Sunday reflection

This is also my memory verse this week. I need to keep reminding myself of this often.

Daisy and Marigold

While volunteering at the shelter this week, Madeline and Grace where asked to hold these sweet kitties for their photo for the shelters web-site- I know you can't see the girls faces,but, I know its them and they where so excited to be able to do this had to save it:-).Anyhow since the photo was posted these sweet girls have found a home:-)

I am so pleased with how seriously the girls have taken this 'job'. They love every minute of it and have learned a ton. They are usually there when the cat vet comes to check the cats, and they help him out- he has said what great kids they are:-)-And just form helping him the things they have learned are amazing. They are in a position to meet lots of folks, and talk about the animals, and be deeply involved in something they adore.

Not to brag but recently they got a huge compliment from one of the shelter visitors about how great of a help they where. Showing the family how to hold the animals, and letting them handle the bunnies,they showed the family which animals where good with kids .They even helped them with a shy dog , showing them how to cox her out and make friends with her- they did adopt this dog,-.Anyhow so proud of them had to share.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone:-)

The Sleeping Rose

an amazing beautiful picture book. It is about a gardener who grows the most beautiful flowers in all the kingdom and one in particular the sleeping rose only blooms once a year. One day he goes to check on it and finds a beggar with his feet wrapped in rags stroking the rose. He angrily sends him away for this rose is for the king . By and by the gardener, regrets his decison and finds the beggar and feeds and clothes him.









The last line of the book is -- 'Baldrik marveled over the tender touch of the man's nail-scarred hands.'

It is a very touching story all my kids listened and liked it.
If you can find a copy its worth reading.

All Creatures Great and Small The Lord God Made Them all

This old children's hymn seems so fitting for us this week as we have the duckling and a bin full of tadpoles and another full of caterpillars cocooning, there is so much life happening here, it is a blessing to be in the care of these little creatures of our Lords, the hymn itself will be our memorization for the rest of the week.


Maker Of Heaven And Earth
by Cecil Frances Alexander ( 1818-1895)

All Things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

The purple-headed mountain,
The river runing by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky.

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasent summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them everyone.

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
we gather every day-

He gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
who made them all so well.

Make Way for our Duckling

Say hello to Lydia our rescued duckling, she was found in our backyard running around our pool, her mother - or what we shall say is left of her- was found near by the nest torn apart , I suspect a fox made a late night visit. There was also another duckling , -we had them both for a few days- but the other one, sadly, did not make it. But Lydia is thriving and is quite a funny little duck. She eats eats and eats, she loves to swim in our make shift kiddie pond for her. I had no idea that ducks did not know how to swim and actually have to learn. She is doing wonderfully and in four-six weeks will mostly be out on her own and hopefully still hanging around with us.

Every year we do some sort of summer project with the kids and this sort of fell in to our laps. Madeline has wanted to raise a duck and has been praying for it so I suspect Jesus had a hand in this one showing up. .We have spent a lot of time on the internet looking up info on baby ducks and talking to a local farm that rasies ducks, my dear hubby had to go and buy a 50lb bag of duckling food. that just makes me laugh. but hey what she doesn;t eat the other ducks around here will. As I have said we are on the waterfront and have lots of ducks, geese, swans etc around so someone will eat it all.

Anyhow we will add photos as we can.




Lydia out exploring, the world around her playing in puddles and eating alot of bugs and berries, and greens, being a duck:-) I just hope when they time comes when she is wondering around more on her own, the kids can let her go. We have had neighbors raise many ducks and they always eventually find the river- we live on the water- and go off on their own, but, they always come back .

Happy Memorial Day weekend

wishing everyone a wonderful weekend with family and friends, and remembering those who have served us and who are still serving us today.

Fearless friday

I have not been so good at keeping up with my prayers lately, and perhaps thats where my prayer reguest should be. To reconect with my Saviour, I am always mindful of Him always trying to walk in his light, but at times things get away from me. I also need prayers for my marriage, to reconnect to each other , to put my hubby first- that is very hard to do -and continue to strive bo be the wife I am called to be- no matter how crazy he makes me:-)-.

Thanks ladies I willb e checking all your pryers as well. Allof you ladies and your families are in my prayers everynight.

If you have a reguest to be prayed for please leave it,

memory verse for the week

my memory verse for the week is
Psalms 9:12 " I will say of the Lord,"He is my refuge and my fortress,my God, in
Whom I trust."

I find it fitting for the times, no matter how hard and difficult things are always remember god is good and he is with us all the way, and he can make lemons into lemonade if only we ask him to. And that means giving it all to him not just a bit of it. We have to give it ALL to him. and have faith he will lead us where we need to be and he can use bad things and make them into wonderful things. remember the mustard seed that's the size of faith we need to have.

Please Pray

the creator of the Konos Curriculums- Jessica Hulcy -was involved in a very serious car accident last Monday she is still in very serious condition . She is still not concious, and has brain trauma and a punctured lung , several broken ribs.

Can we all keep the family in our thoughts and prayers this week.

Thanks ladies I will update as I can.

Iris so lovely

My sweet kids picked these lovely irises for me yesterday afternoon they are so pretty and smell so sweet. They are growing in the lot next to me with the house that burned down this past fall, the lady who owns it let them pick them, so off they went. They are huge and so pretty. Sure brightened up my kitchen and my day.

Laurie's Baby Lunch

We surprised my sis in law this afternoon with a baby luncheon, she is expecting baby number two in a few short weeks:-) Her Aunt reserved a room at the Sunset Restaurant in Glen Burnie for the event.Laurie was surprised and was absolutely beaming. I love that baby glow pregnant moms have.





