Sad March

I haven't posted anything this month as we have had so very much going on. Most of them have been events that we would not choose to walk through, but we trust that God has ordained them as part of His plan for our life. "God arranges the smallest things. Take little troubles as they come, and remember them to your God because they come from Him. If not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from your Father's will, then you have reason to see that He arranges the smallest events in your life. So accept them with joy. This is a truth on which you may implicitly rely. Think about it until you lull the sharpest pain, calm the most feverish excitement, and obtain the sweetest rest that a weary, restless spirit can indulge in."

It started with Ryan losing his bunny Caramel. Hannah went out there one morning and he was lying there dead... we have no explanation. Poor Ryan was so sad, as well as Hannah, who had cared for him so much.

My parents arrived on March 2nd for a 6-8 week visit. Later that night my dad had a heart attack, and we spent 5 days or so going back and forth to hospitals and receiving family coming and going. We went through the scare of possible open-heart surgery (which thankfully was not necessary) and then heart rhythm issues which lead to an extended stay in the hospital. Dad is home now with us and doing fine.

Until yesterday. Dad drank some soy milk and had a severe allergic reaction - his eyes swelled and his throat started to swell up. Off to the emergency room we went again! Thankfully he was quickly treated and released. Whew. What a month this has been.

May the rest of the month be the most BORING and UNEVENTFUL month we have ever had!!"

Ryan's Art Project Completed

Ryan is taking art class this year with his older siblings, and he finally brought home his mask the other day - it took him weeks and weeks of working on this. First drawing , then paper mache, and then painting. We think it looks awesome...

Hannah is published!!

We have been receiving "Nature Friend" magazine for many years now, and through the years Hannah has been submitting her copy of their "drawing of the month" in hopes of her picture being chosen for publication. She has drawn birds, foxes, rabbits, you name it, and has sent them in each month with great expectations. Each month as the magazine comes in the mail, she holds her breath as she opens to the page... and until now, she has always been disappointed... but alas - all her work has been rewarded! Not only did she make it in February's issue, she also made it in the March issue! Two months in a row! I am very proud of you Hannah...

Valentines Day

This year we were serving at the Pastor's College Sweetheart Banquet on Valentines Day, so we celebrated it the day before. The boys in the family cooked dinner for all the girls in the family! It was really very sweet... they had roses on the table, everyone helped prepare the food, and there was candles and music. We ladies were blessed... and impressed!!

Jacob arranged the flowers

Ryan helped prepare and plate this wonderful appetizer. It really looks like something out of a magazine.

This was the meal the guys served. Beautiful, and delicious too! Apparently even Matt got in on the action - notice how fancy the carrots are cut? He actually did that!! There is hope for you yet Matt as a gourmet cook!!

Another really impressive thing by Ryan - he actually had seen someone on Food Network make chocolate leaves and he imitated what he had seen and made these beautiful leaves for the top of the chocolate cake!

These weren't made by the boys. This is what Hannah and I did while the boys made dinner. We needed a garnish for the dinner we were serving the next day at church, so Hannah and I marched upstairs to my bedroom, put on North and South (a favorite BBC movie) and we sat on the bed with cutting boards and knives and cut all these radish roses. They garnished Danny's filet very nicely!

Thought for the Week

Thought for the Week -

Delight in Your Children: The Key to Their Hearts
Homeschooling is all about relationships. It's about math and reading and sentence diagramming and geography and all those things too, but all these things amount to nothing in God's eyes if we don't raise children of character ready to tackle big enterprises for the Lord.

If you sometimes feel like homeschooling or parenting is drudgery, you can bet your kids feel the same way. It's such a temptation to stress out over things like teaching predicate nominatives or the steps of division that we forget to delight in our children and make time to enjoy being with them.

(from HEAV - not my own original thought - but it was such a timely reminder for me as we sit at the table struggling over math and reading and science...)

At last - some humor about this snow!!!

Blizzard Number One Part Two

Yep - this is no typo. We are just cleaning up from blizzard number one, and today we are getting "The Sequel"!! We are supposed to get hit with another 10-20 inches today and tomorrow! Luckily, this picture is NOT one of our vehicles...

The other day we were getting a bit stir crazy, so we drove out to our favorite 7-11...

For Danny's addiction!

The kids look more like they are swimming in the snow than actually walking in it.

Danny's car yesterday morning... what a daunting task to clear it out.

We did lose a huge cypress tree in the storm. So far...

Poor Ginger. She can hardly walk in the snow. She made herself this little path to get to the back of the yard and she just follows the path, does her thing, and then comes straight back on the same path!