Life is super busy these days, and time is flying incredibly fast. Here I am posting a picture of me with Lauren when she was around Lilly Faith's size. She is wearing a yellow raincoat. I am also posting two pictures of Lilly Faith wearing that same rain coat last Sunday. Wow! Lauren is now eleven and Lilly Faith just turned two. Amazing that so much time has passed since we bought that little coat.

My Baby is Two

Today she turned two. Where has the time gone? Her big sister decorated the dining room with a farm theme, and she was so cute blowing out the candles. She has seen her older siblings blow out candles, and knew what to do. So cute! At two she loves baby dolls, balls, and looking at books. She also LOVES to sing. She and the three year old sing all the time. "Jesus Loves Me" is a favorite as well as the "Gloria Patri." I sing that to her every night at bedtime, and at two you can find her singing it to her dolls. She still loves her pacis. She calls them duckies, because one of her pacis has a duck hanging from it. Happy Birthday to my sweet Lilly Faith.

Tonight marks a milestone in our household. Our baby is transitioning into a toddler bed. We have transitioned four other children but never into a toddler bed. We always went from a crib to a twin bed with railings. This time we are trying the toddler bed, and it is so stinking cute! Matt said it looks like a little doll bed. Well, she is excited but we will see what the night holds in store for us. I don't know what will happen when she wakes up in the middle of the night. I have already given two older sisters extra pacifiers that they can give her to console her. I pray Daddy and Mama will get some sleep tonight.

I just wanted to share that Annagrace lost her first tooth last Friday! She was so excited. All of a sudden she is not looking like a preschooler anymore. She is officially starting her Kindergarten work this summer. So far she is eager to learn. Her hair is growing, and she is looking older. Oh, my babies are growing so fast. "Lord, help me to treasure these years." I am so blessed to have Annagrace as my daughter; her sweet spirit is a blessing. She truly tries to do what is right, and I really appreciate her heart to do right. "Lord, please lead her to love you with all of her heart and to realize that she can only do right by your strength and enablement."

Manuals Binder

One thing I have been learning, over the past few years, is that you cannot have a large family, homeschool, and have a clean house without simplicity and organization. I confess I am not naturally super organized. Now I LOVE organization, but it is not always easy for me to pull off. So, I have been working on these matters. For one thing I have been purging our house, for the past few years, of unnecessary clutter. It feels really good to get rid of things, and I never miss the things I get rid of. Also, I am slowly implementing ideas I see online for running a more orderly household. My manuals binder is one of those ideas. I took a LARGE binder and divided it up into categories such as kitchen, office, family room, kids things, bedroom, school area, etc. Then I put in page protectors and slipped in manuals for appliances throughout the house. Now if I need the manual for the washing machine I can find it in a jiffy. I am really liking this new way of keeping all of these manuals in one spot where I can easily find them.

Changing Seasons

We are spending lots of time outdoors these days tending to the garden, letting the chickens out of their coop in the mornings, playing with kitties, and watering plants and flowers. Life has changed a lot in our family since my firstborn was little. Back then I spent a lot of time shopping, attending play groups, doing Bible studies, Mops, etc. I have fond memories of that season, and yet I am enjoying our current season even more. These days we spend most of our time at home enjoying one another and our growing farm life. It struck me the other day, as I was watching Lilly Faith run around the chickens, that the way she is growing up is so different from Lauren's first few years. Lilly Faith is the first baby that knows nothing different than to have animals, a garden and running and playing outdoors all the time. Honestly I think, for our family, the change is for the better. I love being at home enjoying God's creation with my children. There is something about animals and even the garden that children naturally love. Yes, much has changed and I am thankful for it. The Lord is good and continues to guide us through the changing seasons.

