Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child;

Bless me and remember me;

Savior, let me come to Thee.

Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb,

In Thy gracious hands I am;

Make me, Savior, what Thou art;

Live Thyself within my heart.

I shall then show forth Thy praise,

serve Thee all my happy days;

Then the world shall always see

Christ, the holy Child, in me.

GENTLE JESUS (CH 174)

Happy Birthday, Darlings!

My oldest two daughters have both recently had birthdays and are now proud 8 and 7 year olds! I still remember when they were born (amazing, I know)! We lived in Texas, we had been married only two years, and had these two sweet girls only 12 months apart! It definitely made me realize I'm definitely not all about the 'no birth-control' thing. Really, that realization and decision was also based upon the fact that, because of my first being breech, I had c-sections with both of the girls and have gone on to have one with all 5 of the births of my children as well. It is totally and utterly different than a natural birth... much harder to recover from and many, many more lasting effects from the surgery than having babies the way God intended.

Today I couldn't be happier and more delighted in the children that God has chosen to gift our family with. He knows best, He carries us through and He sees the ending. His control over every situation is there whether or not it seems that way to us.

I'm loving life with these sweeties!

Rainbow Cake!

I totally went all out on the cake and the celebration this year. Don't ask me why, I'm not sure. In hind-sight it may not have been the best idea as we ended up starting to come down with swine flu a couple of days before their party...along with being sick with the stomach flu and colds, ALL in the month of October! Whew, we made it through, though and had a great time celebrating the life of my two eldest along with this new season, FALL! We weren't going to let a few hardships stand in the way of our enjoyment. We stuck it to those hardships and sicknesses and came out more content, more dependent on our Heavenly Father because of them.

Memaws and aunties, know just how to make a b-day memorable. We love them so much! Plus, they are quite the riot, don't you think?

We decorated pumpkins with frosting and candy...

Ate buttered popcorn and enjoyed treat bags with glee!



Coutryman farms is a GREAT place to be!

We had potato sack races, three legged races and jumped in the leaves...
and for participating in the fun, picked a lolly from the lollipop tree!

mhm, Mhm, MHM!

It was a beautiful fall day, sunny and crisp! Their friends joined in the fun and they all had a blast. So thankful for who these girls are becoming... they are beautiful souls with hearts that are soft.

Praying for them, thankful for them today and always.
Happy birthday my dear daughters.
I love you.

Concoction

What on earth kind of cookie do you think this could be?

All I'm going to say for now is that it is a concoction of sorts and is edible but, well... not so much eat-able... but more on that further down...

I have to say, this little girl has been rolling right on through some 'firsts' this week!

My fifth blessing has tried mashed banana and pear mixed in rice cereal this week, for the first time and enjoyed them. Splendid! She has also started spitting, blowing bubbles and making herself heard this past week! How hilarious that is... I can't remember any of my other babies doing that! But for goodness sakes, I can't remember that far back... heck, I can't even keep 'which baby did what thing, when' straight! Don't want to get into that, the fact that the more kids you have, along with having them close together, the more you forget, and so on and so forth... but, I'm off-track.

Ahem, anyways... where was I?

This week we also had the unfortunate incident of her first tumble off of the couch. So sad! We're just thankful she's hard-headed like her daddy (okay, okay, like her mommy) and the minor fall didn't phase her a bit!

Accidentally let my first 'NO!' slip out, aimed at her this week (gasp). I know, I know... this sweet little thing?

In my defense, all I can say, is that, 'NO!' is what instinctively comes out my mouth when a plate full of food is being pulled off of the table onto our laps.

Oh, and this week was the first time this cutiepie has worn cloth diapers, legwarmers, and a zip-up Tigger costume.

Which brings me to this photo...

My kids are so much fun!

So, back to this yummy concoction...

"What on earth kind of cookie do you think this could be?" Like I said, it's made of edible ingredients but isn't exactly edible.

I recently let my kids go wild with ingredients pulled from our cupboards, marshmallows, honey, milk, baking soda, sugar sprinkles, cocoa, white chocolate chips and things of that sort. I love to encourage their creative juices to flow! It's amazing the things they can come up with on their own.

On this particular day, I encouraged them to write their own recipes!

Pour their own ingredients!

Stir their own batter!

Experiment!

Bake their own cookies!

Eat the fruits of their labor!

Eat, I say?

Sadly, nay, because after all that stirring, mixing and baking...let me not get into the details, but suffice to say that the birdies, the ants and the squirrelies even shied away from this baked concoction! My imaginative kiddos had a blast making it but next time may I remind myself not to put the baking soda out... uhmm, yeah. They added a bit much and made it UN-eat-able... but again, they had a blast making it all on their own with their own sweet little hands and being able to imagine and set into motion a recipe all their own...so they didn't mind so much that we couldn't eat them!

Even my little man joined in the fun...

...By eating the white chocolate chips... the cookies concoction, turned out to be just that a fun, sticky concoction of sorts. Edible but not necessarily eatable... but definitely worth the fun!

Refreshing

My beloved husband suprised me with flowers recently, as I've been ill... we ALL have come down with the flu.

Such a welcome, lovely gesture!

From a dear blessing-of-a-man.

Both of their vibrancy is refreshing on a dreary day!

Absolutely

~

Happy Birthday!

~

My oldest baby girl turns 8 years old today.

Is this inevitable thing called 'time' positively hurrying by much too quickly for my liking?

Absolutely!

Such a dear sweet soul she is... never fails to have a smile on her lips, a twinkle in her eye and holes in the knees of her jeans.

Can she outrun, outclimb and out glare 'em all?

~

Absolutely!

~

Love her.

~

Oh, and if you haven't guessed it yet...

One of her birthday highlights was absotively* the gift of her first pets ever - fish!

*Not a real word but used nonetheless.

~
Absolutely loves them.

~

Is this girl a well-loved sweetheart who God knew would make our family whole?

Absolutely!