Spring has sprung!

The weather has been beautiful here this past week. We slept with the windows open last night and listened to the rain outside. I love it. The tulips I planted last fall are starting to come up, and I'm finding that we have thousands (and I am not exaggerating) of day lily plants coming up. There are huge swatches of them alongside the creek and throughout the woods. I did not realize we had so many since last year most of them did not actually flower. I think they've been in the ground for quite a while and need to be dug and divided. That will be quite a chore!

We have been a bit busy the last two weeks with things here around the house. Mike finished packing most of Nick's things up and moved his computer into that room. It will now be his den and our guest room. I was busy last week with 3 cakes. I made a small one for Mike's Mom for her birthday and had a bridal shower and a 25th anniversary cake to do. My kitchen was full of cake layers and flowers for several days. :o)


We've also been working on the vegetable garden. We're putting in raised beds, but first we have to level off part of the hill and then fence around it to try and keep the deer out. I'm hoping to finish up most of it this weekend and get my seedlings in the ground soon. After that I'll start pruning out a lot of the raspberry patches that were the most productive last year to make it easier to get in there this year.

Mike has been going through the property with the tractor pulling out the various remains of the previous tenants. So far I think he's found a washer, dryer, fridge, field seeder, car (couldn't get that one moved), trailer frame, and miles of metal fencing. There's still a lot more. There's one pile we'll probably never be able to move unless we cut down the two trees that have literally grown through the metal and bring a huge bulldozer in to take it out. I understand those that use part of their property as a dump rather than pay to dump it, but ours is spread around the whole 25 acres and now a lot of it is half buried. At least the price for scrap metal has gone up. Maybe we can make a bit from all this work.

Our exciting news is that we were able to get a phone call form Nick on Tuesday. We've been praying to hear from him so we would know how he is doing. We did not know that they do not get writing privileges until they are there for 3 weeks. That doesn't stop God though! Nick's "flight" (that's what they call their class of recruits) did so well on their drill that they were each given a 15 minute phone call. God is so faithful! :o) It was wonderful to hear his voice and to know that he is doing fine. He's adjusting to the heat there (I'm so glad he went in spring and not summer!) and is learning to drink more water. He's learning to get up very early and eat really fast. That's about all we learned in the short phone call. We are continuing to shower him with letters, which he says he loves to get, and upholding him in prayer each day. Mike and I are making plans for the two of us to go down at the end of May for his graduation.

I guess that's about it for this week. Time to get the little one into bed and head there soon after myself. Till next week...

God's love and blessings!

What an emotional week!

My children tease me that I have "leaky faucets". I admit it-I cry. I cry when I'm happy, sad, proud, angry. Pretty much any emotion can make me cry, so, needless to say, I did a lot of crying this week. Our church held a wonderful service in Nick's honor Sunday evening as a way of encouraging, challenging, and simply loving him. It was wonderful! I cried through most of it. :o)

Monday was the big day. We spent most of the morning and afternoon getting Nick and his room all packed up. We left in the late afternoon and went out for a nice dinner at Olive Garden. After that, it was time to drop him off at the hotel where he spent the night. Thanks to my families' silly sense of humor, it was easier than we expected. :o) I hope we left Nick with happy memories and not feeling incredibly sad. Our biggest reminder to him was to remember that he is never alone. NEVER! God is always there and a much better friend than we could ever be.

He had to be up at 4:30 am to do a weigh in and last minute paperwork stuff. We heard from him twice on Tuesday, once when he arrived at the airport in MN and again after safely arriving in Texas. Now we're just waiting for a phone call to give us his address. The recruiter said the call will be short, just enough time to give us the address and let us know he's OK. I will be sure and post his address on my Facebook page for anyone who would like to write to him. Although I am sad and miss him, I know that this step will be good for him. If nothing else, maybe he'll learn how to keep his room clean! :o)

Today is another special day for us. We are celebrating Angel's 16th birthday. Actually, we did most of the celebrating before Nick left, but today is the official day. Mike is taking the girls out for dinner tonight while I stay at home waiting for that phone call and enjoying some quiet time. I can't believe she's 16 already. Why is it that the older we get the faster time seems to go by? Although we've had some rough spots here and there, I am truly blessed to have her as my daughter. I am learning to step back and watch her grow into a beautiful young woman. Of course, that beautiful part worries me tremendously!

