On Children by Kahlil Gabran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.  

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

 You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
 
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Madisonville Pictures

Kyle, the birthday boy.

Great manicure from the princess. . . 

with princess polish, of course!

In the back yard, we can build a snow bunny.  :)

VD

This will be the first Valentine's Day in a long time that I won't be in a flower shop :/  I miss all the excitement--long hours, camaraderie, buckets and buckets and buckets of gorgeous flowers, do-as-much-as-you-can hurry up, answer the phone, thank you for your order we'll take good care of it for you,  loading and reloading the van and sending the deliveries out all over creation . . . I love it all. 

Except this year, I'm working at my day job and watching the pictures on facebook.  Mark made me a pot of chili to go with these pink tulips.  The red heart vase is one he gave me several years ago.  He's my Valentine :)

Brooch Bouquet

 This cute little kitty is Bella.  She's Gail's owner :)  

She kept us all entertained the other day 

when we got together to catch up and have lunch together.

 I've been wanting to make one of those brooch bouquets.  Some of them are made entirely with brooches, but I just wanted a few sprinkled over the real stars of any bouquet--the fLoWeRs!
This is my first one, but it won't be the last :)

 Freeze-dried roses, spray roses, hydrangea, lotus pods, burlap roses, cotton bolls, and shelf fungus.  Yes, fungus. That stuff that grows on rotting trees. . . I know, I know, but it fit perfectly into the whole scheme!  Then a few wire swirls with vintage rhinestones all wrapped up in burlap and pinned with pearls.   

I've already got plans for the next one.  Pink!

Birthdays

We've been celebrating a string of birthdays lately.  Betsy's was January 27th, Kyle's February 2nd, and tomorrow February 8th will be V's 75th birthday. 

 Kyle is telling V about his new dinosaur watch. 

 He can make you laugh out loud!

Tomorrow night we're taking V to Cheddar's for dinner with coconut cake for dessert afterwards.  We will miss having Kyle & Betsy with us!