Summer ~ yay!

Well, I guess I was back..for a day. :D Summer is here and I seem to have been busier than ever. I thought once Emma was done with school, life would slow down a little bit. I thought wrong! Nevertheless, I am so thankful for the many blessings in my life. God has been so good to us. We are all happy and healthy loving God more and more each day!

Since I have last posted Emma has finished school, the Kitty I was talking about had her kittens and the weather finally got warm. However, we were so tempted to pull out sweaters over the 4th of July weekend. Of course, I for one refused to do so! ;) I am very happy with the way my flowers are going this year. Because of the lack of rain, I have been having to water almost everyday and I am loving it. Gives me an excuse to set the inside chores aside and get out and enjoy the sunshine. I have actually learned to consider my weeds a blessing. :)

We decided to keep the runt of the kitty litter and he is getting big fast! We named him Milo and the girls absolutely love having him around. I do too. And so does Jonathan. So even though he's been quite the brat it's working out great. For your enjoyment, here is a picture of his cute furry self. I will have to post more picture later.

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend with the family. I will have to blog and post pictures about that later. :)

I'm back...

Valentine's Day 2009 - They were happy daddy didn't forget about them... :)

I can't believe it has been over 6 months since I have last blogged. Emma started school and I couldn't seem to find the time to blog anymore. I have thought about it often, just never got around to it.

Since I last blogged, Winter has come and hopefully gone. We have had a very cold and snowy Winter this past year. The snow is only pretty to look at until Christmas. Once the hustle and bustle of the holidays are over with, so is my desire for snow. March has steadily been getting warmer. We are hoping that keeps up. Today was an absolute GORGEOUS day! The girls have spent most of the last 2 days playing outside. They are so happy to be outside again. Emma is on school lesson 131 of 165 and she will be all done with Kindergarten. She is doing so well. We are very proud of her. She is such an eager learner, which has made it so much easier on me. However, she is getting anxious to be done so she no longer has to worry about doing school before going outside to play. Thankfully, kindergarten is short days.

The girls are both growing like weeds. Everyone who has seen them lately, who hasn't seen them in a while, exclaim how big they have gotten! I know. I can tell by their cloths. They are both outgrowing everything. This week, I intend to go through bins of cloths and hope to find some cloths for Emma I had forgotten existed. What a nice surprise that would be!

Emma lost her two bottom teeth. She is the cutest lil' toothless 5 year old I have ever seen! :) She lost her first one on Valentine's Day while eating breakfast. At first we thought she swallowed it, but upon further inspection of her plate, daddy found it hiding in the strawberry cream cheese she was using to dip her strawberries in. She was a very relieved Emma when she found out that a.) she didn't swallow it. b.) it "didn't even hurt"! c.) she "didn't even bleed"! She lost her second one about a week and a half later while eating lunch and that one..she did swallow! It was no where to be found. She has one of her teeth coming in already!

Late last Summer, we "adopted" a Kitty. Well, someone had dropped her off and with begging girls to "keep" her..I gave in. We started feeding her and she decided to call us her very own. She is now a very preggo Kitty. She is due at the end of this month and the girls are so excited! They can't wait! I am kinda (I think) excited as well. I think it will be great for my girls to experience the whole kitten-kaboodle.

I will add pictures of the girls soon.

More Pictures..

I have taken 245 pictures in 2 days. Really. I just uploaded them onto my computer. "This crazy women has too much time on her hands" you say? Ahhh... yeess.... having your house clean and organized.... and making sure to stay on top of things.. gives you much more time on your hands. It really does.. and what a good feeling it is!

My Darlings...

Recent pictures of the girls.... taken just yesterday. They are both growing like little flowers... and blooming too. =) They have become the best of friends. Last weekend, (not this past but the other) Emma was in Columbus with her Auntie Lisa and Abigail didn't know what to do with herself. When Emma came back home Sunday evening, they were up late running around and giggling. They had a lot to catch up to. =)

All creatures great or small.....

