Thursday, January 1, 2015

Long distance grand-parenting


It is a rare day when all the grands are here at gma and gpas house at the same time so we tried to get
a few pics while they were here for the holidays.  There was NO snow {which I REALLY wanted for pics}
 and it was cold and rainy.  I had visions of many different poses and it just didn't work. We were lucky to
get the ones we did.

Underneath all the kiddos there is a gorgeous white bench, but didn't get any of that showing
either. I still dream of the pics I wanted to take...hopefully someday. 


We got all the kiddos in the pic except the little guy in the front.  His daddy would stick him
in the picture time after time... just as we were getting ready to snap the photo. lol


Too cute and so amusing. We got numbers 6 and 7 mixed up so they will probably be traumatized
  for the rest of their lives every time they look at these pictures! ha! 


1.Allysha   2.Jon    3.Annika   4.Keira   5.Joshua   6.Ainsley    7.Kanaan   8.Daniel

and baby 9 is missing. Her mama was sick so they stayed home. 


What a CUTE bunch of kiddos we have in our family!! I love them all and miss them terribly already.


Do you grandparent long distance? Our oldest son and his family live about 2 hours from us, our daughter and
family live 3 hours from us, but our youngest son who did live about 20 minutes away now lives in North
Carolina. 13 or 14 hour drive straight through. It has been a hard adjustment, but we are surviving.

PaPa swooped up Ainsley as soon as she got here!

 The night we said our goodbyes to them was heartbreaking. We had just finished Christmas at my moms and
Ainsley was eating more salad {what child eats more salad??} and I was sitting beside her. She looked at me and
said in a shaky voice, "Grandma I won't see you for a long time"...I replied, "I know , but we can write and we can
 call"... yea ,that didn't work.

Again, in a shaky little voice "Grandma, I won't see you for a long time"...I picked her up and she started crying.

That was it for this grandma. I cried right along with her! She has never done this before so she must be getting
old enough to realize exactly what is going on. I held her for awhile and she and I cried together. {in front of lots
of other family members}. I finally handed her off to grandpa and she cried some more. She was still crying
when they left and when she got to her other grandmas house.

Oh the hard knocks of childhood and life. We miss those two little gals to much. We used to be able
to just drive over and visit them on the spur of the moment, but not anymore...and life goes on.

 How do you grandparent long distance? Do you do anything special? I would love to hear about it.

Blessings and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

3 comments:

Junkchiccottage said...

Sandi,
How cute all the pics with the grands. What a great time to have all of them with you at one time. Glad you enjoyed that time together. Happy New Year.
Kris

Kathy @ Creative Home Expressions said...

Oh, Sandi, big hug! I got teary just reading how you and your little granddaughter cried. I work with someone whose only granddaughter/child lives in Australia. She sees her a couple of times a year in person otherwise they face time several times a week. They are here now visiting, but I know she is going to be a wreck when they leave. We won't be able to talk about her for a little while at work otherwise she will break down and cry.

For me, I live about 3 miles from my daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law. I am thankful and grateful for that every day! Thankfully, you are not too far from two of your children's families so you could get a "grandkid fix" if you needed one. : )

Irene said...

I don't have any grandchildren, but yours are so cute. Love the picture with the numbers, I'll have to do steal that idea with my sisters grands, what a creative way to keep track of who's who. I do see you had a very special Christmas this year though, lucky you.