Baptisms and Neigbors...excuse me...NEIGHBORS...

Regarding baptism, Ben's baptism is in 2 weeks. I can't imagine a better time of year than spring for such a lighthearted event. It will be at the church where I was baptized years ago.  There is a row beautiful flowering trees lining the street in front of the church and it happens to be flower time right now!  Well...it is flower time in Bismarck...it has been really warm here this year and the trees are a few weeks ahead of how they are in Eastern ND so hopefully we will hit flower time the first weekend in May for some nice pictures.  Assuming the weather is not total crap...it could go either way in early May!  I recall many hellacious track meets and baseball games spent sitting on freezing cold bleachers and wearing winter jackets.  This year hasn't been that way though, so it should be fine. 

I was looking back at photos from those days and found several of me and my siblings at baptism.



Awww...the young parents...it is hard to believe they were 25 years old when this was taken.  They were the same age as my brother is right now!  So young...

Here are my grandparents...what is even more hard to believe is that they were younger than my parents are right now!  No offense Grandma and Grandpa, but I think my parents have aged a bit better! We will blame it on the dated hair and clothes...

Interesting fact...my grandma Dorothy, pictured above, made that dress for me.  It is trimmed around the skirt and sleeves with Hardanger embroidery, a traditional method of Norwegian needlework that originated in the Hardanger region of the country.  It also has Hardanger on the yoke in a cross design and a matching bonnet.  And she did it just for me!  And I wasn't even her first grandchild! 


Here is a close up example of Hardanger that I found online...she is very good at it.  The standard for good work is if you can turn it over and it looks the same on the front as the back and hers does.  There are so many artistic ladies in my family...my Grandma Dorothy does the needlework, my Grandma Phyllis makes impressive quilts and my mom and Justin's mom can make some fabulous clothes if they have the time.  They both used to sew complicated peices like men's suit jackets.  I can't imagine a more challenging thing to make!  That is why I stick to making fun and colorful quilts...no fitting or lining involved!

 That is my sister with my Grandma Phyllis, who was also younger than my mom is now in that photo...She actually still looks like this and has aged well for her almost 81 years!  The dated glasses and the wearing of panty hose with open toed shoes are the aging factors in this picture...

I share this picture because it is party of family legend.  Apparently, the days surrounding my sister's baptism were days of me acting like a little $h!t.  There are about 10 photos of the day in the photo album and in every one I am making that sneering face.  I was not yet 2 years old and apparently I didn't like not getting all the attention from my relatives.  I am the oldest on my mom's side and I was a popular girl during my early years.  They couldn't get enough of me.  That is my mom's youngest sister, Jenny, by the way.  I suppose she was 19 or 20 at the time.  And now she is almost 50!  Eek!

That is my brother on his baptism.  We lived in Rock Springs, Wyoming at the time and it was a rather lonely affair without the big gathering of relatives that my sister and I had present.  In this picture my dad is about my age now and on his third child! 



On a different topic, I know I have mentioned our across the street neighbors, named Dave and Delayne, in the past.  They are older people, probably the same age as my granparents, and at first they were quite suspicious of us and nosy about what we were doing to the house and yard.  I think they were bummed about the previous owner, who was friends with them, getting too old for the house and moving on leaving them as the only old residents on the street.  We have continued to chat with them when we see them outside and last fall Delayne was over talking to Justin and told him she had talked to Delores (the previous owner who now lives in assisted living) and told her how we were taking good care of things around here and she was glad we moved in.  It was really nice.  Two nights ago I had bed out on the front step because he was fussy and I was trying to distract him and they walked over to meet him.  Delayne said she had saved the newspaper with Ben's birth announcement for us.  Their grandaughter just had a baby a few weeks after us apparently, a girl, so we talked about baby stuff a bit and Dave said that he wished their great grandaugther had been a boy (yikes!).  Yesterday afternoon Delayne came over with the newspaper and a few children's books from their collection they had around from when their grandchildren were little and one was about a little boy named Ben!  It was so cute.  I gave her a tour of the house so she could tell Delores about what we have done, like finishing the basement.  I'm glad we can be buddies with them now and they won't be worried that we are going to trash the place and let our yard to go hell.  Justin would never let the yard go!   When my parents lived far from home during the early years of their marriage they made friends with their neighbors wherever they were and still remember them fondly.   

On a COMPLETELY different topic, I have to admit that I just had to look up how to spell "neighbor".  I think I am a pretty good speller but that is one word that I never remember.  I just read through the previous paragraph and found it misspelled.