Yesterday was a very busy day. I was indoors giving my house a complete, total much needed cleaning. I cleaned high, and I cleaned low.. I cleaned everywhere! Since I was cleaning the house, I felt compelled to go out and clean in the sun room as well. I kept pushing it out of my mind because there was so much to do inside. Surely the outdoors could wait for another day. Nonetheless, I kept getting this feeling that I should go out and clean my sun room and I kept pushing it out of my mind. Finally, about 5:00 I decided to take a break and I made a trip out on the deck to see what daddy and the girls were doing in the back yard. I was outside for just a few minutes when I had decided I better get back to work. On my way inside, I spotted this "almost" dead plant in my sun room, that I have been wanting to throw out for weeks now. So I decided I should just grab it now and stop putting if off. After removing the plant from the sun room, and out onto the deck (not completely deposing of it like I should have) I went back into the sun room. I started to walk back inside when something told me to turn around and start cleaning. I went back to the corner where the plant was and realized nothing needed cleaning.. so I started to once again turn around and come back inside. I knew I had so much to do inside, but I kept getting this feeling that I should start cleaning out in the sun room. Once again, I pushed this feeling aside and I started to come back inside, when something told me to turn around and look down..... about 3 feet to the left of where the plant was sitting I spotted a glob of something. I thought.."what is that"? As I walked closer to inspect I realized it was a female Ruby Throat Hummingbird. She was tangled in a lot of spider web, (the thick and sticky kind) and laid motionless on the ground. It was wrapped around her beak, wings and legs. I thought she was dead and as I leaned closer to take a better look, I heard a faint "peep". YYAYY..she was alive! I picked her up and brought her inside. She was so weak she didn't move. As I started to unwrap all the webs from around her beak, wings, and legs she gave another faint peep and then went still. I thought that perhaps she had died. I started to pray for her..."Lord, please don't let this little hummingbird die. You said your eye is on the sparrow and I know that surely your eye in on this tiny little bird as well. Please give her back her strength.. she is such a sweet little bird.. you know I love these hummingbirds.... and this precious tiny bird puts a smile on my face each time she comes in to my feeder. Please Lord, make her all better....in Jesus Name I pray... amen...." Afterward, I took some sugar water out of my refrigerator and put her beak in it. She immediately started to take a drink! Maybe a minute went by and she started to perk up! She raised her head, stood on her tiny feet and she started to adjust her little wings. Praise the Lord!! Before long she took a small flight and landed on my kitchen curtain and sat there looking at me. She let me grab her again, and within a minute I could tell she had gained more strenght and was ready to take a much longer flight!! I took her out and showed her to the girls, let them give her a little pet and when I opened my hand to release her, she immediately took flight near the top of a tree. Just about an hour later, I spotted a female hummingbird come to my window for just a few seconds before flying off again. It must have been that same little hummingbird, that came back to say "Thank You". =)

This was a wonderful experience for me. I thought... God cared enough for this tiny little creature, that He layed on my heart to go outside and clean. And even though I kept trying to push this "feeling" aside, He kept persisting. He never gave up. If He cares so much for this tiny little hummingbird, how much more does He care for us??!?! It makes me even more grateful for His wonderful grace and mercy. God knows how much these tiny little creatures fascinate me... He gave me a once in a lifetime opportunity... to actually get to hold one!!! God is so good... ALLLL the time!

P.S. Picture 1 and 2 was takin' before I prayed for the tiny hummer and picture 3 and 4 was after I prayed... see the difference?? Praise be to God! =)

Indian Run Falls

This past Tues. evening Jonathan, the girls and I went to Columbus to visit Jonathan's sister, Lisa. Wends. morning we went to Indian Run Falls, a gorgeous place hidden in the busy city of Dublin. It was a beautiful, cool day. Just perfect really! Above are a few pictures taken and you can see more on our Picsa Photo Site. The girls had a GRAND time and are already asking us to go back. The water was low enough for us all to step in. The girls did not want to leave! If it weren't for the hunger that was taking a toll on us all, who knows when we would have left! Thankfully, it is within 5 miles of Lisa's house and we can surely go back sometime!

Cherries - what a blessing!

Cherries all washed and ready to be pitted......

Cherries with sugar, flour and almond extract added, ready
for baking pie, but going in the freezer for now....

cherry pie just before covering with top crust...

cherry pie... fresh out of the oven....

This morning as Jonathan, the girls and I were being lazy, still laying in bed at 9:00... our phone rang. It was my friend Miriam asking me if I wanted to go pick cherries. She had a friend that had 3 cherry trees with lots of cherries that told her to tell anyone she wants that they can have how much they want. U=pick of course. So off the girls and I went to meet Miriam and off we went to this friends house. WOW - the trees were beautiful and I was very pleased to hear they were "organic cherries"..never been sprayed.....we picked lots of 'em! I picked over 12 lbs. and Miriam and her daughter picked alittle over 14lbs. Had it not been for the thunderstorm that came along and ran us off, we would have ended up with so much more! It is probably good the thunderstorm did come along, as it took me about 5 1/2 hours to wash, pit, make cherry pie filling for freezing, make and bake a cherry pie. I have enough cherries frozen to make another 5 pies. YUMMY! I feel so blessed... I made one with the fresh cherries but unfortunately this pie will have to wait until tomorrow to be taste tested. It's 11:00 and Jonathan and the girls are asleep and I dare not eat pie this time of the night. =) I better ski-daddle to bed myself...