Melanie's Home!!

Oh, JOY!
My sister's home from Ireland!

Liam and I surprised Melanie & David at the airport!

Melanie and our dear Mama
Do you see Mel's little bump?! She looks so adorable!

On Sunday afternoon we had the priviledge of hanging our with family and friends at a concert by Freedom's Call - what a glorious afternoon! Loved it to peices.

Annette Tingelstad playing with my boys
Annette is my mentor, a Titus 2 woman of God who has taught me so much about life. She is a dear friend and very close to my heart!

Playing with friends after the concert

Dan and Liam

David and Matt catching up!


We are heading out for a family vacaton in the Black Hills, so more pictures and tales to come!

Investments

My darling, Liam

“Our only permanent investment is in the souls of our children. Let’s not sacrifice our children on the altar of our perfectionism. What is life really all about? Yards and homes and possessions are just a physical vanity, all destined to decay. Our children are our masterpieces—our life’s spiritual work. They are the only works we will leave behind by which others will know who we were.” —MP

Uncle Sam's Farm

Melissa (my sister) & Sam's beautiful home! We all love visiting this place—which Elianna affectionately calls "Uncle Sam's Farm."

A beautiful yard with fruit trees everywhere!

Fun to be had by all! Elijah & Ben on a motorcycle cruise through the farmyard.

Ella & Elijah mesmerized by the cow.
"What's the matter city-kids, never seen a cow before?!"

Elijah has no fear of anything....poor little chick.

Cousin Becca feeds the calf

Elijah LOVED the barn and all the animals, especially the chicks!

Ella tries to be brave.

The great adventures with cousins!

Adored

I am in love. As I sit here writing, next to me on the bed is little Liam—sleeping. His soft breaths; each one so sweet it makes me want to curl up beside him. My comforter is wrapped up close around him since the windows are cracked to let in the cooler summer night air. He is precious.

The other kids played hard all day long with cousins, ran through the sprinkler to cool off on this beautiful day, and ate more watermelon than ever. So after we said good-bye to cousins, we made a quick meal, did a much needed bath time in a snap, and before I could finish praying for them, they were fast asleep in their beds - dreaming of a perfect world of cousins, watermelon and sprinklers I'm sure.

God is good.

P.S. the photo above of Liam and I was taken by my talented & handsome nephew, Benjamin.

Determination

"To have failed once is not so much a pity as is to not try again."
—John Wanamaker

Reaching a goal requires more than skill—it requires determination. Often, failure is due NOT to a lack of talent or ability but to a lack of persistence during difficult times.

Dreams

A good & valuable reminder...
Paul Tripp on the church: "You can't fit God's dream for His church inside of the American dream and have it work. It's a radically different lifestyle. It just won't squeeze into the available spaces of the time and energy that's left over." In this interview, he argues against busyness...

On the same note, read this for a short bit that'll make you ponder all day - "are my dreams Christ-centered?"

Let's play!

Today I chose to play...

They will not stay children forever.

One day my small boy and girl will grow older
and walk out the threshold of my home...
and return a man and a woman.

I cannot reclaim these days.
So today I did what my heart has been
nudging me to do...PLAY!

Choose to ignore your 'to-do' list today.

Time is running out.

Music Training 101

First, (if you're a boy) you need to figure out how to work the locks on the guitar case...very important.

Second, (if you're a girl) you will daintily hold the pick while softly strumming and sweetly singing a song about loving one another. She will then abruptly stop in the middle of the song to inform all who are listening that she is singing a "New One" - which means she is making it up all by herself. Makes me smile.

Third, (if you're a mom) you'll say "Be careful with it; no-no, please be gentle; oh, that's pretty!" several times while wondering at what age children begin to sing on tune...

Then there's the trill of dropping the pick down the sound hole...

Heritage

Elijah with his Great Grandpa Fred

Grandma Donna holding her newest great grandson

"Carve your name on hearts, not on marble."

Melanie's Virtual Baby Shower!

For those of you who don't know her, let me introduce you to my beautiful sister, Melanie!

My sister on her wedding day

Recently (ok, well, almost a year ago now!) Melanie married a godly man of strength and valor, David, and moved to beautiful Ireland....yes, a real life fairy tale it is! Melanie is thirteen months older than me, and we have always been very close and the best of friends - so seeing her move so far away was extremely difficult, yet joyful as I knew she was following God's call and embarking on an amazing adventure with the love of her life!

There are still days, I'll admit, where tears flow because the loneliness for her close friendship is so great! I really do miss her. And I miss her even more now with the news of her and David expecting a BABY in September! A time to rejoice and celebrate!

Although the distance apart is great, we have been able to stay in close contact through an amazing invention called Skype. How wonderful this real time video feed has been - to be able to see her face and talk to her as if she was in the room with me!!! It was with the help of Skype that my sister-in-love, Angie, and I were able to throw a VIRTUAL Baby Shower for Melanie and David.

Melanie's Virtual *surprise!* Shower

how we pulled it off...

:: Invitations by eMail
Angie and I started by creating an online baby registry for Melanie at Amazon.co.uk. We decided the best way to get gifts to Melanie was to go through a UK shopping source....because the shipping costs from US-to-Ireland are outrageously expensive! We selected items that we knew every first-time-mom couldn't live without and emailed the registry link, along with the shower invitation, to all of Melanie's friends and family here in the US. We also had everyone fill out an advice form and send it back to us. We then complied all the advice forms and sent them to Melanie in a book format (she LOVED it...the best of all the gifts she said!).

:: Hiding the Gifts
Hiding things from Melanie is not easy, so we knew we would need to be very careful in keeping this whole thing a surprise. So, we arranged to have all the gifts shipped to Melanie's inlaws in Ireland (who live only a mile down the road from her). Her mother-in-law, MaryAnn, got on board with our plans and turned out to be the GREATEST help - we couldn't have done it without her! She wrapped and hid all the gifts in an upper room of her house and successfully kept everything hush-hush. There were a few close calls - like when Melanie stopped in spur the moment for a visit, and Maryann had to scramble to get rid of boxes that had just arrived!

:: May 9th - Surprise Day!
All guests arrived for brunch on Saturday morning at Angie's home. There were close to 50 people in attendance!! At exactly 11:00 am (5:00 pm Ireland time), we gathered together and called Melanie via Skype on my laptop (which we had set-up in Angie's livingroom, connected to a video projector, so everyone in the room could look up on the wall and see Melanie). Once she answered, we all yelled out a big "SURPRISE!!" followed by wha-hoos and clapping and lots of smiles. :) Melanie's facial expressions where priceless - expressions of total shock and looks of "what is going on?" to smiles and looks at David as if to say, "did you know about this?!." Hard to capture the moment in words! The best part was after we said the big surprise on our end, Melanie's in-laws came walking into her house with arm loads of gifts....that is when she REALLY caught on to what was happening! We were able to watch her open each gift. What joy!! Enjoy the photos...

Ella

Look at how much Elianna
has grown in a little over one year!

The Past...

1 year old

The Present...

My big 2 year old!

"So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."
—Psalm 90:12