We have new arrivals at our house.
Keaton, age 11 and Jeannea, age 9, are our new son and daughter. They were welcomed last week as warm as we knew how from the Nebraska Children's Home in Omaha by our family.
So if you'll bear with a proud Dad for a few moments, let me tell you something about the brother and sister of Denise, age 16 and Clarissa, age 13.
Jeannea is a bright-eyed blonde whose smile will catch your heart. She has a hearty appetite, is a courteous young Miss and has her interest centered mostly on homemaking.
She thinks she'd like to play softball in the Jaycee leagues since her sister, Clarissa, is on one of the teams. She is ticklish, likes to giggle and tease, has the young girl obsession for clothes and seems always to be the one who skins a knee or a toe while playing or bike riding.
Keaton is all boy. He's a towhead who eats and sleeps with his baseball glove and ball. And how he does eat! The other morning we thought we'd have to move the table away from him . . . after bacon, eggs, toast, jelly, juice and a bowl of cereal.
Keaton's luck has been running pretty good as of late. The other evening we went to Penney's to buy a pair of track sneakers. Joe Fletcher, the store clerk, started up a conversation and before we left the store, Keaton was signed up to play on the Optimist baseball team coached by Joe.
Well, you can imagine how we spent the rest of the evening.
We had been making plans for an addition to o u r family for some time and had shared visits and correspondence with Denise and Clarissa from the beginning.
Although our daughters had talked for some time about wanting an addition to our family, the day we told them that we made the decision to do just that, will be remembered for a long time.
Oh sure, there were many 'ears around the dinner table that night. But they were tears of happiness and joy. From that point on, they shared in all plans.
They wanted to tell "a hundred friends a hundred times", b u t held off until Keaton and Jeannea came to us . . . Denise announced it at the Job's Daughters meeting and Clarissa announced it at Bible school.
I chose today, Father's Day.
There has been some shifting around in the sleeping quarters. We have a three bedroom house, three daughters and a son. So, Dear Ole' Dad has turned carpenter and is building Keaton a 9 x 12 room next to the recreation room in the basement.
He says he is going to put a sign on his door, "girls not allowed."
Jeannea says that's fine with her; she says she doesn't want to go in his old room anyway because she and Clarissa will have twin beds of their own.
Oh, we're having fun!
They say it's a great life if you don't weaken. Well, we aren't about to weaken; in fact we're looking ahead to many years of scouting, ball games, 4-H, grade school programs . . . and . . . oh, no . . . three more years of PTA!