God is so good!

11. for God's faithful provision long before it was needed

12. daughters whose hearts long to be at home

13. the joy and blessing of being a keeper at home

14. beautiful blue skies

15. the promise of spring

16. scented candles (don't they just look happy too!)

17. labrador retrievers

18. a bag of just cinnamon and spearmint gum drops (thank you dear daughter!)

19. industrious sons

20. children who love to learn, even when life is hard

Tonight's Menu

Tonight we had spicy meatballs with BBQ sauce, egg noodles, peas, and home made applesauce. You'll notice I used the meatballs from one recipe and the BBQ sauce from another. It all went together anyway and everyone really enjoyed it.

Now for a Civil War video. I love family time.

Maning Up

For a month now all six kids have been home. When everyone is home life is smooth and easy. Many hands working together to make light work. Today the three oldest kids headed north. Curtis and Caity return to college and Marissa went with them just to experience their world a bit. Today we have six fewer hands.

The little boys have really "manned up" though. On this, their first day back to school, they worked diligently, completing all their work in the allotted time. They cheerfully loaded up all their stuff to head to piano, only to realize that we are all sick with something that is clearly contagious and we couldn't expose the teacher and her family (what was mom thinking?) so we just headed back to more school. New subjects added, no problem. Take down the trash for early am pickup, "let me". Extra chores to cover for those older siblings, "I'd be glad to!" What a blessing these sweet boys have been, making happy an otherwise sad heart.

We've been reading "Boyhood and Beyond", if you have aspiring young men in your family ( in the 8-15 age range), I'd highly recommend this book. You, too, may be amazed at how your little guys start "manning up". :-)

Gratitude

Yikes, it's been a long time since we posted. We'll try to get better at that.

In my daily Bible study time I use TableTalk by Ligonier Ministries (I highly recommend it!) Anyway, today there was this quote from The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton (pg 463, just in case you have that book):

" I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought: and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

For quite sometime I've been trying to be more aware of the many ways God blesses me and my family. We write down blessings on a white board in our laundry room to make note of them. If you read Caity's blog then you know she is keeping a record of her thankfulness there. I thought we should start recording them here too. I know some people post these on a certain day of the week, and perhaps we'll get to that as well. For now, I'll just be happy that we are posting them at all and hope that they are an encouragement to you to see God blessing you in many ways as well.

Here we go:

1. A wonderful Christmas break with all 8 of us together at home.

2. Children who love each other.

3. Older siblings who take the time to teach, train, instruct, and nurture their younger siblings.

4. A faithful and dependable husband!

5. A great start to our 2011 school year.

6. A dishwasher that cleans well.

7. Earl Grey tea from Mountain Rose Herbs (really, it's better than any others I know of)

8. A wonderful church family.

9. A warm fire in our wood burning stove on a cold day.

10. Godly parents who taught me to love the Lord.