That's about it for this week. If I go much more into detail about the week I'll probably start crying, so I should close here. Here are a couple of the pictures we took Monday night.


Till next time,
God's love and blessings.

Stay off the roads!

After several frustrating attempts, Angel finally has her driver's permit! The first attempt, we didn't get to the DMV early enough and they wouldn't let her take the test, the second time she failed the test. She was quite frustrated afterward because there were so many questions on the test that they hadn't covered in class. We soon found out they had given her the test for a Commercial Driver's License! Needless to say, the test she took today was much easier, and she passed with flying colors. For most places these mistakes wouldn't be that big a deal, but if you read my posts from a year or so ago when Nick was trying to get his license you would know that there is no local DMV for us, only temporary ones that open once a month. So, if you miss that day (or have to take the test again) you have to go about an hour away to take it. Anyway, she's quite excited. Please pray for us this evening as she drives us into town for our "pay day" shopping trip. :o)

In other news, we've enjoyed the few days of warmer weather and even broke out the bbq earlier this week. Yum! The kids have had fun playing in the creek. The water in it ebbs and flows each day. It will get very low and then it seems like a dam of leaves and sticks farther up the creek breaks through and all of a sudden it's full again.

The girls playing in the cold water. There were a few times where the water was over this bridge!

With the warmer weather I've been planning our garden for this year. Michelle and I planted up some broccoli and parsley in the kitchen already. In a week or so we'll be planting tomatoes and other plants. Hopefully this next week Mike will be able to get the tractor over here so we can break ground soon for the new garden. We will have to level out a part of a hill for it since we don't have a lot of open space on our property. Of course, we should probably wait until the ground is pretty much thawed out before we dig in!

Nick has been busy packing this week. I can't believe it's almost time for him to leave for basic. We will be taking him into the cities on the 29th. He will stay there overnight and fly out on the 30th. He doesn't have to take much with him to basic, but he's setting aside some things for Mike to take to him at graduation. The rest will go into storage for a while so Mike can use the bedroom as an office. I wonder how he will do as an Airman?

Let's see, school work is finished for the week, menu is made out for next, grocery list is made out for tonight--guess I'm ready for the weekend! I pray y'all have a great week and rejoice in the blessings He has bestowed.

Till next time,
God's love and blessings,
Tammy

I think I need knee pads!

It's amazing how one or two people's decisions can affect so many others. This week I have spent much time in prayer and supplication, both for friends who I know are hurting, and for our own family. I won't get into all the details, but suffice it to say, God is still God and He is more than capable of taking care of our concerns. Sometimes we simply need to ask for His perspective on things, and the things that seemed so awful and heart wrenching can come into better focus. I can truly say that I have felt His awesome peace and comfort this week. If not, I would be a bawling mess. The theme for our upcoming Ladies' Luncheon at church is "The God of all Comfort". How appropriate for me this week. My only wish is that it didn't take such horrendous circumstances to make me spend this much time talking with my Lord. Don't get me wrong, I have my devotion times and pray throughout the day, but this week has been different. I found myself praying almost non-stop, and about all different things. I hope that I will continue in this fellowship. It has truly been sweet.

Other life notes for us--the kids and I did a bit of exploring today on the property. The snow has begun to melt, and the creek in front of our house has water in it for the first time since we moved in here. In fact, at one point today it was flowing over our little bridge. It's supposed to continue raining a bit the next few days and be warm enough to melt more snow. I don't know if this is what it does every spring, but it's pretty cool to watch!

This is the "dry" creek next to our house. That's a lot of water!

I guess that's about it for us. Till next time...

God's love and blessings.

Blogging is just not my thing!

I can't believe it's been 6 months since I last updated this blog! Oops! I guess it's better late than never.

First off, I have to say that we've enjoyed our first winter in our home. It's absolutely gorgeous here! Our biggest challenge was figuring out how to keep it heated evenly throughout. This is probably a challenge with all 2-story homes, but since our thermostat is on the upper level, it took a bit more work to figure it out how to get the downstairs to warm up without over-heating the upstairs. Eventually we're probably going to have to replace the siding and insulation to help conserve heat better, but it works well for now.

