We had a great weekend with several thunder and lightening storms with big down pours. Last night we lost power for a little while and we lit some candles. Mary had a lot of fun with all the excitement. She kept saying, "Happy Birthday" and trying to blow out the candles! It was pretty weird weather for this time of year. It was like August in May. I got a short video clip of Mary repeating our prayer over lunch. I have just started having her say it too! She is talking in sentences now and is saying so many things! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here is the link:
http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=8d42bf44d0f527d9887b90&skin_id=1603&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Show and Tell Friday - Mary's Sandbox

Happy Friday everyone! Today is Show and Tell and I am sharing my daughter's sandbox. We bought a sheep watering tank at a farm supply store and filled it with sand. I made a nylon ladybug cover for it to keep the sand clean when she is not playing in it. It worked out really great and cost half what we would of paid if we had bought one already made. As you can see, she loves it! For more Show and Tell items go to Kelli's blog here.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hope of Heaven

Phillip was a small soul that I never met. He was precious to my parents as he was their youngest child. My mother carried him the first year that we moved into the house that my father built for the family. She was a little concerned for the proper room for him as the house was small and they already had 4 children with 2 of them sharing a room. She was 34 and thought of herself as of “getting on in years” as far as child bearing went. They had purchased a crib for him and several relatives had sent beautiful handmade layettes in expectation of his birth. The day my mother went to the hospital she had no idea the trial that she would face. When he was born, he was very small and the doctor discovered that there had been an infection in her placenta causing him to have a low birth weight. She said his little cry was very soft and odd. She got to see him and kissed him on the head and said, “I will see you later darling.” They then rushed him to the nursery and tried to get him to breathe properly but they didn’t realize that his diaphragm was not attached correctly and his intestines were crowding his lungs and not letting them expand. The doctor told my mom they would have to operate to attach his diaphragm. This was very serious not only because he was a new born but he was very small. He survived the surgery, but in the process of trying to get him to breath before they found out his trouble a small hole was made in his lungs. He could not survive both of these problems. Their dear little son lived a day and then was gone. I remember as a small child holding my brother and sisters hands around the table the night he was born and my father leading us in a prayer for our little brother. God chose to take him home. The only other memory I have is sitting next to my mother under a tent in the cemetery at his funeral. It was a cold, chilly December day and it was raining. I looked down at the tiny casket with little baby yellow roses adorning it and leaning up against my mother for warmth from the winter chill of that day. My mom said that she grieved so greatly for him. Her arms were empty and as the clouds were releasing the rain drops she felt it was like the heavens were weeping. She grieved for him for a solid year. Feelings of pain and sorrow that maybe she didn’t want him enough at first and God took him from her. One evening in church at the end of service she went down to the altar and prayed and was crying for Phil and God gave her a vision. She looked up and saw a small boy with curly hair. He was laughing and waving his hands. She knew he was hers. He looked like her other children but was unique. She could not see who was holding him but he was encircled by loving arms. God told her he was growing up in heaven and was very happy. My mom’s heart was healed at that moment and all the heart wrenching grief was gone. She would wonder and think about him but was no more torn by her sorrow. When she told him at this birth, “I will see you later darling” little did she know that in 24 years at the age of 58 the Lord would take her home and she would see her son again.

Memorial Day

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here is the link
http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=8c8a1eab0c8c5c8f4dcede&skin_id=601&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

I hope you had a happy and blessed Memorial Day!

Wordless Wednesday - It's Generational

It is blogger choice for Wordless Wednesday. To join in or to see other Wordless Wednesday posts just go to Dixie's Blog here.

Our First Strawberry

Mary just loves going outside now that the weather has warmed up. Her first words after,"Good Morning!" are, "Go outside and play?" She then looks around once we are outside and says all the colors of the flowers she sees. She has been eyeing this strawberry for awhile but I kept telling her she had to wait until it turned red. It was ripe on Friday, so we picked it and ate it. It was so yummy! We are working on getting her a sandbox. Saturday, Rich took us out to a Farm Supply store and we found a sheep watering tank that is perfect for a sand box. We brought it home and she just loves playing in it. We don't have the sand yet and I need to make a cover for it but she doesn't care! She just gets in and out of it and sits in it with her blanket and just talks away. The sand and the cover are on the agenda for this week and I will post pictures after we finish it.

