with them.  I have fond memories as a child going to their home and playing hide-in-go-seek in the dark, a tradition we've carried on in our home, cooking and baking with my Grandma, and having fun cousin sleepovers at their home.  The girls loved all the attention they received during that 2 weeks and I enjoyed listening to them tell me different stories about their life. 

My Grandma and Grandpa are converts to the church and their conversion is a really neat story.  I had heard it before but it was so neat to hear my Grandma retell the story for Morgan.  I probably won't do the story justice but for memory sake I want to write it down.

 My Grandma had recently had a baby (I don't remember which one, but I think it was # 4 or 5).  She was trying to lose the baby weight when a friend of her told her to take up smoking and drinking coffee and the weight would fall right off.  She tried that but never liked smoking.  My Grandpa on the other hand was an avid smoker.  He smoked around 2 packs of cigarettes a day.  One day they had some Mormon Missionaries stop by their house.  My Grandma was kind to them but did not invite them in.  The missionaries left a Book of Mormon with them, which my Grandma placed on a shelf in their living room.  

Over the course of the next year my Grandma began to have a yearning to find a church for their family to attend.  She didn't want to go to the church she had grown up in, and was trying out different churches to see what felt right to her.  It was around this time the Book of Mormon ended up on a table next to a chair my Grandpa would sit in often and smoke.  One day he looked up at Gloria and said "Gloria you see this cigarette?  It's the last one I will ever smoke."  She laughed at the notion because as long as she had known my Grandpa he had been a smoker, and not just a social smoker, he smoked a lot.  She testified to me later that it was the power of the Book of Mormon in their home that began to change their life.  Just having the book in their home was changing them, even though they had never picked it up to read it.  My Grandpa told me he was just sitting in his chair that day when this overwhelming feeling came over him that he needed to stop smoking.  He listened to that feeling and never again smoked.  Soon after that experience another set of Missionaries came to their door.  This time they let them in.  

My Grandma and Grandpa took the discussions and knew immediately it was true.  They were baptized along with my Dad who was 8 at the time.  A few years later they took the long trip to the Salt Lake Temple, which was the closet to Omaha at that time, to be sealed together as a family.  My Grandparents have served faithfully in the church ever since.  

I feel so grateful for the choices they made and for the blessings that will come for generations and generations because of those choices.  

It was a sweet and tender time for me to have them here with us.  I know they won't be around forever, and I feel so grateful to have my girls know their Great Grandma and Grandpa.

I love this picture.

Matt caught the largest Bass he's ever caught.

Playing card games.

Kate lost her first tooth while they were here.  She let Matt pull it out.

Dying Easter eggs.

Jenny and Eric's family came over for Easter dinner.  The kids had a fun little Easter Egg hunt, then for some reason the girls all ended up in swim suits.

My Grandma and Grandpa came along to Kate's Preschool field trip to the zoo.