Blessings, Birthday, and Belonging

I was abundantly blessed this weekend, blessed to have all five of my children home, blessed to celebrate my Grandma Tatum's 85th birthday, and blessed to belong to an extended family who remember to love one another.

Brandon and Whitney came home on Friday night. It was good to have them home, leaving their things on the table, sleeping late, eating my cooking, and making a lot of noise.

Today we went to Obediah's Okefenokee where we had a small family reunion/birthday dinner for my Grandma Tatum who turned 85 on Wednesday. Can you imagine celebrating 85 birthdays? The photo above includes 4 generations!!! Grandma, my mother, me, and my kids.





All of the children in the photo below are children of my cousins. They would be second cousins, of course. In the picture are only the ones who were nearby when I took the photo. There were quite a few others who had run off to play or had never come out to play.



As I've mentioned here before, the home at Obediah's Okefenokee is special, not just because it's on the National Registry of Historic Places, and not just because it was built in 1870. It is special to me because my grandmother once lived in the house with her parents and siblings. Her father was a tenant farmer, and he tended Mr. Obediah Barber's farm, and lived in the tenant house. While they weren't rich in material things, their home was abundantly blessed with faith and love.




Josie-Tatum and Ellie Pose in the Doorway to Grandma Tatum's Bedroom
I would suppose there aren't many children who can walk in the house where their great-grandmother lived before she got married--Ala the while picturing what it was like over half a century earlier.