Happy Monday to all and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Show and Tell Friday - Our Rainbow

For Show and Tell this week I am sharing one of my daughter's favorite books, entitled "Planting a Rainbow" by Lois Ehlert. I am also showing some gardening tools that I bought for her at Lowes the last time I was there. She loves them and loves helping me in our little garden. I hope you enjoy the slide show. For more Show and Tell posts to read or if you want to join in, you can click on the icon and go to Kelli's blog. Have a wonderful day!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Mother's Day Weekend

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Show and Tell Friday - Generations

Today is Show and Tell Friday. Kelli at "There is no Place Like Home" is hosting this really fun event. If you want to join in or just read about other people's treasures and the stories behind them you can go there by clicking on the icon below.

Today I am sharing three pictures in honor of Mother's Day. The first one is my grandma holding my mom, the second one is my mom holding me and the last one is me holding my daughter.

I am very blessed to have had a mom and grandma that loved the Lord and their family very much. They layed down their lives for their children and raised them in the knowledge of the Lord and through the grace of God all of their children served the Lord. I know that Mother's Day can be a source of great joy for some and also a time of great sadness for others. My heart goes out to those who are in pain because of a death of a loved one, the loss of relationship with someone or the loss of hope or a dream of having a child. Mother's Day was a sad time for me for many years after my mom died and I was single. The Lord did turn my mourning into dancing when he brought my wonderful husband and precious daughter into my life after many years of waiting. If you are sad this weekend, please know that the Lord loves you and cares so deeply for you. I think of the Lord's words in Isaiah 49:15, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! "

Mexico

A couple of months back my husband and I were sitting in service. After the first couple of songs our pastor got up and introduced a missionary that was going to come and tell about his burden and ministry to Mexico. He and his wife were called to Central Mexico. I enjoyed his presentation. He had a short video of a crusade they had in a large stadium. He gave the gospel message and then an altar call. The camera scanned out across the crowd. It showed many people raising their hands, tears running down their cheeks and many people stepping out of their seats and coming to the altar to accept Christ. A flood of emotion filled my heart and my eyes began to fill up with tears. For a moment I went down memory lane to the times that my mom told of her teenage years growing up in Southern California. At that time she felt a desire to learn Spanish and she started attending a Spanish speaking church. She thought that she might be called to be a missionary to Mexico. She had many fond memories of that time and told several cute and heart warming stories of her involvement with that church. She loved the Mexican people and she had a heart for missions. This ran in her family. Her older brother and his wife were missionaries to Chile. My Uncle Cyle went there is his mid twenties and pioneered a large church in Santiago and also started a Bible School there and over the years pioneered 40 churches in Chile. He gave his whole life to those people and was a missionary there until he was 80. He fell very ill with a heart problem and came to America shortly before he died. His home was Chile and he loved those people so much. My mom's life took a different turn. She did the Lord's work by raising all of her children to serve the Lord. She was a good wife and homemaker. Her love for the Spanish people was carried in the names of two of her daughters. My oldest sister's name is Linda, which means "pretty" in Spanish and my name is Elena and it is Spanish for Ellen (my mom's name). After remembering those things, I came back to the presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The missionaries are Ryan and Christy Thomas. I leaned over to Rich and told him that I felt like we should support them and he agreed. After service I went out to their table in the lobby and signed up to get e-mail updates from them and I picked up a business card with their web page address on it. When we got home I looked them up on the Internet and I found out they have a little boy that is Mary's age. His name is Nathan. I have loved that name for a long time. It started when I did a study in the book of Ruth. I just loved Ruth's story of following and trusting God no matter what and God blessed her so beautifully. It says in the 4th chapter that after she married Boaz, God gave her conception and she had Obed. The Hebrew word for "gave" in that sentence is "nathan". The name, Nathan, means gift of God. Before I met Rich, I thought if I ever had a little boy that I would name him Nathan Thomas. Thomas would be for the ancestor on my mom's side that came here from England in 1632. When I realized this couple had a little boy named Nathan and their last name was Thomas I felt another deep connection to them! I wrote them a letter and told them how our hearts were touched by their ministry to Mexico and how I loved the name Nathan. I told them our story and the amazing gift that Mary is. I got a sweet letter back from them thanking us for our support and for sharing our story and heart for Mexico. They asked us to keep in touch. Which we plan to do. Every day for lunch Mary and I pray over the food and we ask God to help the people in Mexico. When she is older I will have her write letters and do projects for the mission work there. It is just so amazing how God touches our hearts for other believers and brings about connections in our lives. I also realized how important it is to follow those nudges of the Holy Spirit and to love and support those who are laying their lives down for the gospel. If anyone would like to find out more about their ministry to Mexico you can see it here.

http://thomasmexico.org/Thomas_Family/Welcome.html

I just realized that today is Mexico's Independence Day! Happy Cinco de' Mayo!