Tuesday, March 25, 2008

A Little Bit Sad


This is me with my oldest and youngest. My husband took this picture this afternoon for me. The oldest is waiting at the Boston airport right now to fly to Denver where his auntie will be picking him up. His move to New England was temporary, but 15 months later I kind of got used to having him around again. He will be renting from my sister (sharing a house) and building a life of his own. It is hard to let them go though. My youngest and I both shed a few tears as we drove away from the airport a little while ago. We love you Chris!

More Signs of Spring!


Our first cook out of the year! Hambugars on the grill...YUM YUM! In the summer I like to cook out at least 3 nights a week.

Driver Beware!


I laughed out loud the first time I saw this sign! The road to access our subdivision got so bad this winter the town finally put up signs like the above one on both ends of the road. It was like avoiding land mines! The city would fill in the holes with asphalt, but it was too cold for it to seal and would be thrown out of the holes worse than pea gravel getting thrown around on a dirt road. We have finally had a few warmer days and the holes are somewhat filled, hopefully the city will come back and do better job as it warms up more. But for now at least we don't have to swerve back and forth across the road to avoid loosing an axle into one of the bottomless pits!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!
The Lord Jesus is Risen!

Our son wanted a Webkinz so he got this Dalmatian pup.
The water bottles are for our son and my husband. I got one of these for the missions trip I went on in Costa Rica last summer and I have been wanting to get these for them. They are Camelbak brand and very nice and sturdy. I got some strawberry plants, a rhubarb plant, and a Bleeding Heart plant (so noone felt bad that I didn't get anything.)
This is the traditional Easter Breakfast I have had for as long as I can remember. Everybody loves this stuff...except my husband! He is the ONLY person I have made this for, ever, that did not like it. It is a medium white sauce with the whites of the hard boiled eggs chopped up and mixed into the white sauce. The yolks are finely chopped or pushed through a sieve and served over toast with salt and pepper to taste.
Goldenrod Eggs

This is what I spent my afternoon doing. My dear friend blessed me last December with the supplies to make a few baskets and I finally just sat down and made this one. I don't know what I've been waiting around for. I really do love to see a pile of sticks turn into...






This!

This is my own design as I didn't have a pattern to use a swing handle (that is what I had). I made a "cats head" basket to round basket. I kind of guessed on the size of the spokes for the basket, it was nearly prefect.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Easter Eggs



















We color eggs every year. I'm not sure I will stop when this youngest of the 4 boys grows up.























I love the bright colors. This year I tried out NEON food dye and the colors were really vivid! The green is Apple Green...so cool.























Then I was playing with the dye. I like the colors. Did I mention how much I like that green?

A Little More Snow

I was supprised to see the snow hanging off the shed, almost like a blanket. It was a wet show almost like sleet so I guess it froze together like this.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

TLG Kingdom Player's

Our church had the children's Easter drama today. It was short, but delivered the gospel message clearly in a few brief moments. They did awesome! This is our son reciting one of his lines.

CITL Leatership Training

Our churches had a leadership training we attended Saturday. The speaker was Terry Nance. He spoke on "Running with Your Pastor's Vision."

I am so blessed that we were given the opportunity to hear this man speak. I came away with several "nuggets" of wisdom from the training and I would like to share a few of them with you.
1. The Message bible for Matthew 5:1 (I believe) says, "Blessed are those that live at the end of their rope." To me this means that when I am at the end of my rope God is there holding my grip for me to keep me from falling off, He is there with me and will not leave me, He will bring me to safety in His perfect time, I will trust Him.
2. A mentor is the photograph of your future. This struck me to write in my notes, but I need to pray on it for more revelation.
3. Honor is an action.
4. I was reminded to "Thank God for EVERYTHING!"
5. God doesn't negotiate with rebellion.
6. I am New England seed.
7. Every farmer understands the principle of seed, time, and harvest. If you remove the "time" of the equation, there will never be a harvest! (Why is this such a revelation to me?!) Terry demonstrated this by having one man (seed) stand on his right and one man (time) stand on his left. Each of the three held their hands out at arms length, shoulder high. With Terry (time) in the middle they spread out so they could each touch their hands. As long as "time" was there "seed" could reach "harvest." But if time was removed (Terry walked away) the "seed," and "harvest" were left with a gap that could not be closed (the men standing outside of each others reach.)
8. When you are in transition God will connect the dots! That is awesome...I don't have to do it.
9. Pray for the lost.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Reach for the Stars

Tonight our local library sponsored a program called "Reach for the Stars." It was presented by a man, whose name I do not know, but he is known as "The Astronaut Man." He works for NASA and he designed some of the toilets on the space shuttle! Isn't that exciting?! I wasn't allowed to take pictures during the program. Our son was picked as an "astronaut" for the night. He put on a blue jumper and was standing by during the program with 3 other "astronauts" when The Astronaut Man called for assistance.

