Pleasant Day

Homemade GF Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Chicken Bacon Waffle Sandwiches with Maple Gravy and Artichoke Hearts



Sweet Company


pets and blooming garden

Miranda and Sarah's Derby Day Photo Shoot

Lord, You Have My Heart - Delirious?

A Quote for Mother's Day

How could anyone dare to suggest or say that working at the huge task of making a home and carrying on through years and years of ups and downs is not one of the very few truly worthwhile ways to spend our energies and gifts in human life?

~Susan Schaeffer MaCaulay

A Quote

"The world is changed by changing diapers, hugging wives, doing chores, and singing joyfully."
R.C. Sproul, Jr.

Celebrating Ellie's Birthday

2011 Reading

North and South
by
Elizabeth Gaskell

"If the world was full of perplexing problems she would trust, and only ask to see the one step needful for the hour."

"Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life."

"But I should say that the child was getting a better and simpler, and more natural education stopping at home, and helping her mother, and learning to read a chapter in the New Testament every night by her side, than from all the schooling under the sun."

"And now she had learnt that not only to will, but also to pray, was a necessary condition in the truly heroic."

May Day

For Kathryn

Today I finished a baby quilt for my niece Kathryn.
When she is a bit older the quilt may be used for a doll.

A Snack

Rice Cake with Sunflower Seed Butter and Strawberry Jam
yummy!

Birthday Pictures

An April Birthday

Today is my 31st birthday. To celebrate I made a list of 31 items I am thankful for from the past year.
Here they are in a somewhat random order.

1. Salvation
2. God's provision for all my needs and many extras
3. phone calls and time spent with a godly gentleman who far exceeds my unrealistic expectations
4. my niece and nephews, brothers and sisters-in-love
5. my dad who provides for me and a mom who continually sacrifices for me
6. our military who fight overseas, so I do not face the reality of war and for being able to volunteer for the family program at the 110th Airlift Support Wing
7. my friends Tim and Erin allowing me to frequently visit their home and spend time with their children
8. crocheting for three weeks with Theresa
9.witnessing the miracle of Daphne's birth and spending Christmas with her big brother and sisters
10. the moment my dear friend Anna showed me her diamond while we were at Barnes and Noble and that she wasn't embarrassed by the scene I made
11. Anna taking me to my pre-surgery appointments and staying at the hospital with me
12. a giant puppy who is always glad when his mama gets home
13. six year old Noah who still gives me kisses and thinks I am fun to spend time with
14. nine year old Miranda who goes on adventures with me and counts me as a best friend
15. holding baby Tara and sleep overs with her three older sisters
16. my aunts and uncles who take such good care of me
17. going to my doctor's office is one of the highlights of my social life
18. books
19. dark chocolate
20. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods
21. bunnies and guinea
22. letters from Theresa, Amanda and Melissa
23. all the times that Isabella and Adelaide say, "Miss Sarah Potter, I love you"
24. tea
25. homemade gifts that arrive in the mail from Wyoming
26. a sewing machine from my parents
27. IV's and acupuncture given by the very best nurses and acupuncturist
28. Karmen asking me to teach soap making and being a constant encouragement to me
29. I felt well enough to sleep in a tent in 17 degree weather
30. the MANY people God has put in my life to show His love, grace and provision to me
31. life,breath and strength, that the birthday I celebrated four years ago from a hospital bed was not my last and that God always does exceedingly abundantly beyond all I can think or imagine

Easter

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.
- G.K. Chesterton (The Everlasting Man)


“There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen.’ This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer seem sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They will have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life.”
~C. S. Lewis


I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
- C. S. Lewis