Happy Birthday Marc!

I think the older I get the more I realize what a great husband I have.  It is easy to take things or people for granted when they have always been there.  I have seen enough at my age to realize that a good,, faithful and honorable man is rare.  I am very thankful that God blessed me with a good man.  He is a good daddy, a good provider, faithful and loving.  He stands up for what is right even when it isn't popular.  When other men back down, Marc will not!  We tease him ( and sometimes get very frustrated with him!) and say he is a bulldozer. :o)   Sometimes it can be hard when your man is a "Mr. Command", but when you know his heart is always to do what is right and that he strives to follow the Lord you wouldn't want it any other way!

Happy Birthday, Marc! I pray the Lord blesses you in many ways this year!

Cuteness...

                                                 I love his little teeth! :o)

One is silver and the other's gold...

We had some old friends down this weekend.  It is always fun to have the "P" family over.  They are the kinds of friends that you can go forever without seeing and just pick back up where you left off.

This was a new fall dip recipe that I decided to try.  (And... it was dairy-free, right Tammy!?) :o)

                                     
I love burning candles in the fall!  We had a great evening visiting with them, eating too much and visiting around the fire.

                                                     Sweet bunch of girls!
                                   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We "met" the Pauls family on the internet several years ago through blogging.  We thought we were going to meet them last winter and it didn't work out.  They took a road trip from their home in Canada to the United States this fall.  We were one of their stops.  It was so much fun meeting them, and it seemed like we already knew them after reading about them for years. :o)

There were little boys everywhere!

The "dads" visiting on the front porch.

It was fun talking about the differences between where they live and here.  One thing that was really strange for us was that they had never seen how pecans grow.  Living in the south in the middle of a pecan orchard, that was really funny to us.

The girls hit it off and from all of the laughter you would have thought they had known each other all of their lives! :o)

                                  A VERY lively game of "spoons."!

The morning they were leaving I saw these two little guys under the kitchen table eating their peach muffins. :o)

It was a great visit and we are hoping that they head south again next year!  Who knows... maybe we will take a trip to Canada one day. I know it won't be during the winter though!

Saturday ramblings...

Well, I have been attempting to post some pictures of recent happenings but our computer is really messed up right now.  One of my dear children tried to upload some sort of program onto it and it has created a huge mess!  I thought I would at least write a little bit from the laptop.  I like posting pictures much better than writing. :o)   "A picture is worth a thousand words"!

The 18 month mark of my mom's death was earlier this month.  It is hard to believe that she has been gone that long.  I still miss her so much some days that it hurts.  I think the holidays coming up make it hard.  Every recipe that I pull out for company, recitals, holidays or parties  reminds me of her.  She certainly left her mark on so many things.  As I was standing in my kitchen late last night making banana pudding (her recipe) for a visit we are having today, I kept thinking how much I would love to be talking to her in her kitchen.  The hours and hours I have watched her standing in her kitchen making food for her family and it is over now.  I took so much for granted.  If you still have your mom be thankful!  It is sad that often times we don't appreciate things until they are gone.

Last week we got to have a short visit with a family we met in "blog world".  The Pauls family from Canada came to the states for a vacation and stayed overnight at our house.  McKenzie and I have been reading their blogs for years now and have always said we bet we could be friends if we lived close to each other.  They were just as sweet and down to earth in person as they seemed on their blogs.  (I have pictures....  I guess they will be posted later. :o)

We had the first mouse in our house in four years!  We live in the country and we are surrounded by fields, so I know it is always possible.  I guess we have been fortunate to have gotten away without having any for that long.  A mouse in my house is a big deal though!  Marc and I were in bed one night and McKenzie came busting in our room and woke us up with "There is a mouse in our kitchen!"  Everything is always so dramatic at night and I sat up and told Marc he had to set some traps. He said,  "You are kidding, right?"  I gave him a firm "NO" and he knew I would not be going back to sleep until there were traps set.  He was very sweet and ventured to Wal-Mart at 1:30 AM to get traps.  The next morning the perpetrator was dead.  McKenzie and I dismantled the entire kitchen and cloroxed every surface.  We set six traps the next night and caught one more. So again, the next day we scrubbed everything down.  (Yes, I am a germaphobe!)   We have had traps set for over a week now and haven't caught anymore.  The crawl space of our house is full of rodent poison.  We shouldn't have anymore problems! :o)

