a humble glimpse of the life God has graciously widdled out in our little neck of the world
Aunt M,
We missed you and C on our annual tulip trip, but made sure to still take advantage of the colorful happy flowers! We were a little late this spring, as some of the tulips had already bloomed…but they were still beautiful!
We hope you enjoy…the photos are the next best thing to being there, right?
We miss you & love you!
We (along with what seemed like everyone else in Cowtown) took advantage of the beautiful spring weather and enjoyed a family afternoon in the Botanical Gardens.
In all honesty, we intended to walk through the annual butterfly exhibit, but when we arrived and learned that it would cost $20.00 for our family to enter…we decided to enjoy the butterflies frugally and went for a walk to search some out…we were blessed and actually saw a few fluttering among some of the flowers.
B seemed to be quite captivated by all the bright flowers, trees, birds, squirrels and people as he rode in his stroller…
We even found a crane fishing for lunch near the turtle pond…
B wasn’t sure who was a better fisherman, the crane or his daddy?
B seemed to be able to see the turtles swimming in the pond…it was so much fun to watch some of the little expressions on his face.
Relaxin’ and enjoying every minute!
How could one not believe in a miraculous Heavenly Creator when you see beautiful and vibrant colors like this? It was beautiful and smelled even better!
Oh happy spring days!
Happy Easter!
What a day to celebrate our precious Savior!
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalen and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other woman with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them and idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and tan to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.” Luke 24: 1-12
My prayer is that our hearts would continue to marvel at the miracle that Easter reminds us of, just like the woman and Peter!
Praise Jesus for stepping in on our behalf, for carrying the burden of all of our imperfections and sins so that one day we may meet our perfect and holy Heavenly Father face to face! If it weren’t for Jesus, that wouldn’t be possible…Praise Him!
What a gift…what an honor to celebrate this special day!
Happy Easter!
On Thursday, I went to go make dinner and realized that we really didn’t have anything that really sounded good…so I set out (in our kitchen) to search for items that sounded good and tried to “concoct” an edible and hopefully tasty dinner creation.
These are the items that I found…
1 box of pasta
1 can of Italian diced tomatoes
Frozen chicken tenderloins
Italian Bread Crumbs
Mozzarella Cheese
I thawed the chicken, placed it in a pan, poured bread crumbs over it and baked it for 30 minutes. Meanwhile I boiled the pasta and added the tomatoes and cheese. When the chicken was done, I placed the chicken on top of the pasta…believe it or not, it was pretty good (if I don’t say so myself).
This dinner “concoction” got us thinking. We have realized that our refrigerator “dying” on us has turned into a blessing. Yes, we lost everything in both the refrigerator and the freezer, but that forced us to clean out, making us realize that we didn’t even know what had been stashed in the back of both sides! We really were wasting quite a bit of food by not realizing that we had it…really who needs five bags of frozen veggies? I can’t tell you how freeing it is to now open the freezer and be able to see all the way to the back…seriously! It is awesome!
This freedom has gotten both C and I to think that it might be nice for our pantry to be the same way. We don’t want to be drastic and throw everything in the pantry out to have a clean slate…that would be expensive and a waste so, this next week has been dubbed “Concoction Week” in our household. We are going to try to make meals out of things that we already have and not purchase any unnecessary items on our trip to the grocery store this weekend…of course B will get his typical items and we will need milk etc. but other than that it will be anything goes style at our house for dinner…
We’ll see how it goes, I am sensing there may be dinners that include pancakes, random bread mixes, random cans of soup and jars of salsa and jams…who knows! (the pantry really isn’t that big, but it is amazing how much stuff we have stuffed into it!
Maybe this will empower us enough to tackle drawers, closets, my car, the garage and dare I say the attic?
We’ll see?
So long random food items that have been residing in the pantry!
I just realized that B has been enjoying some “B” activities recently and thought I might share.
Here B is looking like and playing like a Big Kid…
Here B is “reading” the Bible in his favorite Blue chair…Really the Bible was on the bed and B enjoyed the challenge of climbing up on to the chair to try to reach it.
