Happy Resurrection Day!

I pray that you all had a good Easter day or as we call it Resurrection Day. We had a good one. The weather was great and we had friends over to feast with us. Without wanting to write a sermon here, I wanted to share a couple of verses that stood out to me from our sermon.

John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

But let's not forget John 3:17 which says " For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

And 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, " For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

These verses should cause us all to have the joy of the Lord. If you know the Lord as your personal savior this world is not you home. You are a stranger passing through. Your home is in heaven where God will wipe away every tear. This world with its cares and concerns will pass away. Praise the Lord for His mercies! Praise the Lord that His mercies are new every day!

I also wanted to share with you a couple of pictures that B#6 took of our "Easter" surprises.

 

 

Meet Marshmallow and Leo. They will be our fuzzy lawnmowers. Leo is still being bottle fed so B#6 is loving getting to feed him twice a day.

 

 

We made these yummy pretzel crosses this week. One of my favorite things is chocolate covered pretzels so I really enjoyed eating these.

Our Good Friday tradition is to make Resurrection Rolls with crescent rolls and marshmallows dipped in butter and cinnamon sugar. The marshmallow melts inside the crescent roll and makes an empty tomb, like the empty tomb of Jesus on Resurrection Day. These are yummy to eat too. Hey, why bother to make something if it isn't yummy to eat, right?

 

Yesterday we frosted some cross shaped sugar cookies.

Hope you had a good day and that as the new week starts you will think about what Jesus did for you when He died on the cross. Without Jesus there is no true meaning in life....He is the giver of life.

A Facebook Post

I don't do Facebook but if I did this is what I would write for today...

Sitting here in complete silence except for the sound of the wind chimes and some hymns playing in the background while drinking a cup of coffee. The big girls took some of the children birthday shopping for Mom and the rest are napping. I know it won't last long and I am glad for that although I am enjoying the quiet while it is here.

Not Enough Hours in the Day

I have recently been reminded that I need to blog...how to fit that in??? There are only so many hours in the day and so many things I need/want to do. So following my brilliant oldest son's advice, I made a list of all the things I wanted to accomplish today and I added "Blog" to it hoping that would help me to get it done.

I am not sure where the time goes but between mountains of laundry, a messy house due to a painting project in progress, wanting to spend time practicing my cello and being outside ALOT now that it is finally sunny here, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. So I am just going to throw some pictures on here and try to catch up on what we have been doing.

 

                                           B#8 turned 5 in March. He wanted baseball cupcakes.

 

We colored eggs around the first day of Spring, which is usually when we choose to do that.

 

When I read that March was National Peanut Month we knew we just had to do something fun with that so we invited another family to participate in a Peanut day with us. Their family studied the life of George Washington Carver, who invented something like 300 uses for the peanut. Our family studied the history of the peanut and did a science experiment with a peanut. It was an enjoyable day.

 

 The kids have discovered an old, tiny, three stringed violin that they have been enjoying "playing" for us. They are so cute when they try to play it (and yes, I know it is upside down)

 

 Dad and B#5 put this hog/cattle panel up for me between my raised beds. I am not sure how well you can see it in this picture. It will be a place for my snow peas and sugar snap peas to climb. Hopefully it will work well. So far I have only planted peas, lettuce and spinach. But I think the weather may be cooperating enough soon to plant other things.

 

This little guy has kept us hopping lately. One night I came out of the baby's room at around 3am to find him sitting on the stairs in the dark. Boy did he scare me. He has started climbing out of his crib and can open the new doorknob that we put on the back door. So to try to keep tabs on him during the night we have put an alarm/chime on his bedroom door and one on the back door. We even tried out a video baby monitor to try to catch him getting out of his crib before he made it as far as the door. But we decided that was a bit more than we needed to do. We have even found him several nights asleep on his floor. So we just make sure to check on him before we go to bed and check that his alarm is on.

We spend almost all day out side during the spring and summer so this year, after 6 years, DH bought me a canopy so we will have a shady place to be. He wanted to build a Pergola but since he is still recovering and building shouldn't be something he is doing this works well. He and B#5 put some Christmas lights up out there for me yesterday and I am excited to see how they look tonight.

 

 B#5 informed me a few days ago that he wasn't going to play anymore, just work and then he proceeded to haul a full watering can all the way from the spigot to the blueberries to water them and that is quite a haul for a little guy.

 

 

And this guy is just plain cute!!! He is getting so big, crawling everywhere, pulling up and eating lots and lots of Cheerios. Now if he could just learn to sleep through the night!

Everyone else is doing well. B#2 is still in Missouri and enjoying it despite the storms and tornadoes. B#3 is busy, busy, busy with college and doing well at it. B#4 is my ever present helper right now. I couldn't do without her. She stays very busy. B#5 is a huge help around here, especially now that Dad can't do all that needs to be done. B#6 is stepping into the "Buddy" role with the littlest guy and doing a great job at it. He loves her! "The boys" as we call B#7 and #8 are bundles of energy, going constantly and lots of fun.

Well for the most part I think that sums up what we have been up to lately. Just plain ole staying busy with life. We have been given the opportunity to earn some extra money cleaning our church which we are saving for a trip to see B#1 and his wife. We are excited about that!

DH went back to work this week on a reduced work day schedule. It has been harder than he thought it would be and he comes home exhausted. But we are all looking forward to getting back to some semblance of normalcy. And we are still praising the Lord for His hand in it all.