lately....

recent pics

playdoh.............fun!!
sunny day..................
spiderweb-sunshine

small grouping

Hey y'all,

i haven't written in a while. So, tonight i'll leave a wee note. Dave and I headed off for Biblestudy, in our small group that began two weeks ago. lovely. i enjoy the couples, very mixed ages and backgrounds which is just what we love to have! Proverbs is the book of study, and slowly we tread through the rich words there. amazing. incredible wisdom to base our life on. not promises of success and wealth, but guidelines to live by, guidelines that should lead to an "easier" life in the practical sence. (ex. proverbs has a lot of financial wisdom: if you use money wisely, you are more likely to have more of it. right? it isn't saying that Christians who follow Christ will HAVE LOTS of money. no no. it is simply a guideline that says, do not be foolish with what you have)

anyway. i love it. we discussed the FEAR OF THE LORD tonight. fabulous place to start, since it is the foundation of WISDOM, KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING. interesting hmm.

i encourage you all to read about the fear of the Lord, learn what it is from the Bible, listen to good solid sermons on it, understand that it truly just means: fear of the Lord. I never GOT THIS in my head until NOW. crazy eh? Fear of the Lord is the BASIS for sooooo many imp't things and i didn't get it.
Why should we have a fear of the Lord??? read the bible. luke 12:4-5. 2corinthians 5:10-11. Revalation 14:7. amazing. incredible. God will judge us for what we do and do not do. wow.

FEAR THE LORD, it is the beginning of wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of God.

Know who HE is and you will know that we are desperate and in need without Him.

Wow. thank you God for giving us life. let me know what you learn, pass it on, i'd love to hear from your life, heart, and biblestudy.

loves.

aaaawwwwwwwwww

SO, i just heard a little voice, and it is past 8pm....that doesn't happen often. So i crept to the J's door, thinking, "well, perhaps it was the neighbors cat". (cats do have little girl voices, other mother's, can you agree??haha)

Well, i heard a squirming noise in the bed within, so in i went to help the sleepless girl. (being now 9:15)

I quietly ask the warm, droopy eyed girl, "what is the matter? why are you still awake Julia?"

"I was just talking to God."

oh. okay.

"He keeps me safe"

"yes, yes He does dear, goodnight, sleep well."

haaahaa.oooooh cute.

The Faire Princess...continued

I nearly completed J's first costume, a princess dress. all it needs is a hem, and a neck closure.
We were creating our own 'Van Gogh' on the front porch, and i couldn't resist a picture of Julia's "concentration pose". Hand in pants. haha. she just ... well... painted like this. i suppose it is like the 'Naus' tongue bite: done during periods of intence concentration. she relaxes with her hand in her waistband. i thought it was cute. :)

The Faire Princess

This weekend was the Wyoming fair and parade. (not the US Wyoming, but the other one you are familiar with. ) We enjoyed this new experience with all of our being, well, i guess i'm speaking for Julia here, because i've personally been to my share of parades. Julia experienced: JOY. as seen in the picture below. i captured her face as the parade began. (pause for reflection upon individual first parade experiences....ah, aw, sigh. )



Awe - flags, drums, marching....her first thrilling drama of pomp and circumstance. it is one of those experiences that rattles your heart strings and makes life feel achingly lovely. simple pleasures of color and sound. (*sigh* bagpipes.)
SUGAR. mmmmm they threw lots of candy at us. julia wasn't really accustomed to this, so it took some work on our part to get her into the 'game' so other children didn't snatch ALLLL OF THE CANDY. hahaha. although, i must say, we sat next to very precious families, all of which had children bringing candies for miss jules when they thought she didnt' get enough. (little did they know I ATE a lot of it.....oops! what two year old needs a handful of toffees???)
Majestic beasts. So much muscle , strength and beauty. God designed such beautiful things.
okay, the fair was interesting for us. There is no 'midway' at this fair, but they always have a lot of children friendly blowup 'rides'. There were about 7 different blowup's and a climbing wall. One 'ride' was a tall stairs (approx. 15ft high?) up to a vertical slide.
GUESS WHICH ONE JULIA WAS DETERMINED TO GO ON??

Being tall for her age, she met the requirements for any of the children's activities. So, why not? i knew it was beyond her abilities, because climbing steep, pillowy stairs would be hard for her, but a friend of ours (about 9yrs old) was there, and helped her up. once at the top... she laid her towel down, sat on the edge of the cliff....and with a look of uncertainty, was pushed to her sliding, flying, tumbling descent. We laughed. collected our slightly shaken daughter (didn't know what she was in for) and headed out to another game.

This was her second choice: i guess she was opting for the safe side of things. hahahaha.

the party (s)

Unfortunately i didn't take a lot of pictures during the party, but here are some happenings:Karli, and the Cressman's came for supper. Soooooooooooo lovely, great to have friends, family, and funnies. The above picture shows kids taking turns being spun and wound up for their trip home! (sorry val!) We had a splendid time with these good friends, enjoying good food and fellowship while kids played and such.
Once the Cressman gang left, Karli, Dave, Julia and i had a pillow fight. (featured above in the fuzzy dark photo) Then we jigged around the room, read bedtime stories, put Julia to bed and started party numero 2.

no picture


Carla, Dave, Luke, Karli, Dave, and I all played Settlers of Catan. Ate popcorn and drank chocolate tea. (I had to put their names to show you all the doubles we have. there are many daves, and surprizingly enough, a couple C/karla's to confuse our brains around here!)

