Woo Hoo!

My family in heaven just by grew two people!! My parents came to trust the Lord Jesus as their Saviour this past Sunday! I am so excited to get to go to MS for their baptism in a week or so.

As I told my mom...you never know when you are gonna go so you better know where you are gonna go when you go.

You can know for sure that you will go to heaven if you acknowledge that you are a sinner and believe that God sent Jesus Christ to take the punishment for your sin and accept the free gift of salvation in Jesus that He offers you.

I recently heard a neat analogy of Jesus as our Judge and our Saviour...imagine you are a convicted prisoner, sent to stand before the judge. The judge stands up and walks down from his stand to take your place and you are free to go.

If you died tonight where would you go???

Happy Birthday Auntie M!

Happy Birthday Auntie M! Thanks for always being so encouraging to our family. We love reading your comments on our blogs!

Tea for Two

 

A friend and I went to tea yesterday!

                                                        Such a lovely home it was in...

 

My sweet friend

We chose the small tea sampler but there was plenty on the menu...we started with lemon scones. I love scones but had never had lemon before or lemon curd. I loved both. They were also served with raspberry jam. A very yummy combination.

 

Then we had chicken salad on croissants and cucumber sandwiches on multi-grain bread. I love cucumber sandwiches but always thought they had to be on white bread. It was a nice change to have them on something else. The hostess also served mini tarts filled with apricot pepper jelly.  I am not a very adventuresome eater but the combination was surprisingly good. I am not sure it is something I would rush home to make, unlike the lemon scones that are patiently waiting on my counter to be eaten during nap time.

Isn't that a pretty tea cup? I was actually given a whole set of that pattern of china many, many years ago by someone from church who didn't want it anymore. I didn't appreciate having nice dishes back then and regret that I got rid of them. I do still have one lone tea cup in the cupboard, though I didn't remember having it until B#6 showed me.

 

Dessert was heavenly...lemon cake with TayBerry jam. Never heard of a tayberry?? We hadn't either. Apparently it is sort of like a raspberry and blackberry. Both of which I love. She topped it with whipped cream and toasted coconut. It was very rich and I was getting full but I decided to finish it anyway and not even think about calories.

 

It was a fun day and I am looking forward to going back with the girls for a card-making tea day.

Birthdays!

In a span of 17 days we celebrate 3 birthdays...

 

B#11 turned 1...I think he wants to share his cake with you:)

                                                 I think he preferred the gift bag to the gifts...

 

B#9 turned 4. She was so funny. It cracked her up that we were all singing to her. I honestly don't think she knew what to expect when we kept telling her it was her birthday. She is such a simple, happy little girl that I don't think it even registered with her that birthday equals presents.

 

We bought her a "Stuffie". If you aren't familiar with these, they are stuffed animals with lots of pockets. The mouth unzips, the tongue has a pocket, there is a pocket on the back and all of the feet have little pockets. She is kind of a hoarder, she loves to collect stuff and keep it in her bed so we thought this would be perfect for her. She also loves little animals so we bought her a few and wrapped them up to hide in the pockets.

                                                       I think she was happy with her gifts!

                                        She wanted a purple cake for her birthday so B#4 made her a yummy 4 layer

                                                    purple and pink cake with whipped cream frosting.

And last but not least, B#2 turned 22 on the same day as B#9. I don't have any pictures of her as she is still in MO. But I was so pleased that her host family's mother agreed to make her favorite birthday cake for her as a surprise from us. She always has white cake with Raspberry filling and whipped cream frosting. Tastes just like a Zinger! Yum! If you have never had a Zinger go to the store and buy some! We missed having her here for her birthday but we know that this is life with grown children. And we are so very thankful that she has a godly family who has taken her under their wing.

Breakfast Outside

This morning I actually got up "early". DH would laugh at my definition of early. But anyway, I took the baby outside with me to read my Bible and drink my coffee. It was so nice and cool that I decided it would be fun to eat breakfast outside. So I woke up B#6 and she and I got everything ready before waking up the kiddos.

California

We just got back from California, visiting with B#1 and his wife.  We had a good time and hopefully didn't overwhelm them too much by adding 11 extra bodies to the mix.

 

It was a tiring ride for the kiddos.

 

Our first day there after traveling we went to church with them. It was a nice little church. The pastor is a very genuine man who loves the Lord. We were excited to meet him, knowing how much he prayed for Mark before, during and after his surgery. As a matter of fact, he told us he is still praying for Mark. The Lord must have told him that although Mark is mostly better he still has some bad days where he feels like he hasn't made much progress. It was amazing to know that their pastor was awake before the sun was up on the morning of Mark's surgery texting us to let us know he was praying for us.

 

 

We went bowling while there. The kids really enjoyed that and I got to bowl using bumpers since I was on their lane!

 

 

The day after that we went to tour the Jelly Belly factory. I really enjoyed that. Maybe it is the homeschool mom in me but its great when you can learn something and eat candy at the same time.

We enjoyed having a picnic lunch outside. The Lord blessed me by taking away the 106 degree temps of the previous week and giving us low 80's while we were there.

 

 

After leaving the Jelly Belly factory we decided we still had enough energy to go see some of Old Town Sacramento. The guys went to the California Railroad Museum which they thoroughly enjoyed while we girls(and B#11) walked around the shops.

 

 

While we were walking around we spotted Danny's Mini Doughnuts. Can you say Yum??? So of course we decided we needed to stop in. The young man making the doughnuts made the experience fun for us and they were very yummy. We bought 48 mini doughnuts!

 

 

 

B#6 got to put the sprinkles on the chocolate doughnuts.

 

B#3 got really into shaking some doughnuts.

 

B#1's wife got to do some shaking too!

 

 

I liked this sign..if you are going to go to a saloon it should be a coffee saloon!

 

Our last day there was spent packing, shopping for food for the trip home and visiting a fun park with places for the kiddos to play in water. As you can tell B#11 loved it. He is a little waterbug.

                                                                             
                                                                     B#10 loved it too!

                                       These two thought they were just too cool to get wet!

And then we headed out...bright and early. Our first rest stop of the day had this Rattlesnake warning sign...Ugh! Kids stay close!

 

We decided to take a detour on our way home to visit Crater Lake. It is the deepest lake in the United States and the clearest in the world. Which, I think, is what makes it so very blue. It added a bit to our trip home which made it a little harder for the kiddos but in the end I think everyone thought it was worth it to see. Apparently it is a volcano, boy I didn't realize that when I committed to the side trip. Heights and kids make me nervous. But we all survived. Isn't it beautiful?  Our God makes amazing things, doesn't he?

                                          How's your summer going so far?? Any great plans?

 

A Rocking Chair

An example of how God meets our needs, even when they may seem small....

B#11 is a terrible sleeper, always has been. I rely hugely on my rocking chair in his room, sometimes I even sleep there. It is pretty much the only way I can get him to sleep in the evening and back to sleep when he wakes up many times during the night.

We are going on a trip to see B#1 and his newly pregnant wife and the thought of not having a rocking chair to use for B#11 was a huge issue to me. I woke up one morning after very little sleep and told DH that I couldn't possibly go with them because I would have no rocking chair, weeping as I said it.

I don't think I mentioned that part to my daughter-in-law but we did joke a bit about tying my rocking chair on to the top of our huge red van. Well, today after church she texted me and told me that her church was letting her borrow a rocking chair from them for me to use while I am there. I don't think she quite realized how emphatic I was when I replied "Praise the Lord" or just how huge this was to me. But God knew how huge it was to me, even though it may have seemed small to everyone else.