Madeline and I and Grace and Grandma Marge- my mom in law-. It was a great afternoon to spend with family having a lovley lunch and celebrating a new family member to be:-)




Aunt Caroline, Aunt Elaine and Cousin Lorraine came to celelbrate the coming of the new baby.




Madeline and Grace helped Aunt Laurie open her gifts, those little baby outfits are always so cute:-)

Get-Well Tea Time

Our sweet Madeline has not been feeling too good this week she has a ear infection ,and pink-eye- which came from the ear infection- . she is on antibiotics and will be okay, but she was feeling a bit blue. You know how you feel sometimes when your under the weather just sorta blah. So her sister and I decided to have our teatime Thursday be a get well tea for Madeline. Adam helped us too, we had tea while Shawn napped , he did get a pudding and cupcake later though. Anyhow we wanted her to know we loved her and wanted her to smile. Soooo-





I mixed up the muffins and pudding early in the morning so the muffins could cool and the pudding could set. Pumpkin muffins are a favorite of ours and since I have canned pumpkin on hand I figured why not besides all the spices are soothing and have healing properties to them.


the muffins and pudding all on a pretty plate ready to make a girls day a bit brighter




enjoying the soothing teatime treats, the girls had raspberry tea, Adam had hot coco, and I had Earl Grey tea. Madeline was happy to be treated to a tea just to cheer her up and make her feel better and let her know she is very much loved she just smiled, and Adam and Grace had so much fun making a treat for her they where full of smiles too.As the saying goes better to give then to receive.

two more good books

This is a great story we really liked it a lot. It is a good curl up together and look at the pictures and discuss as you go type of Story. It is the story of one of the sequoias, from seed to the day it fell in the Sequoia National Forest- now part of Yosemite National Park. The tree lived hundreds of years, and the time line on the bottom shows what was happening elsewhere in the world as the tree grew. This is the tree which eventually had a tunnel cut in it to drive through. - Sadly that tunnel led to its being weakened and its eventual falling- many trees around it are much older-.




this is along the lines of an I-Spy book- and we love those- anyhow its, a bunch of different places animals live and you find them, theres a lot of counting involved. The pictures are beautiful, and cheery. The animals aren;t to hard to find so younger kids don;t get to frustrated looking for them. The other morning Grace and Adam had this and where so involved in it for at least an hour , I did not interrupt. Even my oldest Madeline who is 13 got involved in helping find the friendly animals.




Sometimes in the morning we have been picking up some story, paper or anything and having reading time, the kids like it and sometimes read to each other- good for reading practice, and speaking to others. Since you have to be clear and loud enough to be heard. This is becoming an enjoyable way to begin school and any other day too.

The Lamplighter

Thy Word Is a Lamp Unto My feet...

that's the opening sentence on the first page of The Lamplighter, we just began reading this today. It is a rather old story-1880's- about a girl-Gerty- who is an abused young lady until she moves in with the towns lamplighter. She becomes saved by Christ, and meets many great characters, it is a great story.

Its funny how we came upon this story. Recently a dear friend of ours gifted us with over 6 huge Rubbermaid bins of books, well her sister who is finishing her home school journey of sent them to her, to pass on to any homeschoolers she knew. And they ended up here. The bins where true treasure chests for us, we have been reorganizing our bookshelves- which are overflowing as is- I just can;t let a good book go.

Anyhow Monday - the books have mostly been sorted for a few months now- this book was laying under a coffee table, I picked it up and thumbed through it. -honestly I don;t even remember sorting it-. And you know, I could feel God whisper 'read this one next' So we have begun reading it , it is a short read should not take more then a week to get through, I have had a great conversation at lunch today with the kids over the first few chapters- manly explaining what a lamplighter was-.

So not sure where the Lord is leading with this I may not ever know but it is in his time . The kids seem to enjoy it and listen very intently- they usually do during read aloud time anyhow- , so we shall see what this creates in them. Like I said I may not ever know but that's okay, God does and all things are in his time not ours.

when God Paints

Dad sent these too. Just a reminder of the wonders that God has placed all around us to drink in and enjoy. His creation is amazing and beyond words and to think it was all made for us to see and enjoy and protect . To be stewards of it all. What an awesome Lord he is:-)

the day the paint box fell from heaven

my dad just sent this to me and it was so pretty I had to post it here to share with everyone who stops by to visit me. It sure made me smile, and remember out of all the rain will come really wonderful flowers:-)

rain rain go away

at least for a few days, we have had rain almost non stop for over a week, and off and on longer then that, I know our water levels are still in need of much more to get us through the summer. But darn it, I miss the sun:-)And our ball games have been canceled for two weeks straight, and we miss that alot.

We are making the best of it, the kids go out and run and play in the rain, and we have been reading and baking and getting lots of school and indoor cleaning done. And we have been watching movies and curling up with popcorn in the evening. We have had dance contests, and all sorts of fun things to do.

We are just really looking forward to seeing a blue sky again, if only for a day or two:-) Of course I know in July we will be wishing for rain:-)

A Friendly"s Day

Sunday afternoon while I ran a few quick errands, Doug took Adam and Grace to the Lowes in Hunt Valley to get screens for our new windows- you can't buy the screens with the windows anymore and the stores don;t keep them in stock either-. They both loved going on an adventure with daddy-Adam got a new book too-. And they where excited to 'help'- the screens are my moms day gift they are a bit costly so thats fine and now I can open the windows all the way not the crack we have been just to get some air in-.

Anyhow the big thrill of course was getting to go to Friendlys afterwards for lunch and ice cream, for Adam and Grace this is the best day ever.Look at those smiles.

rainy day fun

After a long rainy week last week and a rainy weekend we where in need of some fun outdoor time, so we suited up and out we went to splash in the rain. Even the dog had a blast.








they splashed and played till they where quite cold and wet, then came in for hot coco. What a fun rainy day way to get the wiggles out.