A Precious Gift

We realize you might think the title of this post is directed to Charlie, but, while he is a very special gift, it is actually about his Great Aunt Jane. Yesterday on one of Dave's trips home to feed the dogs -- do not worry they are far from forgotten -- he found a package at the front door from his Aunt Jane. Aunt Jane is Momma D's dear sister. She lives in the small farming community that Momma D and her family grew up in. To provide some context, Aunt Jane works six days a week with almost no vacations at the elevator that she and her husband own and operate. It is the same grain elevator that Dave's Grandpa Mathews, and Charlie's namesake, owned and operated. In short, she works hard. We got diverted, back to the package. . . .

Dave opened the package to find three handmade blankets, each one uniquely made and uniquely beautiful. One was knitted with stripes of color and a diamond pattern knitted into it, another was a beautiful soft fabric with handmade lace stitched delicately around its edge and the third was quilted out of two inch squares. The quilting was extremely intricate, half of the squares had a heart stitched into them and the other half a diamond. Dave was rendered speechless by his Aunt Jane's precious gift, a rare problem for Dave which has now been cleared up. And Laura was nearly brought to tears by Aunt Jane's show of love and generosity. Momma D later confirmed that Aunt Jane worked on them for months, starting almost the day she found out Laura was pregnant. Charlie is blessed to have extended friends and family that love him that much. And Charlie is blessed to have family that still takes the time to knit and quilt such amazing artwork.

As a side note, the quilt was also especially appreciated because Laura's Grandma, who we lost just over a year ago, was a quilter and almost certainly would have quilted a blanket for Charlie had she been able to. So, thank you Aunt Jane. Your blankets are something we will treasure and we will make sure that Charlie knows all about the hard work and love you put into them. These are pictures of Laura and Charlie snuggling in the quilt.

Oh, and there are more pics in the Flickr link at the bottom again today for all those who want more of Charlie.