Happy 17th Birthday Anthony!!!

My Cousin turns 17 today. -yay! Thanks be to God for blessing our family with such a great cousin!

Jacob's recent sayings

Jacob has been such a sweetheart lately. He gives you the cutest smiles, and kindest complements.

He is very particular about his style, and asks me my favorite part in his, "outfits." 

Just now, (he is sitting right next to me) he saw our neighbor's black cat and said, "That black cat has clogs, and flower (our cat) doesn't like his clogs very much, so she's decided not to be friends with him anymore."

Jacob constantly calls me "his worker." Apparently that is a 'really' good thing. I was spending extra time with him today, when he let me know that I have graduated from being his worker to being "his guard." You should have seen his face when he told me the "good news." His eyes lit up, a huge smile spread across his face, and he squeezed my hand. 

Every morning, after I get my breakfast, I sit at the bar next to Jacob. He smiles, and then looks at my whole outfit then tells me what he likes best. Usually he tells me he likes my hair, and my eyes. Every now and then he would say he likes something else too. He's so sweet and complementarity! 

 Oh my goodness! Look at that face--he melts my heart.

 Children are a blessing from the Lord.

Things of late--

I am a little behind on some posts. (mainly because I forgot that I had the photos)  But I thought that I'd post them anyways. :)

 Last week (I *think*) we had our wonderful friends, the Seiferts over for dinner and a movie. We watched the new, "Courageous." I thought it was a spectacular movie.

 Things around the house never bore me. Especially these little guys.

 --*love* this mask!!!

 Papa put some of his socks on Nickolas, which made me look like Mr. Thomas.

                                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~    

 We also had to fix some stuff on our property that was destroyed by the flooding. One of which, was our cow bridge. It was taken down by the creek, and we had to try to get that massive thing out of the water and back where it is supposed to be. It was a bear of a job, and we wouldn't have been able to do it without our tractor. It was hilarious. As soon as Jacob saw the bridge in the water, he shakes his head, and sighs, "It's all those Indians fault." He takes another sigh, "They always got to destroy things, don't they?" 

He is*so* cute!

This is just a couple random things that we've done lately. Simple things. Joyful things. And I am thankful for all of them.

Isaiah 58

I read the Bible at nights usually, (other than our family devotions every morning) and tonight I came across Isaiah 58. I absolutely love what it has to say here. It talks about true and false fasting, what we are called to do, and what will happen to those who do it. This is one verse I really liked in this passage that I would like to share with you, but I encourage you to just read the whole chapter yourself.

"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."

One of my favorite things-

Flowers-- definitely on one of my "favorite things" list!
Even though I don't like flowers because of what they "mean" or anything, it was really interesting reading about 'floriography' and what Wikipedia had to say on flowers-
flowers have long been admired and used by humans to beautify their environment, but also as objects of romance, ritual, religion, medicine and as a source of food.

Many flowers have important symbolic meanings in Western culture. The practice of assigning meanings to flowers is known as floriography. Some of the more common examples include:

• Red roses are given as a symbol of love, beauty, and passion.
• Poppies are a symbol of consolation in time of death. In the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, red poppies are worn to commemorate soldiers who have died in times of war.
• Irises/Lily are used in burials as a symbol referring to "resurrection/life". It is also associated with stars (sun) and its petals blooming/shining. 

Daisies are a symbol of innocence. 


--You should look at all of them. It's actually quite interesting. But, this is not the reason I love flowers so much. To me, they are a symbol of life, color, and beauty. Life-because they grow, and are numerous. Color-because most of them are full of color. And then, Beauty- because most of them are unique and beautiful in their own ways. Even though they are all 'flowers' they all hold their own identity and fragrance. Some of my favorite flowers are- Buttercups, cherry blossoms, baby's breath, roses, and daisies. Yes, they are the simple ones, but I love them non-the-less. I love red roses best of all, then secondly, I like to (*smiles*) pick the petals off of the daisies and buttercups in the field. Flowers simply make me swell up with happiness and joy. They are such a happy thing. Do you love flowers more than you do the chocolates that come with them? --just joking! ( if only chocolates grew on roses...then I'd be in heaven.)

Flowers will always be one of my most favorite things.

Thank God for flowers!

~Felicity's date~

 Just  the other night, my wonderful daddy took another one of his daughters out on a date. This time it was Felicity's turn. By the stories that were told upon returning, I believe that they had a magnificent time. Thanks to Papa for taking these photos to capture the special moment.

He took her out in our new car. (which is amazingly roomy inside I might add!)

 They are on their way to the Kennedy School to watch a movie-

 -but, unfortunately the School (McMenamins) didn't have any movies playing at that time, so they headed on over to a really nice pizza place called, "The Rock."

 Don't I have a beautiful sister?   :)

 Apparently, the pizza was absolutely fantastic. (which I had the left-overs the next day, and can totally agree!)  The salad was exceptionally good as well.

 Oh my goodness! Look at that terrific pizza! Absolutely scrumptious.

After all that fun driving around down town, exploring the Kennedy School, and eating pizza at "The Rock," Papa took Felicity to JoAnn's to look at fabric for a new dress. (what a man!)
They came home full of stories, which we all listened to getting more and more jealous all the time....which made me think of even COOLER things to do on my next date. *grin* (-you know how that is.)

After stories were done, us five older ones snuggled up stairs and watched one of my *favorite* movies- "Braveheart."
This was just another day that I am extremely thankful for. I am so thankful that the Lord gave us Papa to be the head of our family. He is the most amazing man on earth.

Proverbs 21:21

"Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness, and will find life, righteousness, and honor. "

My favorite things

Lord willing, I will try to make a post on some of my favorite things every week. Either quotes, photos, thoughts, or something random. I doubt that I will be able to keep it up, but I will try!
This week, one of my favorite things is rain.  I love rain in many ways. When I'm falling asleep to the sound of the rain drops pounding on our roof, or to watch it come down in sheets while I'm inside by the fire, drinking tea/coffee and reading. It is very relaxing. Rain is also beautiful. It dusts everything with little gleaming diamonds that twinkle like stars. It is very romantic, and whimsical to me as well. I have always wanted to dance in the rain with bare feet. To let the water run down my face and to close my eyes and let my feet hop, and twirl around on the wet earth. What a beautiful feeling!


                                                       ~~~~~~~~~~

Rain is a good thing.
                                        

Is rain one of your favorite things?

Priceless.

Grandpa is reading to the kids on his ipad thing. So precious.

Smile.

 I taught Nickolas how to "smile" this last week. And I made him show his teeth when he did it too, because that's what a real smile is all about. It is just SOOO adorable, that it melts my heart every time I ask him to smile. He is such a sweetheart. <3

 I don't know what's up with 'closing his eyes' here.

I *LOVE* this last photo! What a funny look! Little kids are so special. Thank GOD for them!

Snow

 I can't believe that we actually got snow this year! *3 cheers* I love the snow. (not more than the beach...but still.) We got 7 inches at night, then it turned out to be 5 inches in the day. Perfection. All us kiddos took the day off to enjoy this day that we will never get back again. To make memories. -And, trust me...We made a lot!!!

 Driving the quad in the snow...oh yeah.

 Our 7 ft snow man in in the makings!

 *smack* Right on the forehead. Great shot Alainna!

I love the action in this last photo. :)

Did you all go out and enjoy the snow?