There is not much more lasting or precious than the love between sisters. The bond only grows stronger with age. Although four years age difference stands between my angel and fifth blessing, it seems to shrink in importance as they grow. I awoke to these two cuddled on the floor under a blanket whispering and giggling away like best of friends.

It made my heart glad.

This day

This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

" I get dressed, mommy, I get dressed!!"

Only an enthusiastic 2 year old, with a smile like that can get away with wearing a long sleeve shirt as pants. As I am writing this, my fifth blessing is meticulously putting a puzzle together in the living room, Genesis 32 is being read by The Streaming Bible online, I'm sipping an americano that my mama dropped off for me this morning, about to grade this weeks schoolwork before we ALL head over to our friend's house to play and RUN(training for a half... very slowly... but surely), family dinner date at friends' tonight and my oldest daughter is organizing papers in our attic to make $5 for the kid's "dog fund". Good, good day.

Yesterday my husband, 3 oldest daughters and I went skiing/snowboarding.  I have a snowboarder, a skiier and a zipper(my angel never stopped moving up and down the bunny hill. She was so fast off the chair to the hill, you'd miss her if you blinked!) My honey tried out snowboarding. He caught on quick as he usually does with physically challenging sports, but took some nasty spills from going to the top of the mountain(on his first day EVER of snowboarding!) Love him. We had an absolute blast! The sun was shining, the skies as clear as could be, we didn't end the day in the hospital and the snow was just about perfect. Only one downer... I'm as sore as can be!

God is good!

The weekend of drawn out birthday celebration was a success!

My try at free handing/eyeing/designing this cake with my angel lending a hand when needed was I believe a success! 

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to YOU

Happy birthday

my dear one

Happy birthday

to YOU!

(doodly-doo)

Hand's on

Today for my angel's 7th birthday we went to the local aquarium for some interactive fun and learning!  Here a few of my favorite captured moments from our outing.

By the end of our adventure, there wasn't a dry sleeve in the bunch.

“A house is made of walls and beams;

a home is built with love and dreams.”

Farewell Fall-Good morning frost!

Sub-freezing temperatures,

grey snowy mornings and quiet icy streets

glistening in the light of the moon,

can only mean one thing-

The beauty of Winter has arrived

to our little northwestern farm town

with all of it's blustering glory!

Perfect "real life" photo here folks-dust on the mantle,
vacuum cleaner in the background, still dressed in my
bleach and coffee soaked work shirt but deciding,
yes, prioritizing and choosing to spend time with my
little dear blessings nonetheless. A perfectly clean house
completely pales in comparison to sweet moments
like these.

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."

Galatians 6:9

"Take heart sweetie, all of your hard work plowing the ground of our kids hearts and minds WILL PAY OFF. The warning from this passage is to not lose heart and become discouraged. For many of us, we lose heart and feel like we can't go on, before we actually can't go on. I will be lifting you up in prayer today...and defending you the best that I can... I love you."  -My Main Man

My "toothleth" Reader

Beauty

Stay young at heart my princess. 
Pure.
True to your Maker.

For completely faithful and loving He is,

sincere, forever pouring His love on you.

Give your everything, wholly to your mighty King.

Truly abandon desire for earthly pleasures,

Let His hands hold and protect your gentle soul.

For He formed you,

Designed you with purpose,

And can't wait to walk through

the rest of your life with you. 

Capture her heart, Father,

Reach out and grasp her hand.

Let her find her worth in You,

and live to kneel at Your throne.

Blessing is in the eye of the beholder...

Enjoying a morning with these blessings right now. They are beautiful reminders of God's love for us, his children as my heart is only for their best!  God is so good, His blessings are abundant, real and ever so lovely. Sometimes, they are hard to see, buried under the muck of this life, but always there nonetheless, if we just make a choice to look and see their overwhelming beauty through the ashes. 

What a gift!

Life is a beautiful ever changing thing. Some seasons of blooming, growing and joy. Others withering, thirsty and dormant.

Always lovely. Painful. Beautiful.

Life in Jesus always has the good ending.

I am SO thankful to be mom to my busy beautiful five.

Enjoying the Spring morning sunshine

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. 

~Psalm 19:14 

Slug Bug Story

     One thing I LOVE about my kids is how innovative they are!  They aren't satisfied with the same ol' same ol'... a chip off the old block I suppose.

     They started off having a blast playing the slug bug game-although, truth be told it turns into mean words and nasty fights at times(which leads to the dreaded grounding from playing the game for awhile), too but more than not, they have fun and the slug bug game keeps their minds off of being stuck in the car-but over time that classic game got laborious and boring, not to mention painful. So they started keeping points for each bug they saw. 10 points for new bugs and 25 for the vintage ones. If two of them yell it out at the same time, whoever says "JINX!" first gets the points. So, after a while longer that too got a little monotonous. So the game morphed into the "Kathy Car" game. Let me explain:

     We have a beautiful neighbor, Kathy who lives just down the street a block and who also attends our church, where she leads the children in Worship songs. We have visited her a few times, she has gifted us flowers among other things and her dear husband has molded us some wonderful keepsakes from clay.  He has a kiln to bake them in, he makes beautifully unique pottery and both of them are some of the most giving, selfless people we know. Thankful for neighbors such as them! Not to mention, I LOVE their house!

     So needless to say my kids adore miss Kathy. She has a PT Cruiser and I do believe those may rival the populous amount of Volkswagen beetles one day. Especially if my children have anything to say about it. So anytime they see a PT Cruiser, they now yell out "Kathy CARRRR!" And thus get 30 mega points for doing so. And it doesn't stop there!  No, for the "ultimate" Kathy Car, which is actually Kathy's literal car, you get a whopping 100 points. Ding ding ding!  Jackpot.

     So there you go folks, they have been having a blast playing this incredibly imaginative game every time we get into the car, it's great that they exercise their brains to keep score and it makes this mama smile!

     When we went to visit Grandpa Jim for his 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago, they were astonished when they saw a new Volkswagen beetle sitting in his driveway. As their jaws dropped open, they inched toward the car, arms raising, hands extending, in expectation, declaring," We have never seen one. So. CLOSE! May we touch it?" And all in good fun, they did. They wanted their pictures taken with it and yes, my boy kissed it. 

Guys and cars. Pshaw. I shall never understand it.