It is so fun to watch him get his little self up into the chair all by himself. This chair was a baby shower gift from one of my childhood friends…due to our lack of extra space, it has been up in the attic until recently, B has wondered where it has been his whole life? He loves it! (thanks C!)
Here C and B are trying to catch Bubbles! (Thanks Aunt J & Uncle J)!
It took B a minute to be able to track the bubbles as they floated past him…but as soon as he caught on, he loved it!
He giggled and giggled!
This photo was my favorite…I love the way the bubble is smack dab in front of C & B!
I love that God can use Scripture, people, books, etc. to speak to our hearts…of course remembering that everything should be backed up with Scripture to check to make sure it is true.
Before bed last night, I was reading The Mission of Motherhood by, Sally Clarkson, it has only taken me about a month and a half to get to page 54…but life happens and I am grateful for the opportunities that I do have to read, even if it is only a few pages here and there.
This is what stood out to me, especially after my dinner-making experience with B last night…
“…I have found that embracing God’s call to motherhood once and for all has brought me great peace. Instead of seeing fusses and messes as irritations in my day, for instance, I am more likely to see them as opportunities to train my children to be peacemakers and to learn to be responsible for their own messes. Instead of resenting the interruptions in my schedule, I am more likely to accept them as divine appointments. More and more, I have learned to see my children through the eyes of God and to accept the stages of growth which he has designed them to grow.
How do we make the commitment to give the area of motherhood over to God as a sacrifice to worship him? We yield our personal rights to his hand. We give up our time and expectations to him-and also our fears and worries about how we will manage. We trust him to take care of us and our family. We let him redirect our thinking and expectations and adjust our dreams. And we wait in faith to see the fruit of our hard labor in the lives of our children, knowing that he will be faithful to honor our commitment to him.” (p. 54 The Mission of Motherhood)
So as it sometimes may feel like B is “getting in my way” of accomplishing what I need/want to accomplish, I am challenged to slow down and want to learn to ask God to remind me of divine appointments that I may be overlooking through my haste of trying to get my to-do list accomplished each day. I want to learn how to see B as God sees him, I want to be as grateful as possible for this precious little life that God has so graciously entrusted to both C and I.
I am challenged by these verses…
“The wise woman builds her house, but with he own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Proverbs 14:1
“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9
Happy Thursday! Praise God for this upcoming weekend!
Be Blessed!
Since moving to Texas, I have come to realize and am coming to grips with the fact that we really only have two seasons. We have a cool (but by no means freezing winter) and a HOT HOT HOT summer with a few beautiful days in between that some may consider to be “spring” and “autumn”.
I can’t complain, we have had a beautiful “spring” this year with sunny days that have been in the middle 60’s…but as of this week, I think our days of “spring” are fleeting. Today my car thermometer read 80 degrees which meant that B and I drove with the windows down in effort to enjoy before it gets too hot.
Since the thermometer seemed to make it official, B and I decided to play in his sandbox after his naptime…that’s what you do on a nice summer afternoon when you are little boy… right?
B is quite curious with the sand…he rubs it across his little fingers as he plays. I can just imagine the little wheels in his head turning around and around…he would dig and then investigate the little sand granules that had gotten stuck on his hands and then dig some more.
The sandbox is fun, but it usually means that bath time will ensue not too long after playtime is completed! After playing, B enjoyed a quick bath. I put him into his pajamas a little early (so as to try to prevent the already heaping pile of laundry from growing even taller) and then B “helped” me make dinner, he is quite a little helper….especially with the rubber spatula!
I am trying so hard to savor evenings like tonight…B’s “help” in the kitchen can get a little tying in regard to my patience, but I know that he will only be this little for a short season…before I know it he won’t want to be at my feet or be pulling up on my legs to try to see what I am doing on his little tip-toes…so for now, even if it slows my dinner-making down a little, I will enjoy it.
Thank You Lord for our precious little B!
And thank You for beautiful sunny days!
