Melt My Heart

 

 

My Little Miss,

How you steal my heart!  One glance with those bright blue eyes and dimpled smile and I melt.  What a joy you are to me.  Your vibrancy and love for all things brightens our home daily.  Every day we are blessed by seeing your imagination bloom.  There are babies in strollers, babies in beds, babies getting their diapers changed.  There is a restaurant to be run, menus to be drawn, food to be made, orders to be filled, and dishes to be washed.  There are myriads of pictures drawn for each member of our family, full of color, bright, bold, and creative. You talk to the worms and the ants and the butterflies carrying on conversations that soften my heart and make me giggle all at the same time.  You are amazing!

 

 

Another year has flown swiftly by and we again celebrated the day God place you in our family.  What joy there was when finally you were laid in my arms, our little girl.  I thank God for you every single day.  I love that you continue to snuggle into my arms.  It’s tradition! Each morning I know that I am going to blessed by having your sweet little girl body, warm from bed, wrapped in my arms.  I bury my nose into your hair and just breathe, if only I could capture that scent!

 

 

 

For the past couple of years you have asked for a little sister.  I have tried gently to explain the unlikeliness of that happening many times and lately you have seemed to accept the idea.  You have compensated like only you can.  Each morning you pick out your outfit and then march down the hall to my closet.  You sweetly proceed to tell me what I will be wearing today, because after all we are “twins”!

 

 

My prayer for you my sweet girl is that above all else you will love the Lord with all of your heart.  I pray that God will be above all else for you.  May you choose to give your heart wholly to Him and serve Him with all that is within you.  I know that your heart is big and the love you have for all things mighty, may the Lord use your overflowing compassion to touch other people’s lives with His Love.

 

 

Lord, I place my daughter in your hands. Mold her into your image. Shape her young life to glorify you. You, Lord, are her Savior and I pray that she will live solely for You!

 

 

My forever girl, words cannot adequately express my love for you, but know that it is huge and that I I LOVE being your mommy!

Ballerina

 

 

Texture Tuesday: kk_3003: multiply @ 46%; kk_marabella: soft light @75%

 

Little Miss’ ballet recital was on Saturday.  Oh, what smiles I saw that day! She was in her element.  She never said anything about being nervous. She never even looked nervous.  She knew her dance routine backward and forward.  I’m pretty sure she couldn’t wait to get out on that stage and twirl! I’m thinking she gets her boldness from her daddy!

 

 

 

 

 

What sweetness to see her all dressed up and bubbling with so much anticipation.  She definitely looked like a little princess, in her polka dotted tutu.  And then you throw in all those sparkly sequins and what little girl wouldn’t be delighted?

 

 

 

 

This girl is serious about her dancing. In class she is super attentive and ready to try anything that her teacher asks of her.  You can see by the look in her eyes that she loves to dance.  She is already looking forward to next year.   I’m pretty sure we are in ballet for the long haul!

 

 

 

During the recital there was no flash photography allowed.  So I bumped up my ISO to 500 and was shooting at around 20s (hand held).  With all the moving going up on stage it was a bit difficult to get any good shots, but I just kept clicking away and I was happy to get a few good ones! So happy I attempted it even though I didn’t think I would be able to capture too much.

 

Planting

 

When I was a little girl I always dreamed of being a farmer/farmer’s wife. I have always loved the whole farming lifestyle. There is just something about planting, growing, harvesting that calls out to my soul. For me, it is a huge reminder of how powerful God is and how His creation shows us a little bitty hint of His glory. It also reminds me of the call that God has placed on every believers life, to go out and work the ground of people’s hearts, to lay out the seeds of God’s love, and to nurture, disciple, and come along side of, as those seeds grow and flourish into believing hearts.  What better illustration can you get of this than actually getting to live on a farm.  It is a constant reminder of the Great Commission!

 

 

 

 

 

Last week I got to play farmers wife and I loved it. I love hearing the drone of the tractor. I love walking across the field and checking on the our men’s progress. I love that we share every dinner with my parents during planting season either here at my house or at my mom’s.

And even though we don’t have a huge farm, it really doesn’t matter to me.  Some would say you aren’t a farmer unless you have hundreds upon hundreds of acres and or thousands of heads of animals.

I say phooey!

I’m not afraid of dirt under my nails or embedded into my feet. Manure doesn’t make me squeamish. I don’t freak out over ticks after a walk through the field. I’m not ashamed of wearing stained and holey jeans and a faded t-shirt with my hear pulled back in a pony tail, no make-up on, sitting in a dusty truck or plopped down in the bare dirt of a worked up field. 