This is a picture I took one morning when everything was covered in snow and frost.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was nice to be able to have family over. Mike and I both moved around a lot as kids, and we both missed out on the big family holidays. My folks always invited the single Marines over so they wouldn't spend the holiday in the barracks, which was nice, but that wasn't quite the same. We're both hoping that as our kids grow up and move away, they'll always be close enough to come "home" for the holidays.

Speaking of growing up and moving away, Nick will be leaving for Air Force Basic Training on March 30. I have very mixed emotions on this and I'm not going to blog much on it as I don't want all the negative ones to come out right now. There's not a lot of job opportunities here and, Lord willing, this will help him get out on his own, get an education, and figure out what he would like to do. He's hoping that it might help him to get stationed in Japan again. :o) Whatever the future brings for him, I pray that he would walk close to the Lord and honor Him in all that he does.

We have a new member of our family now. Mike's mom, Carole, surprised me with a Yorkie puppy for Christmas. We've named him CoCo in honor of when we got him (what's winter time without hot cocoa?) and the brown coloring on him that reminds us all of our favorite curry restaurant in Japan, CoCo's. He's the cutest thing, but boy is he a stinker! At the present time, he's not allowed upstairs except to go in his kennel at bedtime. He seems to think the upstairs is a great place to use the bathroom whether we're up there or not. We're trying to figure out what to do once the ground thaws. I'd like for him to come outside with us and be able to run, but he also doesn't like to "come". We've been working on it, but, unless the leash is on, his ears don't seem to work very well. :o( I'm worried about him running into the street. We're trying to weigh the pros and cons of a fence vs electric fence. Any opinions?

This picture was taken when we first got him. That's the look he gives me when he's in trouble!

This is the Prince and Princess of the house!

Let's see, what else is going on around here? Angel is taking Driver's Ed right now, and I've been teaching a few classes. I just finished teaching a basic cake course through a community education program. I'm trying to get my Stampin' Up! business up and running again and am going to teach some cake decorating classes here at home. I've also started teaching the Preschool/Kindergarten Sunday School class at church. I love it! The kids and I have so much fun, and I love to see when they've really grasped a lesson-especially when they've applied it to their own life (i.e. "God wants me to "love one another". Hitting my brother would make Him sad, so I won't do it.") It's such a fun age to teach.

Well, I have a cake in the oven, so I will close this post here with no promises as to when I will post again, but hopefully, soon.

Till next time, God's love and blessings,
Tammy

My baby is 6 now :o)

Yep, I can't believe how quickly time goes by. Michelle turned 6 on the 7th of this month and as I mentioned in the last post, the last few weeks we were busy planning a fun party. We decided since Angel didn't really get a party for her birthday back in April, we would celebrate her 1/2 birthday at the same time, so we did a Mother/Daughter tea party.

Now, mind you, our living area is not very big, and after inviting friends for both girls, we were looking at almost 30 girls and moms coming. So, since the weather here is awesome this time of year, we had an outdoor party. It would have been really cool if we had some sort of gazebo or tent to set up, but we don't, but we do have a really large garage, and with a little ingenuity and a lot of sheets, we were able to spiff the place up a bit. As usual, I had a lot of fun making invitations and decorations for the party. Angel put her jewelry making talent to work and made little goodies for everyone. I'll post more pictures and details about the craft projects over on my craft website. Here's a couple of pictures of the party.


This first one shows me reading parts of Proverbs 31 to the girls and talking about manners. I didn't want to post this one, but it was the best one to show the garage and how we decorated it.

Here are some of the guests working on their fans and picture frames. (Which reminds me I've got to get the pictures printed and get those back to the girls! YIKES!)

Here's a picture of the food table. Several of Angel's friends stayed over the night before and helped decorate and make the food. They were a TREMENDOUS help! I definitely couldn't have done all this without them. :o)

This, of course, is the cake. Yes, everything is edible--including the teapot, cup, saucer, and spoon. I've really been having fun with fondant lately. I wish the painting on them would have come out better, but I don't have petal dust and had to use food coloring which doesn't blend very well. You can see a close up of these on my craft blog.