It has been a long stretch since I last posted. Life has been very busy and the blog had to go on the back burner for awhile. I wanted to post a quick update on how our garden is doing. We are starting to get a lot of tomatoes, ton and tons of basil and mint herbs, purple hole peas, some green beans, lots of cucumbers and some okra and egg plant. Oh yes, and squash. What we have learned on our second year of gardening is that we do like container or boxed gardening, however, we need something at LEAST twice the size of what we planted this year. The problem is we are not always producing enough in a given day to make for the whole family. We will have a hand full of green beans or three squash, etc. We need a big garden so we are able to pick enough at any given time. I have also learned that some things, such as radishes, have to be planted incrementally. What happens is they all are ready for harvest at a bout the same time and then there are no more. So you have to figure out a system of planting and then replanting ever so often. I don't have that figured out yet. We also purchased a timer so the sprinkler goes on every morning and afternoon at a certain time. That has been a help too. I can see how this gardening thing takes some time to really learn the ins and outs, but we are having fun. The children love to go check the garden and often snack right out of it. I remind them to wash before eating, but they love to bite into cucumbers or snack on raw green beans, etc. I like that it is a healthy and free snack. :)

Homeschool Encouragement

Created by: College At Home

Blessed Easter to you!

Dear Readers of this blog, I want to wish you a blessed Easter from our family to yours! May the Lord bless you! Yesterday we enjoyed an easter egg hunt with family. Gabriel was excited to find a super sized egg, and Lilly Faith hunted in her diaper as she had messed up her dress before the hunt began. She was cute running around in a diaper and a big bow on her head. Today we enjoyed being at church as a whole family. Our daddy has recently been away on business, so it was a huge blessing to all attend church on Easter together. We love having daddy back. Happy Easter!

Nature Walk

Today the children and I went and checked out a nature preserve with various hiking trails. We were pleasantly surprised to see some bluebonnets along one of the trails. We also saw butterflies, turtles, berries, and much more! I love walking with my children and seeing them get excited about the things they observe. This place had a really neat play area too. Afterwards we went to an adjoining park and had a very nice picnic together. This was a natural preserve, so it wasn't landscaped as a botanical garden would be. It was a different kind of beauty. It made me laugh when Annagrace sweetly asked why everything she saw was rotten. There were many dead limbs, shrubs, etc. in the thick of the woods there. I am thankful for sweet times with my children!

Passport to Purity Weekend

Earlier this month Lauren and I took a Passport to Purity weekend get away together. Passport to Purity is a material put out by the ministry of Family Life. www.fltoday.org

http://www.amazon.com/Passport2Purity-Book-Set-Dennis-Rainey/dp/1572296569/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333163285&sr=8-1

The material helps a mom or dad take a son or daughter away for a night or two and disciple them in the area of purity. The material consists of cds that can be listened to in the car as you drive. The preteen receives their own workbook and receives stickers as they progress through different lessons. There are fun projects to do as a parent/child as you progress through the lessons. The projects are basically like object lessons to illustrate principles taught in the lessons. One example was with puzzles and talking about how you need the box top of a puzzle to get it put together quickly. Just as you need to see the box top, God's Word is our box top for life. It shows us how to put the pieces of our lives together. The material explains in detail how to plan for the weekend. One suggestion is to schedule in a few hours just for a fun activity. Our activity was shopping and eating out. The most special thing was visiting a Vera Bradley store and each of us getting a new purse. It was Lauren's first Vera Bradley, so she was super excited. I really liked the material. Some of the things that were stressed are that the Lord is to be first place over all things in our lives. That includes our bodies and our purity.

Colossians 1:18
English Standard Version (ESV)
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.


Also, the material covered issues of peer pressure, of not running with the herd, of setting personal standards for purity way away from the cliff where you might fall off, and of listening to counsel from parents who have their child's best interest at heart. There was much wisdom in it all, and I was so pleased that Lauren responded with a heart that really wanted to commit to high standards in the area of purity.

The Lord is so good......Lauren wanted to get some milk. We went down to the lobby to buy a bottle. The milk bottle said "Passionate About Purity." How appropriate and how good of the Lord to encourage me that He was with us and even in the small details of a milk bottle. :)

Family Life suggested commemorating the weekend with a special gift for your son or daughter. My special gift to Lauren was a charm bracelet. I picked out a charm of a heart in the palm of a hand. I told her that it symbolizes her daddy and me holding her heart. One day we will give her over to the man she marries, but until then we will be here to help protect her and give her counsel towards a future spouse.

She is growing up so fast. I am very thankful that I was able to take this trip with her and discuss God's plan for her as His young lady. I was able to really challenge her to walk in purity, and I pray the Lord Jesus will give her the ability to stand strong in this very sinful culture in which she is growing up. I also pray that He is preparing a young man who is also guarding His heart and His way to be her husband one day.