Loving Life

Did you miss me? We were on vacation last week! We had an awesome time together, but it sure is always good to come back home.  We spent the week exploring parts of Wisconsin.  Originally, we were planning on camping out for most of it as we usually do.  However, the weekend before we left, I came down with a nasty kidney infection - definitely not fun and was pretty scary as I was having what felt like fairly regular contractions.  Ended up going into the OB unit to figure out what was going on with me.  Baby was doing just fine and they gave me a jump start on antibiotics with a shot in each hip.  Saturday and Sunday were supposed to be my big preparation days for getting ready for vacation, but the kidney infection completely wiped out any energy I had.  I spent most of the day sleeping and lying down.  This would not bode well for camping preparations.  On our way to the hospital Friday night, we called a friend to be praying for us ...

Well, we are emerging from the cloud of sickness in our house.  I starting feeling better by Saturday.  Aaron is the only one left still struggling.  He hasn't come down with it completely, but is definitely not functioning at 100%.  Hopefully he can kick it very soon!  So since I had been sick and was still feeling weak, I got very little done this weekend.  I did get some good naps in, so I guess that counts as getting things done.  As usual, I don't have too many pictures to post.  Here is one of the little snake Ana made with playdough the other day.  I thought it was super cute.  It was even cuter in real life. And here's a gross picture for you.  My swollen middle finger!  I got injured at church yesterday from drumming a little too exuberantly.  : ) I was playing the djembe during the first song at worship and towards the end of the song, I think I broke a blood vessel or something in my finger.  It immediat...

We had a crazy awesome weekend here.  How was yours?  In my last post, I was dreaming of food due to our fast.  We ended it on Saturday evening when we met together as a church for some great time of prayer and worship together.  What a powerful night!  Amazing!  God did some pretty awesome things there.  And of course we got to end the night together enjoying a meal together - for some of us, the first taste of food in three days.  I struggled during the day as I made the food for the evening meal, but since I was already on the home stretch, I knew I could last a few more hours.  I made some homemade bread (made the house smell SOOOO good - if I could eat the air, I would have).  I also made some homemade chicken noodle soup.  I will admit that I sampled the broth a few times to make sure it was seasoned properly.  I didn't do that last year when we did this and I thought it tasted a little bland last year.  You don't wa...

I truly apologize for my lack of blogging lately.  I'm not sure what has happened, but I haven't had any amazing experiences to write about lately and therefore, I don't have much to post about.  I'll see what I can dredge up tonight for you.  : )  Our church is doing a week of focused prayer and fasting as a congregation.  Some are fasting completely from food for a few days, others doing just partial fasts from certain foods, or fasting from certain things that tend to take up a lot of time.  We are doing this to seek God together for our church and to bring about new focus for this year.  We do it every year about this time and it's always been a good experience that helps me see how dependant I am on things other than God.  I decided to do a total three day fast this year.  Yesterday wasn't too bad.  Today has been harder.  I see food all around me.  I realize how mindlessly I pop food into my mouth just about a...

Last month while Aaron and I were in Texas church gathering, we had a little exercise of writing down "perfect days" that you've ever had in your life.  I've had quite a few perfect, or nearly perfect days that have been so wonderful and enjoyable.  And, I just had another one yesterday to add to my list! It started off with a great morning of church.  I sure do enjoy the people there.  Great people, great church, great pastor (hee hee!).  It was a lovely morning. The fun continued for lunch when we had over our church leadership team for taco salad & ice cream!  The food was yummy, and the conversations were even more fun than the food.  I loved it.   Once the meeting part was over, the day got better when Aaron voluntarily did the piles of dishes sitting around.  Could the day get any better?  Yes!  Our friends, the Groffs, volunteered to babysit for our kids while Aaron and I went on an impromptu date!...

Well, our Christmas play went off very well.  The kids did a wonderful job.  They had a lot of lines to memorize and all the kids worked hard to get it all down.  Our dress rehearsal went better than it has in other years.  I came to it extremely prepared after learning the hard way the last few years.  Plus it helps that the kids are all a year older too - it's becoming a little easier to keep track of their own hands and feet and mouths as they get older.  : )  We had a fair number of guests there to enjoy the kids' performance and cheer them on.  That's always great fun for everyone!  Here are a few pictures for the weekend: David here is playing Ebenezer Scrooge.  His nephew and Bob Crachit are also in this scene. Scrooge is here with the Ghost of Christmas Past (in red) watching himself as a younger man as his fiance (Ana) breaks off their engagement because he loves money more than her. The following scene as Scroog...

We slept in today.  It was lovely.  The kids came in and snuggled in bed with us later on in the morning.  I always like family snuggle time.  Aaron somewhat jokingly told the children to go and make breakfast for us.  And so they did!  Ana made us toast and brought us juice.  She brought it to us in bed.  So we had breakfast in bed, courtesy of Ana!  David made us a pot of coffee.  We told him how to do it.  The only thing we failed to specify was the size of the spoon to use when scooping out the coffee grounds.  He used a very large serving spoon instead of the small spoon we usually use.  So our coffee was a bit strong this morning.  : )  It was still good and very sweet of him.  That was a great start to our day.  Today is a busy day for me.  The kids at church are putting on a Christmas play tomorrow.  I am in charge of getting that done.  This year, we are doing an adaptatio...

I've entered the phase of life I hit everytime at this year of being in a love/hate relationship with my garden. LOVE: I LOVE the fresh eating that goes on with the garden produce. Yesterday's meals included tomatoes, beets, red raspberries, green and red peppers, and two acorn "trash" squash that volunteered from my compost pile (still have about 12 more to go!). You really can't beat all that produce for the cost of seeds (or free in the volunteer cases). So healthy and so yummy! I love making a meal and seeing that a lot of it has come from my own garden where I know what is on it (or what isn't on it, to be more specific). I love the creativity of seeing what's ripe in the garden and figuring out what you can make with it. THINGS I DON'T LOVE SO MUCH: Once school starts, much of my time is consumed with everyday schooling. I no longer have the time to go out and weed my garden. It starts to look quite unmanagable, messy and overwhelming...

What an awesome weekend we had! It was full of old friends and new friends. I got everything done that needed to get done so that I could relax and enjoy the weekend. We had some really good, insightful talks with the couple that was staying with us. They brought some fresh perspective to our lives on a few things we've been wrestling with. Keith also was able to preach at our church on Sunday and had a great sermon. He talked of maturity and how really, life is not all about us - though we often think it is. So true! I think I'll spend the week digesting all the good things I heard. Other fun things we did - eat yummy food, eat cheesecake (cheesecake goes above and beyond yummy food and gets its own separate category), play table ping pong (David beat everyone but me, so I guess that officially makes me the best player around - oh yeah), stay up way past our bedtime, tour Wellman (didn't take long), and eat ice cream (also gets its own separate category). There are three p...

Today was a workday out at the in-laws. We are having a baptism there tomorrow after church so we thought it would be nice to clear out some of the pond scum and weeds around sand area to make it a little nicer. My dearest husband of all times said he would help me with this chore. Here he is. Isn't he sweet? Doesn't he look thrilled? After that was accomplished, I needed to show off my big muh-sools (said with a German accent). Aaron and the kids went home after the pond was cleaned out. I stayed on to do some more work at the house. Part of that involved mopping up the water in the basement that came in during yesterday's big rainstorm. This is the third time it's happened since June. I think we need a little less rain. Anyway, with this time's leakage, a fair amount of fine silt came in with the water, so the floor was covered with a nice layer of dirt. I had a great idea while I was mopping it up with my much too small rag, that if I didn't ever clean it up...