The K/Carla team wow, WE HAROLD YOU LORD OF ALL CATAN! we forgot to harold you girls,sorry! :) (WE, your humble serfs. )

it was a lovely time of people and food and laughter. Thank you to all that came and went and called and laughed and such. i love parties.
SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE, WE ALLLLLLLL LOVE YOU.

DAVE'S BIRTHDAY DAY!

Dave has been out all day, working of course! :) but we have been BUSY BUSY BEES here at home in preparation for DAVE'S BIRTHDAY. Julia and I went grocery shopping, then we made a triple recipe of pizza dough, colored pictures for Daddy, read some stories, played some puzzles, cut all the toppings for the pizzas, topped the pizza's, ate lunch, washed allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the dishes together, and then....tossed Julia into bed. now i'm done sweeping the house and ready for a nap too.

While i was doing some work on the pizza, i set up a little rice-eggcarton-spoon-shaker game. It kept her busy for a good 25 minutes. I colored the rice yellow and blue, and then put them in the shaker. She shook them into the carton and then spooned them back and forth to various holes.

entertaining. for me, and her!
ah, the proud dishwasher. Julia is in charge of the rinse and dry part of dishwashing. She rinses, shake shake shake. :) daddy taught her that.

An amazing thing that i have discovered about two year olds: they are amazing helpers. Julia has a responsibility to our family, we are attempting to teach her what it means to be in a family you see, so she has to set the table for supper (when i remember). The other night i gave her the plates, then the bowls, then the spoons.....and out we all come for supper to this beautiful sight....The spoons are lying in the bowls, which are placed on the plates, each at a chair....wow. we laughed, and stood in awe. she had done it just as nicely as if we had set the table. incredible little people two year olds are! :)
anyway.........

..............................................................................................
let the birthday begin, when dave's work day is over !

talk to you all later. byebye.

Sweden Sweden Sweden!!!!

we have sent off the little one. well, the big one in this pic... but you know what i mean. He is arriving at the airport and flying out tonight!! wow. Sweden are you ready for this guy?
you will be missed mr. uncle adin.
And man, we are all jealous, Sweden is a great great place to grow.
have a blast!!!
from the family

What have we been up to?

Our basement is far from fab. so here we are spending saturday night as 'family night' painting the basement...it was like a party though...i mean, we got pizza to make it more party-ish. :)
Ug, just look at the picture below. Thanks to the previous owners our basement has "junior high" graffiti on it. lovely. We had fun, and yes, Julia IS painting with our REAL paint. :) she has a nice little 'painting gown' on and a bandana to keep her mostly paint free. not that a little paint will hurt, thanks to our b&b friends in Stratford. They created a great skin friendly paint and stain remover. (smells like banana's, i think they are one of the ingredients)


Robyn, Jason, Taylor and Ali came to visit us for sunday. IT was so delightful to have them here all day. THey came to church with us, spent lunch with us, played carrcassone with us....and bought a DEEP DARK CHOCOLATE cake to share with us . mmmmmmmmmmmmm. man, was it ever good!
heehee, i braided her hair!!!! :)

the last few days:

daddy taught me all about the house vents, where our heat comes from and where our cool air comes from. what a good great awesome daddy.
He also keeps me clean and warm, this is me after a bath. thanks daddy for taking such good care of me and teaching me about God in everything we do.
Here Laural, you asked for a pic of us, this was last week on our shopping date! :) i bought new acrylic paints!! :)
G'bye family!! we had a great time!! :)

short summary of last couple days. thanks for attending. more writing next time. :)

Adventure's in Family

Happy Birthday to our dear dearest Ann!!!!! The "girls" wend shopping and eating in honor of this special day (a few days late). We love you Ann!!!!
And for the next couple days we are having my aunti, uncle and cousin over for visit!! IT is their first time exploring ONtario, so we wanted to show them the BEST sites....you know, the world reknown ones....the animal farm, and the local beach. :)
Julia LOVES Kim!! She was playing, walking, reading, and talking to her allll day. We may just have to keep her. :) haha.
beach beach beach. Uncle wanted to swim all 5 Great Lakes, and this is the first of his trip. He swam a good length of the beach while we dipped our toes, made sand things and threw rocks.
Kim: the future horse whisperer, trainer, and boarder. Have a horse? send 'er here! THis gal has the gift! Here she is writing her business plan on the sand of Huron's Shore. :) You know, most of us girls pass through the phase of horse loving, i know i did, but for this darling, it is reality. wow. that's awesome.

Glad to have the family around. we have talked and talked and tonight i hope we play and play! (carrcassone!!) Love to the family out there that can't make it to this family games night.

loves.

picture story:

family date to a special park
cute little dutchy
i can FINALLY REACH... and swing... and hang!
we had a rainy cold rainy cold day at the market. to end our market days.
i was considerate: i took a picture of a lovely Amish Horse, and did not bother the Amish vendors ....as the tourists so often do, who can blame them really? they are so darn sweet, picture perfect looking! i just LOVE seeing their carts and horses strolling out of the market place, beside all the nasty big trucks and vans (we being one of them) that are noisey, crass, and polluting. it is a refreshing sight to see gentle, quiet strength of a horse. ANyway. enough ramble.

loves. enjoy the autumnish weather coming our way........i'm off to my cup o' chocolate rooiboss tea.
mmmmmmmmmmmmm.