We are having some friends over today that we haven't seen since early summer.  McKenzie is babysitting today, but Madeline has jumped in and helped get things ready.  We clean on a schedule so having company is never much more than planning the food. We use to be even more organized when we had chore charts.  They fell by the wayside last year when we had so much going on.  I really need to get those going again.  It is time for Malachi to have one too. :o)  I have a website that I use that has free printable chore charts for all different ages.  I would post the link but it is on my other computer!

Well, I guess I should go get busy.  Hopefully I will get my computer going again and can post pictures soon!

Conference Time....

Our family recently attended NCFIC's  The Worship of God conference at Ridgecrest, North Carolina.  The day we traveled there was a little overcast so the pictures didn't turn out as pretty as it looked in person.

 

We had two rooms,one for the girls and one for the boys.  Macheus got stuck with the girls. :o)

 

There were about 2000 people that attended the conference.  There were children everywhere!

 

 

 

Ridgecrest is a beautiful retreat.  It is really neat for me to think about my parents going there for church retreats when they were newlyweds!

 

Macheus was a trooper during our trip.  It was a long and tiring time for him.

 

Such a pretty place.

 

This was a question and answer panel. Geoff Botkin was one of the speakers.  I always enjoy hearing him speak.  Kevin Swanson was there too.  I think he is one of my favorites!

 

Myles enjoyed running around outside during our breaks.

 

Mariah keeping Macheus for me.

 

All of my children plus an addition.:o)  McKenzie entered into a courtship with a young man named Daniel this past summer.  He came for part of the conference. (You can read about her courtship here and here.)

The drive home was beautiful with blue skies and big fluffy clouds.   Whenever I see the mountains or the ocean I am amazed at the beauty of creation!

 

The kids were all completely worn out!

 

I am thankful that our family got to go to the conference.  It is always an encouragement not only to hear such good Biblical teaching, but also to be around so many like-minded Christian families!

First Food!

Day Out with Thomas

We recently took the little boys to ride Thomas.  Myles is a Thomas fanatic.  He plays and sleeps with his trains and if he gets to pick a DVD to watch, you can be sure that he will pick Thomas!

 

This next picture is when he first spotted Thomas coming down the track.  He was VERY overwhelmed!  He said,  "Thomas is kind of scary." :o)

Malachi thought it was prettty neat too. :o)

 

 All aboard and ready to go.

 

This next picture was by far my favorite from the day.  A memory I will not forget.

                                                          The conductor.

Posing with Thomas after our ride.

 

It was precious watching him have so much fun!

This cracked me up.  He would NOT stand close to Sir Topham Hatt!

 

It was a sweet day with our little boys.  We laughed at how we were some of the older parents that day!  As we stood by one of the bounce houses while the boys were playing I looked at Marc and said,  "We have been doing this kind of stuff for a long time." :o)  I am thankful for these little fellows.  They keep me hopping but they are so worth it!

Nine months...

 

Macheus is nine months old.  He is growing like a weed and a very busy little guy.  He gets around anywhere he wants and can get into things now. :o)  The bad thing is that he puts stuff in his mouth.  We have had a couple of scares.  He has a gated off playroom that is his "safe" spot.

He has been in a perpetual state of teething lately.  He now has three teeth in and two more half way in.    Still hasn't eaten anything except for his "mercy" (as Myles calls it.)  I have tried giving him a bit of banana once and avocado once.  Both times he gagged.  I need to put a little more effort into it, it has just been too easy not to. :o)  He definitely looks like he is starving to death!

He is such a happy baby.  I am very thankful!  He loves to go outside.  Mariah often takes him outside in the afternoon, and I never hear a peep out of him.

He says "mama" all the time and has even repeated "hi" back to us.  Other than that he just babbles and smiles.

Very thankful for this sweet baby boy!