The Perfect Gift

Last week Jon and I received a Christmas present in the mail from my Aunt Donna in Portales, NM. Now, before I share what the gift was I have to tell you the story behind it....

AHEM....

About 3 years ago I decided I wanted to put a 1000 piece puzzle together and then glue it and frame it as art! Well, me being the impatient ADD child that I am, I became bored with that almost as soon as I dumped the pieces out of the box! But this puzzle became a family project... Anytime anyone was over they'd sit down for a few minutes which led to a few hours to try to help put this puzzle together! Now, as the puzzle started to come together, my cousin Todd and I started taking pieces when no one was looking so that one of us could put the FINAL piece in the puzzle so we could say we "officially" finished the puzzle!! haha... My Aunt Donna would yell down the hall..."Todd!!!!! Give me the puzzle pieces you took!!!!" and when he would deny taking the piece they were looking for they'd all look at sweet innocent me :) But as the puzzle was almost done, we noticed that a couple pieces were still missing... Todd and I were actually innocent on this one... I believe one piece showed up one day while my aunt was vacuuming, but to this day there is still once piece missing. After we gave up on the search for the final piece, I glued the puzzle together and left it to dry.... 3 years later I received a gift in the mail from my Aunt Donna.... It was the puzzle in a frame that my grandpa had built... We still never found the final piece, but it looks amazing.

[[you can't really see it put the missing piece is to the left of the lamp post]]

On the back of the frame was a poem my Aunt Donna wrote along with this gift....

WAR

A piece to this puzzle is missing still

And the search may never end.

But as sure as the sun comes over the hill,

The lost part of your heart will mend!

We're all proud of this soldier and his wife

The time has been well spent.

It's almost time to resume your life

May God bless you is the intent!

-Donna McBroom

Crazy thing about it all was that i've been looking for months for the perfect piece of art to hang in our livingroom... it matches perfectly! :)

To my Aunt Donna,

Thank you so much! You have no idea how this gift touched my heart. You are truly amazing and I can never thank you enough for all you've done for me! I love you!