And finally, here's some of the Birthday girls. Angel turned 15 in April and can't wait to get her driver's permit soon. She's wearing the dress she made for herself last month. Didn't she do a good job?


And, Birthday Girl #2. We put her hair up in rag rolls the night before. We can't do that in the winter time as the static gets too bad and her hair ends up in a million little knots. Anyway, as you can see, she's lost tooth #2 recently so now she has a big gap on the bottom.

We actually had two parties that day. Our church was having their annual Progressive Dinner and we were the first stop on the route. Since the garage was already cleared out and set up with tables and chairs, it worked out perfectly. After the girl's party, Angel helped me clean up and get the appetizers in the oven for the church party. We even had an hour or so to rest in the afternoon. The Progressive Dinner was a lot of fun. It was neat to see other people's houses and visit with everyone in a relaxed atmosphere.

I guess I should close this here. I have a few other projects we're working on, but I will save those for next week's post. Till then...

God's love and blessings!

Getting ready for School!

I didn't get this updated this Thursday because I couldn't get to my computer! I was knee deep in school books and boxes. I finally got tired of going out to the garage and moving boxes around to find specific books and decided to bring them all into the house, re-organize and catalog them to make it easier to find what I need. It took almost 4 days to get it done, but it finally is, and Angel and I just finished taking the boxes back out to the garage that we are not going to need this year and getting the school room all ready for Monday, our official first day of school. Well, Michelle's first day anyway. Grandma asked if Angel could come help her at the Meals on Wheels site Monday so she's getting a slight reprieve. :o) I think it will be good for Michelle and I to start the first day together anyway since this will be pretty new stuff for her.

We are grateful for the rain this last week. We would need a lot more to fill the ponds and creeks, but at least the plants are getting a good drink. A few weeks ago we noticed a lot of tree's leaves turning orange and yellow already because of lack of moisture. The rain did help the berries a bit, but I think it's a little too late for most of them. It doesn't seem like we'll get much more of a harvest of blackberries this year but that's OK. I think I have enough in the freezer to make one more batch of syrup, and maybe some jam. YUM!

Speaking of syrup, Angel and I took some with us last night to a fun sleepover at church with most of the other girls and their moms. We had a lot of fun playing games, doing hair, getting to know each other, and of course, getting very little sleep. The syrup was yummy on the Swedish pancakes one of the moms made for us for breakfast this morning. That's a recipe I'm going to have to learn.

The guys managed to get Nick's Tracker running last week. I think they've mentioned an oil leak they need to fix, but it should be up and usable for him pretty soon. My van is next on the Dr.'s list once the Tracker is in remission. I pray that it doesn't take long to fix and doesn't cost too much.
_________________

Update: I meant to post this last Saturday but wasn't able to and then simply forgot in the midst of a busy school week. We did start school on Monday, and things are going well. I'm sure we'll be tweaking the schedule a bit here and there until we find what works best for us this year, but so far, so good. Angel's attitude has been wonderful. In fact, she's been up, dressed and ready to start before I am each day. She was even patient with my grumpiness this afternoon during math. I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to help Darlene with the paper route much longer. Five hours of sleep does not make for a very happy teacher, or a very focused one.

Here's a of pictures of Mike and the kids working on my garden fence and the finished project. He needed the kids to hold the log still while he cut a notch in the end. You can't see much of the garden because there weren't any flowers in bloom when we took this picture and the greenery just kind of blends into the overgrown lawn around it. :o) Oh well, all of the plants in the garden, except for the two rose bushes on the end, were transplanted from elsewhere on the property. There are daisies, strawberries and black-eyed Susans. There are even some chives in there that our Pastor gave to me and I didn't have any other place ready for them at the time so they were put in here. I guess you could call this a "holding" garden as I've put most of these in here to hold them until I can find a better place for them and to keep them from being mowed down by the lawn mower.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of time. I realized yesterday that Michelle's Birthday is coming up very quickly and I am hosting part of a church progressive supper the weekend after that. So, this next week I will be busy with a few craft projects and trying to finish up a few projects around the house here along with making sure the girls and I don't get behind in their school work. So, with that in mind, I should head off to bed and get some much needed rest.

Till next week, God's love and blessings!