Music in my Mother's House

 

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Mother's Day Memories and Joys

I have a very thankful heart today and I think of all I have.  I am so very thankful for a godly and loving mother.  Who cared for me, taught me right from wrong, lead me to Christ and when I got grown was a dear friend to me.  I miss my mother very much but I know I will see her in heaven again one day and what a day that will be!

 

I am so very thankful for my very first Mother's Day being a mom.  What an amazing day that was.  Rich and I dedicated Mary to the Lord that day in church.  We promised the Lord we would raise her in the knowledge and love of Him.

 

I am so thankful for today as I celebrate with my family.  Rich gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses today and Mary wanted to pose next to them.  She is the light of our lives and makes this day so very special to me.

 

Happy Mother's Day!  I have had many happy Mother's Days, and some very sad Mother's Days, but I am so very thankful that the Lord has been with me through it all and He is my foundation, the one who is always there for me and I will never be alone because of His love.

Red and White

I have had some fun with the camera this last week. The first one is of my amaryllis and white orchid. The deep red and white contrast lead me to put the Isaiah scripture on it. The last ones are of our grapevine with the morning dew. I just loved seeing the water droplets on each point of the leaf.

Gardening

Mary loves the garden. She loves watering, digging in the dirt and seeing the plants grow and blossom. She is so happy when the weather warms up and she can go outside and play. I remember that magical feeling as a child when it warmed up enough to go barefoot and school was out and I was free!

 

 

 

Today Rich took our avocado tree out of its pot and trimmed the roots as it had gotten root bound. We trimmed the roots a couple of years a go and it just loved having fresh soil to grow into.  Mary helped him by carrying the slices of old roots and putting them in the green trash can for composting.  She expressed concern that we might be being too hard on the avocado by trimming its roots like that.  We assured her it was OK and the tree was going to benefit from it.  She has such a tender heart for growing things and wants to do the very best for them :)

 

Baking Day

This morning was baking day.  Every week I bake bread from scratch using homemade starter.  I make a refrigerator dough the night before then use it the next morning.  I think I fit sometimes into a life a hundred years ago.  I love baking bread and I love the simple things of life :)  Granted there are some great benefits we have now, but I really like the simplicity of life as it was many years ago.  When Mary woke up, I went in and kissed her on her forehead and said I have made fresh cinnamon rolls and her little face just lit up!  Homemade bread made with starter is so good for you.  It breaks down the gluten so it is easier for you to digest and is has so many healthy bacteria in it that helps your immune system and the absorption of nutrients.  I know I have much more energy now and sleep so good.  I am so thankful that Rich made the original starter and taught me how to make the refrigerator dough!  Here are a few shots of the bread, cinnamon rolls and smiles from Mary and Mackie.

 

 

Tell Your Children

Yesterday at lunch we went to Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We were meeting the Sunday School pastor at our church for a time to talk about our Kindergarten Sunday School class that we teach.  We talked about the lessons, the kids and what things worked best for the kids.  We also talked about what was going on in our lives and shared a little bit about our past.  I shared with the pastor this neat little thing that happened last week with Mary.  She had gotten up in the morning and as her usual practice she sat on my lap in the living room clutching her blanket and teddy bear.  She sits there for a few minutes rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and telling about her dreams or things she was thinking about when she went to sleep or woke up.  This particular morning she looked up at me and said, "Mama who was that lady that held her hands up to the tornado and it split and went around and also God healed her sore on her toe?"  This surprised me and gave me great joy when she said that.  I told her Mary that was my grandma and your great grandma.  The interesting thing is that I had not sat down and told her these two stories in particular but she over heard me tell someone else.  These are the two stories from my childhood as I remember my mom telling me.

My mom lived her early years in Nebraska and her parents were farmers.  My grandmother was a very godly woman who had a very strong faith in the Lord and believed in miracles.  When my mother was young, sometime in the 1930's, a tornado was heading toward their farm.  Grandma knew if it hit their farm it could of destroyed their crops, their house and even killed them.  She went out into the wind and held up her hands and cried out to God for protection.  The tornado came to the edge of their fields, it split and went around each side of their farm, came back together and continued on.

