Thursday, February 24, 2011

Savior, Please - Josh Wilson

No pictures today, just a video. :) Enjoy!




(By the way... I didn't make this video, I just looked up the song, and-- *BOOP!* There it was. Ripe for the clicking. :) I love this song! Especially right now.)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Sometimes, When I'm Feeling Overwhelmed...


...I just whip out the pictures of this sweet sweet face and listen to This Song. :) Why that song? Simple. If I'm sitting on my bed, it makes me go "Boing, boing, boing." If I'm sitting on the couch, it makes me go, "Thwump, thwump, thwump." If I'm standing in the livingroom, it makes me go "Dance, dance, jump"-- and if I'm cooking it makes me go "Cook, cook, JOY!" And joy makes most everything better. Agreed?

Why NOT that song? That's the better question. ;)




(You know, it's a good thing he's not older... 'Cause one look in my direction like this, and I just go weak at the knees.) ;)





P.S. Isn't he FABULOUS??

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Valentine's Day


Ah, Valentine's Day. The yearly reminder to keep loving our loved ones in ways that make them know it. :)

You know, way back in the day, I can't particularly remember doing anything on Valentine's Day. We used to get little Valentine cards in the mail from my grandparents, and we always loved that... that was always something to look forward to. But other than that, there just seemed to be a lot of random red, pink and white candies that made their way into our lives... And also, of course, we used to make gazillions of Valentine cards for our parents and siblings. Tons and tons.

But, other than that, it was just a regular day.

This Valentine's Day, somehow, while all of these old traditions have carried on into the younger set of children (more or less), we somehow ended up celebrating with a little more "Umph." Baking, dressing up, wearing pink, taking pictures, drinking hot beverages out of red cups with hearts on them, and having tea parties were all included amongst the festivities.

It all began with a morning outburst of "Happy Valentine's Day!" from all of the little kids and a shower of cards that they had made flying in all directions, each one making its way to the person whose name was written in red on the inside.

Now, I would give this story a middle and an end to make that beginning more... um, beginningy, but I just don't have the time for that right now. So, instead, I'll just caption the pictures below and you can just imagine (by those captions and pictures) how wonderful the day must have been for yourself. Also, if you check out My Other Blog you can see some of the other things I did during that day.

Mom and I decided to try on some Valentine-esq. shoes for the day. So here are our feet. I didn't bother to take of my socks, 'cause that would have been cold.




I then added to the shoes a few more garments which were suited to the occasion.


And a flower to my head. :)



Anna wore pink. And white. And a smile. :)



Tabsy wore pink too, and the three of us took some photos together.



Then I borrowed Leah's coffee mug and had some hot coffee. Isn't it purty?


Oh, ----AND! Mom gave me a chocolate!




The End.

What did you do for Valentine's Day this year? :)

Saturday, February 5, 2011

The First Week of February


Well, this week has been a good one. Our family continues on our day by day early rising schedule, and we're doing quite well with it. I'm pleased to find that I am having an easier time with it than I would have expected, actually-- I think it must be because of my 21 day challenge just before this.

This week's activities... well, the ones I am going to elaborate on, would be-- Chocolate! Surprise, surprise. Valentine's chocolates, St. Patrick's Day chocolates, and just... other chocolates. :) We're getting ready for the upcoming holidays by getting The Website updated. Here are some of the things we've been working on.

St. Patrick's Day - Irish Cream fudge, coated in dark chocolate.





Cinnamon Heart Fudge - Valentine's Day special. The little Petite Fours (pictured first on this entry) are this kind of fudge coated in chocolate and, obviously, cut into smaller pieces.




Dark Chocolate Rum Raisin fudge. Coated in dark chocolate.




This here is an interesting thing... I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Dad thought that since our Chocolate Crunchies (a mixture of Captain Crunch, pretzels, marhsmallows, rice crispies, chocolate chips, etc.) are so popular, making a heart out of it might be a cute thing for Valentine's Day. The heart stands up in a ring of the same mixture.



And of course, little heart sprinkles to finish it. :)

Overall, this week has been good. I know that's not a very informative thing to say, but... it summarizes the general feel of the week. I'll try to be back next week, hopefully with a more interesting update. In the meantime, God bless, and have an amazing last 26 minutes of Saturday and an INCREDIBLE week next week! :)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Day #21


Well, here we are-- the last day! I'm FREEE to do whatever I want!! Ah hahahahahaha!!

...Just kidding. ;)

Today I got up at 6:30 because Mom and I were going to make coffee, tea, and breakfast together before everyone else in the house got up at 7. Yes, 7. Mom decided yesterday that we ALL need to be up by 7 every day, so now we're all on a habit changing schedule! And we're keeping ourselves accountable to a large chart in our dining room (made by moi). Every morning, we all get up and come put a sticker on the chart if we got up by 7. At the end of the month, whichever people have a sticker on every day will get "A treat." Ooh hoo hoo. Treats. Love 'em. B-)



Here's a photo of the chart from the bottom--



(Mom's name wasn't on there originally, but she wanted me to add it. So there it is. With flowers. :) )

Now, these next couple of photos are of a treat that we already got-- just because we're so cute. :-P

When Mom and Dad were in Amish country recently, they came across a store that was selling plaques with names, their meanings, and scripture verses on them. And... :D They were able to get a plaque for every kid in our family, including the ones with more unusual names (Micaiah, Tirzah, Keturah, etc.) They were really excited about this especially, since it's difficult to find the meanings of their names just anywhere.



I love them. :) The thing is, we realized pretty quickly that some of the Bible verses have the wrong references. (Mine, for example-- The correct reference for this verse is 2 Samuel 22:33). So we'll be sending some of them back, I think, to get them fixed.


Anyway... :) What a marvelous day this has been! And it's still in the beginning stages. I'm just.... Mm!mm.... :D! This morning my heart burst into a smile and started to fly (for a variety of reasons). Do you know what that feels like? It's AMAZING! I highly recommend trying it out.

Have a wonderful week, everyone! Hopefully all of this habit building has gotten me into the habit of keeping my blog more faithfully... so maybe this year, it'll actually become what I wanted it to when I started it. We'll see!