I’m a farm girl  (small though it may be)! 

Just Like Jesus~ Book Review

“How long has it been since you let God have you? I mean really have you? How long since you gave him a portion of undiluted, uninterrupted time listening for his voice? Apparently Jesus did. He made a deliberate effort to spend time with God”

I cannot rave enough about Max Lucado’s book Just Like Jesus.  In each chapter Max Lucado takes a look at the heart of Jesus and how our hearts can be and should be just like His.  In this amazing book you will read chapter dealing with: the forgiving heart, the listening heart, the worship-hungry heart, and the focused heart.  Each chapter will lead you through scripture to show you how deeply the Lord desires to have you come completely and fully to Him.

Once again Mr. Lucado has written a book that is hard to put down.  It is not theologically over the top, but is written in a style that is easy to understand.  It brings God’s desire for our lives right to the forefront.

If you desire to seek Christ whole heartedly.  If you desire to know Christ more fully. If you desire to live solely for our Lord and Savior, then find a copy of this book.  It will challenge you, uplift you and renew your desire to live for the Lord.

 

*This book was provided to me from Thomas Nelson Books for my review.  I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Not Only Are the Bee’s Joyously Busy….

 

Well, I unintentionally took a bit of a blogging break over the past couple of weeks.  There is much happening here and the days have been packed full, blogging had to take a back seat. It actually was good to have one less thing on my to-do list. God is definitely showing me that it is okay to let go of the whole mindset that I must do this and that to keep everyone interested in my blog.  He has impressed upon me, and I know for a fact, that I will enjoy my blogging so much more if I don’t feel I must keep up on the high standards I tend to enforce on myself.

 

These past couple of weeks the weather decided to bring spring on full bore.  There has been a flurry of activity around here.  The garden finally got disked and my oldest worked up a small square for me to put in my cold crops (the rest of the garden is still too wet).  I got busy and  got my raspberry bed, grape vines, and blueberry bushes, and gooseberries weeded and mulched. I’ve been busily pulling out wild violets and crab grass out of my flower gardens, but they seem to multiply no matter how many I pull out.

 

 

Turkey season was a great success and extremely tasty, too.  Joel made kabobs with my youngest son’s turkey.  It was such a hit that my middle son requested the same meal with his turkey.  Joel also made up a couple of batches of turkey jerky for the boys to enjoy.  Last night we ate Joel’s turkey and I have enough left over to make several more meals out of it. 

If you are interested in making the kabobs here is a list of what you will need:

Wild Turkey Kabobs:

Turkey breast: 3-4lbs cut into 1 inch chunks

3 cans of whole potatoes

2 large green peppers

1 large red onion

1-2 pints of grape tomatoes

1 pint baby Bella mushrooms

Wooden or metal skewersi

Marinade:

Italian dressing

Worcestershire sauce

liquid smoke(just a couple of drops: optional)

season salt

freshly ground black pepper

I don’t have any amounts for these…. my man chef is a dump and pour until it looks good. So, if you make these just take your best guess and dump and pour until it looks good to you.

 

Place turkey in a shallow pan or bowl coat with marinade.  Put all your veges in a separate bowl and coat with marinade.  Place in refrigerator and let set for at least 4 hours.  An hour before you want to grill your kabobs, place your wooden skewers  into a shallow baking dish full of water and let them soak (this will prevent them from bursting into flames when you place them on the grill:)

Get your grill ready! ( We like charcoal and it is all we use now that our gas grill breathed its last flame.)

Now start building your kabobs.  Put your chunks of turkey onto your kabobs leaving a little bit of space between each chunk.  Then put all your veges onto separate sticks.  The cooking time for the turkey is longer than what you will want to cook your vegetables that is why we cook them separately. Put your turkey kabobs on the grill first. Grill the turkey chunks on the first side then turn over. When you turn the turkey  place on your vegetable kabobs on.  Finish grilling until meat is done (165 degrees) and vegetables are tender crisp.

 

 

The weather has been so gorgeous that I have been loading up the clothesline every. single. day.  I’m loving it.  All my curtains have been set free of their dust and spring cleaning has commenced.

 

 

And of course there has been a lot more opportunity to take photos of the earth awakening after a long winter and of  a little girl who can’t seem to get enough of all this sunshine!

 

 

Happy, happy, SPRING!