The second story was when my grandmother was very ill with sugar diabetes.  She had a sore on her big toe that had gangrene in it.  The doctor told her that she would have to have surgery and they would have to remove her toe.  She said, "No that is going to heal.  A black scab will form and then pink skin will appear under that.  The doctor shook his head and said that gangrene does not do that and that she could get blood poisoning and die.  The doctor was wrong in this case and God healed my grandmother's toe.

These two stories and many more that my mother shared of her parent's life and her and my dad's life brought faith in God to life in my soul.  I wanted the faith of my fathers because it didn't come from a dusty book that no one read but it was real and it was living.  I have a few stories of my own now and I have shared them with Mary and I have written them in her baby book for her to read and have as she gets older.  Writing this blog began for her as I wanted to record the stories of my life that she may know the personal love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.


The living, the living—they praise you,
as I am doing today;
parents tell their children
about your faithfulness.  Isaiah 38:19
 

 

A Special Place

This place holds a special place in my heart as it is the hospital where our Mary girl was born, the place where my mother died and went to be with the Lord and it has the corner stone of the hospital that I was born at.  It was the same hospital with the same administration.  They just tore Sacred Heart down and built Providence Hospital in a different location.  Now Rich works here!  We have been so blessed by his job here.  It is the best job he has had in his whole life.  He works in the sterile processing department.  It is a very clean environment so his struggles with asthma are at a minimum now.  He doesn't have to lift anything over 25 lbs so that is much easier on his body.  He has full time hours and when he has been with them for a year he will get full benefits which includes an awesome medical coverage for the whole family.  He likes it best because he is helping people and it is a Christian organization.  He cleans and sterilizes all the surgical instruments that the doctors use.  We are still doing our lamp business on the side but we know this is what God had in mind all along.  Doing the lamp business solely for 6 months allowed him to find this job in the perfect time and get a huge refund on our taxes!  He was very fortunate to get it as a lot of people were applying for it.  In a tight economy good jobs are at a premium.  We are very thankful to the Lord for it.

 

This plaque is on the side of the corner stone that we are sitting on.  It commemorates the 100th anniversary of the hospital.

 

This is a close up of the corner stone.

 

 

 This is the front of the hospital.

Vee's Post Card Party

I took these photos a few years ago in our back yard. It was a beautiful fall afternoon and my daughter was dancing around the living room with her tutu on that I had made for her a couple of years earlier. So I had her go outside for a little photo shoot.   She has loved dancing since the time she could walk.  I have her in ballet class now.  These photos bring back such fond memories and expresses her love for dance.   I made a set of note cards from them for my friends and relatives for Christmas that year.  I just used a point and shoot camera and then added a watercolor effect in the photo editing program that I have.

 

 

I am linking up with Vee's Post Card Party.  You can go here to see more great entries.

Spring is Wonderful!

Spring is here in all its glory.  Mary and I have planted seeds of flowers that butterflies love in pots inside.  We are planning a butterfly garden this year to see if we can attract some of those beauties to lay some eggs and see the caterpillars turn into butterflies.  Mary would just love it.  She drew this cute butterfly the other night all free hand.  It makes me smile every time I look at it.  She has the flowers all around it and it's long slender tongue coming out to drink nectar.  Rich hung her bulletin board in her school room.  I got it from Craig's List for $8.  The right size and the right price!  So now her school room is complete.  Now we can display her current art projects.
 

She also is very fascinated with ants.  She drew one called the great black ant.  I put it in the bottom right corner.  She is so cute when she goes outside with her magnifying glass so she can watch the ants up close.  I think she would really enjoy an ant farm too.  I am undecided if I am going to buy one or make one for her.  I have been learning so many fascinating things about nature and God's wonderful creation.  I am discovering the world along with my little girl as we are on this homeschooling journey together.

Easter Slide Show

I loaded up all of our Easter season pictures of family visits, flowers, activities and put together a slide show with one of my all time favorite songs.  The song so sums up Easter for me!

 

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