Thank you again, everyone, for sharing your thoughts and experiences with me. I've gained a lot of perspective from your answers. My mom was here for several days and as it turns out, my in-laws will be coming tomorrow or Saturday for a couple of days, so I've been super-busy. Anyway, I called Mary's mom on Sunday and talked to her a bit and will send along the hand-me-downs back with my in-laws, who live in the same town. (They're the new baby's great-grandparents.) When I called Mary's mom, I made it easy on her by starting off with "I understand that you're going to have a new little addition to your family and I was wondering if you'd like some of M----'s baby things?!" -- so that she didn't have to go into any explanation of the situation. She said yes, they could use clothes and things and that they have plenty of the newborn to 6-month stuff, but not the older stuff. Most of my stuff is for an older baby, anyways, since my son is nearly 3, so it should be a good fit. I bought a card to include for Mary to let her know I'm thinking of her and I'll also include a chatty card for Susie along with a small cash gift. I'll send a congratulations to Mary's folks, too. I know some of the GW replies I've received indicate that Susie doesn't need to receive a gift....but I want to repeat that in my opinion, she's watching Mary be the center of attention and watching the family and everyone else spend money on Mary, so I don't want her to be left behind. The girls' mom said they aren't having any showers for Mary until after the baby is born. As I see it, there aren't too many terrible decisions that a person can make that result in parties and gift-giving for them. When's the last time anyone threw a party for someone who, for example, robbed a store or dropped out of high school or took too many drugs? Mary decided she was old enough to handle sex and its consequences and Mary's parents decided to let it happen. Mary's mom took her to the family doctor early on, but when the doctor began discussing sex, Mary's response was "Oh, GROSS! I'm not going to do THAT!" and her parents took her for her word. This pregnancy couldn't have been too much of surprise. My in-laws received a call one morning many months ago, from Mary's mom. Both the mom and dad were at work, and Mary and Susie were home and Mary's boyfriend was there. Could FIL please go check on them? My FIL went over to the house to chaperon and found Mary in pajamas and she and her boyfriend were laying on the couch. When my DH and I heard that story we looked bug-eyed at each other and we agreed it was not IF she'd become a teen mother, but HOW SOON. At the end of the phone conversation with Mary's mom, she said something like - "Yeah, we were thinking of coming down to see you guys -- maybe we can do it in August or something?" Of course I agreed, but I'm wondering if she really believes the whole family, including a newborn and all of the newborn baby gear will be driving 7 hours or if just Mary's parents will come and let a 16-year-old take sole care of the newborn while the folks are away. I'll leave it at that, and hope and pray that the baby has a bright future and long, happy life.

Vickey, you CAN fix those socks to fit. With a yarn needle, thread a piece of yarn (essentially a lifeline) through the stitches a half inch further back than where you started your toe decreases, then cut the sock off a couple of rows before your lifeline (on the side closest to the toe) and unravel the yarn until you get to the row with the yarn threaded through it. Then just slide those stitches onto your needle(s) and knit another toe. If you don't have enough yarn to do that, then snip open the toe and unravel all the way back to your lifeline and reknit the toe. It's more tedious that way, but you'll have the socks you wanted when you're done. It's sort of like the method I use for heels. Here is a link to a tutorial for the afterthought heel. Here is a link that might be useful: afterthought heel

Great story Donna! Many years ago I was attending an estate sale and bought and box of goodies that had just one thing in it I wanted. After taking that one thing out, I was rifling through the rest and came across several photos of people in a jewelry store appearing to be from early 1900's The display cases looked oddly familiar to me. My ex DH bought all my jewelry from a place one town over from us. The lady that owns it was fairly advanced in age, and most every day sat in a rocker in the corner of the store to greet everyone that came in. I took those photos over and stood right inside the door staring at my pictures, looking up and down comparing to her display cases. "Sally , honey come here and show me what you are looking at" came from across the room. I kneeled beside her and without a word handed her the photos. I saw a tear start to well up. The people in the photos were her grandparents in their original store and the cases were the ones still being used by her! She tried to give them back to me as they were "mine". We had those photos framed and are still today part of their displays.

lilac wont do in texas and purple vitex is a nice easy substitute. It flowers, affordable, easy to find and designated a TX superstar. Here is a pic of what it can look like at maturity, so plan for size. Since they are very easy to propagate, you often see small sizes sold and people buy them w/o realizing how big they can get, and fast.I consider gardenias moody. I cant grow one to save my life, yet the neighbor two doors down, who is not a gardener, has an enormous gardenia. If your niece has limited experience growing stuff, gardenia might be frustrating.