Did you know...(according to our son)
... it takes only 8 minutes for the space shuttle to get from the ground through the atmosphere?
... when you orbit the earth in a space shuttle you get to see 26 sunrises a day?
... your juice doesn't need a cup in space?
... they use robots to take pictures, work on the space shuttle, and work on the space station?
... a space shuttle launched today headed to the International Space Station (ISS)?
... the shuttle is carrying a robot and a laboratory to the ISS?
... the shuttle will arrive at the ISS tomorrow?
... going to the bathroom in space is gross?
... NASA launched a robot named Phoenix that will land on Mars in May?

Spring IS Coming!

I saw these strawberry and Iris shoots today in my garden!
Yeah!!!!!
Spring IS Coming!

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Look what I Won!

I participated in a Scavenger Hunt at Mugs of truth last week and won the prize! Go check it out here they will be posting a new question today. You will see the beautiful Thomas Kinkade Throw I will be receiving in the mail this week. They have some awesome inspirational gifts at their site.

Friday, March 7, 2008

CWO's Blogoversary Giveaway's

Christian Women Online is celebrating their blogoversary and they are giving away lots of great prizes including an MP3 Player, lots of great books, CDs, and a free blog design from Split Decisionz!! "We're starting off the party with a game of tag, sponsored by Art Bookbindery, in which you could win a Sony Walkman Video MP3 Player with 4GB Memory! Listen to music, watch movies, and more... " [qrote from CWO] Go here to enter.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Beautiful Day!

After heavy rains yesterday and most of this morning we had a very nice afternoon. I decided to take our son on a nature walk through the woods behind our house. We know the deer walk through there regularly so we were watching for deer sign (which we saw lots of) and anything to indicate spring might be coming along soon. Here are some deer tracks in the snow. I elected not to photograph the copious amounts of other signs we saw of deer! :0

Here is one of the signs of spring we saw while out and about. I am so excited to see the leaf buds on the trees!

We then walked up the road to the power lines. Our son sometimes comes here on the skimobles with the neighbor boy and his dad. He was showing me where they ride. Did you know these big power lines actually "hummm" with electricity? They do! It is really quite disconcerting.
Here is our son, with a stick~isn't that how all boys are outside if we ain't saying, "Put that stick down!" So he would start running and and drag the stick through the water and watch the splash and wake. (He loves it when daddy drives fast through puddles too!)
When we walked around the corner and our house came into view our son said, " Thank you mom for going on a walk." How sweet. As we walked in the front door my cell phone rang.
It was my husband. (The car was in the drive so I figured he was seeing when I would be back.)
Me: Hi honey.
Husband: Where are you?
Me: We just walked in the door, I was calling your name instead of answering the phone.
Husband: That's too far.
Me: Oh? Why. where are you in the back? (I'm thinking he is in the back yard looking towards the trees as he knew we were going on a walk.)
Husband: No, I tracked you. But you left the dirt and snow and walked into the street and I didn't know where you went for sure.
Me: {laughs} Sorry, we were to quick for you! We went up to the power lines, then walked around the long way home.
Husband: Yeah, I figured that's where you went because that the direction your feet walked out of the snow.
Me: Well we will walk up and meet you. Which way are you going to go?
Husband : Past Eric's.
Me: OK, see you in a few.
Well, we didn't go home, we walked back up to the power lines. Then we went for a walk through another woods.
Look what we could see! The ground!

Here is our son sitting and a rock in the sun, isn't he handsome!

Here we saw this sign up high in a tree. We looked around and there was obviously NOT a tree farm anywhere near. Our son is about 4 1/2 feet tall. The bark has grown over the top of the sign. We figure the sign was about 6 foot off the ground when it was first posted. It looks to be about 13 feet high now. We thought it was pretty neat to know that the area was once upon a time a tree farm.





We walked along the skimoble trail until the water became deep from melting snow to go on. We found some owl pellets, we brought one home to dissect later. They are $5.00 to order by mail!

So we had a great walk that lasted a little over 2 hours.

Monday, March 3, 2008

What Am I Here For?

I have been absent from posting lately. I really wanted to write more on this blog about things of a more contemplative nature. Then I started on the Project 365 where the goal is to post a photo a day for a year. I love posting the photo's because photography is one of my passions, so I take many, many photos naturally and I like having a place to share a great photo.

I have needed to re-evaluate some of the time I spend "surfing the 'net" because it seems to be eating up a lot of my time. So I took a step back to see what I am doing. I find I miss posting my photos. Yet I still long to learn how to share what is in my heart, where God has brought me in my faith walk, the things I am learning about life....

So, I am going to continue to post my picture of the day (most days) and try to add some inspiring thoughts here and there, without getting "lost in space"!

Blue Skies, Red Birds.

My husband saw this male cardnal sitting in the tree against the georgeous blue sky this morning. Very far away, but striking anyway!

Friendly Skies...or Not?

This is our resident hawk. He isn't too big, but he sure makes the birds at my feeders scarce! He has landed in and around our yard several times, but we haven't been able to get a close picture of him yet. I love to watch him soar, or listen to his calls when he is nearby.

Book It!

This is the only thing that came in Saturday's mail that wasn't junk! I called and signed our homeschol up!