32 hours pass and I look into but one human face - guess who's? Wrap of Jobe's baby shower

Just after 9:00 PM Sunday night,  as is now the norm, Margie left here with Jacob and Lavina so that she could spend the week babysitting Jobe. From that moment up until this morning, 32 hours later, I spent my entire time, save maybe three minutes, alone with the cats. I caught not even a glimpse of Caleb. I looked into but one human face, and that for only about three minutes.

It was Carmen. She showed me this little vase from which not flowers but little hand-prints grow. It was her Mother's Day present from her four year-old son, Branson. Thus I shot,

Through the Metro Window Study, #1212 - Carmen with Branson's Mothers Day present

She was very pleased, but still she found it in her to sigh. "Pretty soon, he's going to be chasing girls, Bill. He will Bill, he will."

I should hope so.

OK. Now I back up again to last Friday. What are all these people so raptly looking at? Even that guy on the TV is looking.

Why, it's little Jobe, still tied into a cradle nap.

Jobe is admired by his aunties, Melanie and Lisa.

After he wakes, he gets passed around. Sandy takes him.

Jobe received many wonderful and exotic gifts, from cute little outfits to diapers and toys.

That's little Anna, sitting peacefully upon the floor. That's Cooper in the background. Yesterday, I mentioned that Cooper is mischievous.

Here is proof.

Cooper, Anna and Ian were all watching TV when Ian leaned too far back in his chair. 

This is Ngone and her daughter, Kathleen. Ngone comes from Senegal and has been in the US for 6.5 years, Alaska for a year-and-a-half. She does not much care for life in Alaska. "The winters are crazy," she explained. Before she and husband Dave, who wears the baseball cap in the group picture, moved here, they lived in Los Angeles. She liked it much better there. She loved getting out on the freeways to drive anywhere she wanted to go. Here, she is surrounded by big, huge country and there is no easy way to get into most of it.

She also remembers Africa with much warmth and fondness - all the little neighborhood shops and street vendors, the brightly-colored, beautiful clothing that the women sew and wear.

By comparison, everyday American clothing looks kind of drab. When she shows her mother pictures of her and others running around the US dressed in blue jeans and casual clothes, Mom is a little horrified to think that women would actually dress that way.

One thing about Jacob and Lavina's home - it has no shortage of stuffed Muzzys. Kathleen finds one and loves it.

Yesterday, did I not say that Kathleen is not only beautiful but cute, too?

And very bright, too.

She is a girl with roots in North America and Africa. I wonder where life will take her?

I know it seems unlikely, but I hope that in 20 years I am still around, still taking pictures, still writing stories and that I might come upon her somewhere. I would take her picture again, talk to her, find out how things are going, where she has been and where she hopes to go.

Kathleen - 20 years from now, if I still walk the earth, remember to give me a call. We must get together.

You met Kathleen's brother David yesterday. Well, here he is again.

What will he be doing in 20 years?

And this little beauty, Ashlyn, here in the arms of her mother, Tamara, what will she be up to?

Ashlyn also found a stuffed Muzzy to love.

Yesterday, I also posted a group shot from the shower, but there were a few individuals present, such as Caleb and Kalib, who were not in it, but they came running to get into this one.

I am not certain how it happened, but there was a beautiful young friend of Lavina's by the name of Toni in the lower left hand of the shot that ran yesterday, right there alongside Natalee and Jazmin, but she is out of the picture in this one. I tried to make certain everyone was in, but to take this picture, I stretch my arms upward and hold the camera as high above my head as I could reach and so I had a very poor view of the LCD screen.

You will note that of my immediate family, Rex is missing. He had gone to Seward to take some sailing lessons in a 45-foot boat with a pretty tall mast. One day, I hope to get pictures of him sailing such a boat.

Little Anna, Ian, Anna and Sharon are not in this picture, either. I thought this was because they had left.

They must have just gone down to the playroom to play, though, because soon they came back.

Rusty, husband of Natalee, father of Cooper. I mentioned that Cooper is mischievous. So is Rusty.

Sandy, with Andrew. The two plan to marry in September, in Hawaii. Even though I am not a wedding photographer, Sandy looked at the album that I made for Jacob and Lavina. She wants one like that. She wants me to come to Hawaii and photograph their wedding.

Again, let me reiterate... I am not a wedding photographer!

But Hawaii...?

A photographer must be flexible, right?

This post has gotten entirely too long, but, crimeny, you didn't expect me to leave Kalib out, did you?

An artist finds his place on a newly painted wall; my baby shower post turns into a preview

I simply cannot keep up with myself. I hate to break a baby shower into two pieces, but I started editing the images for this post about an hour-and-a-half ago, I'm not even close to having made my final selection, I have much to do today and I have no more time to spend on it. 

So I decided just to post this one image of Kalib's art, hanging on the wall in the dining room of his family home. Readers will remember this wall as being white. Last week, Jacob and Lavina painted most of the upper-floor walls. After painting this wall blue, they devoted this portion of it to Kalib and his art.

I will come back tomorrow to show the shower in greater detail.

Well, I suppose that if I am going to say anything at all about a baby shower, I should at least present one image of the baby for whom the shower was thrown. This is he, Jobe, with his Auntie Melanie.

Oh, what the heck - one more image, but only because there were a number of little people there, including young David, whose mother hails from Senegal. I can't decide which picture of David I should use in my post tomorrow, so I will put this one up today and that will make the decision easier tomorrow as there will be one less photo to chose from.

David has a very beautiful sister, but I already know which picture I am going to use of her. You can see it tomorrow. She is gorgeous and very cute.

So is little Ashlyn, who you will also meet, and little Anna.

Cooper is mischievous, as you will see.

As for young Ian...

This is he. As I have mentioned the fact that Jacob and Lavina painted their walls, I think that means I had better include this picture today, just to explain the paint job a little better. You might be wondering why there is such a strong cast of green light falling upon Ian, the wall and the rug.

It is because he is standing by the open door to the newly painted bathroom.

This is the bathroom, painted in its new shade of green. When you step into it and the sun is shining, as it was on the day of the shower, it is actually much brighter than it appears here. If I did not tone down the brightness a bit, it would sear your eyes.

Plus, no computer screen that I am aware of is capable of emitting a level of green brightness to match that of this bathroom.

Caleb holds a Navajo/Apache taco - the main entree of the event - which he will soon eat.

It is probably better to think about eating bean-laden tacos when you are in a room other than the bathroom.

Okay - one more - another of baby Jobe, admiring his grandfather as he is fed by his mother's good friend, Natalee. This kid receives love from many sources.

So today I failed to put up the post on the baby shower.

Tomorrow, I hope I will post it and then we can all move on with life.