Gracious

This is our new dog, Gracious! She is part of the family now - even plays dress up, sort of!

Hosanna and Jubilee are sitting on the hood of the truck. Hosanna has her little Gideon's Bible and decided to preach a little message. Jubilee listens intently as Hosanna says, "The Bible says God loves all of us!"

Our Easter Sunday family portrait - including the dog and cat!
Jubilee and Hosanna are where matching dresses that my mom
sent...the girls are pretty in pink. After our service we stayed for
a potluck - I brought beef stew.

Easter Faire

The Saturday before Easter we went to an Easter Faire. It was held at a church where they had egg hunts, jumpy houses, crafts, games, and even a free lunch.

We heard about the hot dog lunch before we went, so Jeff suggested I bring a salad for our family to try to fill in the food groups. It was a warm, sunny day. The prettiest day of the year so far.


Jubilee on the bouncy house maze.

Winter is ending and so is the cold. Garden time!

Winter funtime in our yard! (2 snows this winter)







Soon it was time to till the land... with the work of our neightbor, we can now romp through the clay. Next comes the work of making it into soil.


















Mom & the girls decided to start with a smaller place - with a flower garden. This is located outside our living room and school room (south side of the house)

Blessings in a dumpster

On the way to church one Sunday morning, we took the back road. On this particular road is a greenhouse business - dozens of huge greenhouses. There were two very large dumpsters in front, and as we passed I noticed that they were full of green. I mentioned it to Jeff and he said we would take a look on the way home. On the way home we did look and they were filled to the brim with pansies. They weren't dead or dieing either. They must have just grown more than they could sell. So we went dumpster diving, of course! Filled the back of the pickup with dozens of flats of pansies. Lots of yellow but also purple, orange, and red. The next week I made a little yellow-brick road. In our flower/herb garden area, I made a brick path and planted the yellow pansies along the edge - hence the yellow (pansy) brick road!

For those of you that don't know we also got a dog. Her name is Gracious! Getting a dog felt like a more permanent step in life than buying a house did. She is 16months and gracious with the children - that is the reason for her name!

Smile of God

It has been a long while since the last post since our computer was down, changing internet providers, and a 11 day stretch of sickness for all the girls of the house. Tonight I thought it might be fun to share that I shop-vac-ed Jeff's lunch box. He has a large, accordian-like lunch box and with all the snacks that wedge in the cracks I thought I had a pretty great idea. The mess is in the shop vac and not all over the counter or mis-fired around the garbage can! Today it also snowed - well about 2 hours of flurries. The laundry hanging outside had become a bit stiff, so I am letting it stay up all night and hopefully tomorrow it will thaw out by the afternoon.

This past Saturday, I had a proud, happy Mama moment. Hosanna was sick with an earache and sleeping a lot as a result. So Jubilee and I went outside with a picnic snack that Jubilee had prepared. I was eating the apple slices when she said, "Let's do Jesus bread." She had brought out the bread and juice needed to take communion together! This was such a wonderful time as she thanked God for pouring His blood out to wash us clean of our sins. She asked me to pray before we took the bread. I could just feel the smile of God.