Random...

Just some pictures I thought worth sharing...:o)

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Daddy, Mommy and little ones-

thought we matched well enough to take a picture of...:o)

Mommy and Kaitriana

Damien & cousin Stevie

Oh, look at this fine fellow!

And notice the grin on his face:o) This was one huge old frog!

Do you think if she would've kissed him....

Our newest lamb...he was a single birth, and really good-sized--

looked like about a week old soon after he was born...I

don't know how old he was by the time this pic was taken, but isn't he adorable!

What a cute smile!!!:o)

One of Ty's bunnies-

he recently built, mostly by himself, this very nice new hutch to

accommodate his latest litter of little ones.

"Thumper"

Kite flying weather...unfortunately there's one caught out in one of our

trees in the front yard. The tree is going to have to come

down anyway before long so I guess it will probably

have to stay there until the tree comes down, as it's not

really climbable unless you're too small to climb up that far, or a cat!

Sad to say, this one got lost!

Ahhh, this was probably the BEST lemon meringue pie I have ever eaten!!!

Made by my sister, Bridgette, from scratch (I have to add that

because it really makes all the difference in the world, don't you agree!)

It was so wonderful I just had to post a picture of it!

I wonder if seeing this picture in years to come will

help me remember how it tasted... Just a little reminder for us, to thank

God today for the gift of being able to taste!:o)

One of the boys took this picture, isn't it beautiful!
"Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time

forth and forevermore!

From the rising of the sun to its going down

the LORD’s name is to be praised."

from Psalm 113

Our Tribute To The Best Daddy In The World

This post is dedicated to our Daddy/husband, who we

think is the best man in the world!

We always think that, but in the month of June we

especially get to celebrate that fact!

Father's Day, 2010...To the best Daddy in the world!

"Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him."

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Kaiti and Jensy assisting Daddy with his gifts-

We all went in together and bought him a new stereo

system as ours was long over the hill-

We really love to be able to hear good music,

when we're not making it ourselves!

Our Daddy works so hard to provide and care for all of us...
Thank you, Daddy, you do such a good job!
"You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How happy you will be!
How rich your life!"


Our Daddy plays with us...
Thank you for the time you spend with us, Daddy-
we love hanging out with you!


Our Daddy takes such good care of us and is so much fun to be with!
He is a great example of Godliness, manliness, faithfulness, unselfishness, friendliness and goodness...the list could go on!:o)
"How happy are those who fear the Lord- all who follow His ways!
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine, flourishing within your home.
And look at all those children!
There they sit around your table as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees.
That is the Lord's reward for those who fear Him."
THANK YOU, FATHER GOD!

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Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Our Daddy loves peanut butter cream pie, so instead of cake we
had that on his birthday-

Time for presents...

can you handle this by yourself, Daddy?!:o)

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We also had an extended family birthday dinner for him, at Pop's, with more of his favorite food- Amie made lasagna (she makes the best lasagna!)

and Bridge made him blackberry cobbler.

You'll have to take my word for it though-

don't know that we have any pictures of it-:o)

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Nathan's birthday party with friends- this time we did have cake, and yes, maybe it was a bit repetitious, but I wanted him to have a garden cake too, as he is the master gardener around here! And it was supposed to be a surprise party

at the Swope's nice, comfortable reception room,

BUT I didn't cover my tracks well enough so...

It was still a nice party though with lots of good friends...

thanks so much to all of you for sharing!

And a special thank you to the Swopes for letting

us use your place for the party!

"May the Lord continually bless you from Zion."

~*~*~

WE LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU, DADDY!!!

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--All Scripture quotations taken from Psalms 127 & 128 (NLT)--

Growing Things

~"Growing Baby"~

Mommy decided that it's my turn to post this time, at least the first part of this post, so here goes! One of my brothers found me busily "working" on the computer lately. I'm getting to be a real copy-cat, and like to try to do and be what I see other people around me doing and being and saying! And I LOVE to be outside...give me the great outdoors any day, over a crazy computer! Well, that's all I have to say for now...I hate to sit still in one place for very long at all, so I'll let Mommy take over again-:o)

~Growing Raspberries~

The little raspberry bushes we planted are coming right along-yum!

~Growing Tadpoles~

Yes, in the house:o) I've always liked tadpoles and tiny toads, (whether these are for sure toads or frogs, I can't say) but anyway they make a good creation/science lesson! And not to worry, they're contained! Here Damien holds baby brother up for a closer look (and for the picture!:o)


"What do you see, Kait?"


The tiny tadpoles slowly grow back legs which get bigger and bigger. Then suddenly one day, their front legs appear- kind of "pop out" instead of growing slowly like the back ones, and their tails shrink. You can see in the picture we have gravel in their little "pond" and built a bridge out of it so that when the time comes they can crawl out on dry land. Somehow they know when it's time! We feed them our goldfish Dorothy's, fish food. She doesn't mind sharing!

This little guy is out of the water but you can still see a wee bit of tail left on him. Shortly after they come out on the rocks, we release them to the wild again, where they can find what they need to eat. I'm sure their wise Creator, who put in them the instinct when to come out of the water, also put in them the instinct of what to eat out there.

Anyway it's a fun learning experience!

~Growing Little Boys~

Here is Damien and his cousin, Jordan, standing back to back. See how big they're getting! They were born 9 days apart and both started out being

pretty good-sized baby boys!

~Growing Plants~

Here is the wonderful greenhouse that Nathan and Chad have worked so much on! It is heated (in the concrete floor with water heated in our outdoor wood heater) so hopefully we can grow things in the winter too.

The inside of the green house- at the top of the picture you can see the watering system that Chad made with a big barrel- water is put into the barrel and heated by the sun...warmer water is not a shock to your plants as colder water is.

Concrete walkways with dirt beds in-between and along the one side-

This is more of a cloud formation picture, but it has the peak of the greenhouse roof in it!:o)

~Growing BIG Fish~

This is a huge gar that Aubrey caught out back!

It was around 50" long and weighed about 15 lbs.!

They have rows of extremely sharp teeth in those long snoots- Look out!

~Growing Little Chickens~

You may not be able to see it very well, but Damien is holding one of our peeps that we hatched out, in the incubator. Right now we have a mama hen setting on 15 eggs, so we'll see if she can do a better job than an incubator!

~Growing a Rock Garden~

Actually the rock garden has been there for some time, but was in need of a little TLC, so Chad was helping me do that--it looks so nice now! Between that and the other yard work we were doing, he hauled lots of gravel! Thanks Chad-it looks great!:o)

Another year older

On turning another year older...I recently celebrated another birthday. Yes, you did read that right- I celebrated it!:o) I used to kinda resist the idea, maybe even "spas" about it a little. But that was a long time ago!:o) Now I'm just so grateful that God has blessed me with another year and I know that the only other option to getting old, is to die young (or younger) and if you don't want that, then you may as well grow older thankfully and graciously! And while I'm not necessarily going to broadcast my age on a blog, I am so grateful for every year that the Lord has allowed me to live, for every morning He has let me wake up to His new mercies for that day, for the awesome blessings He has bestowed on me all along the way, and for all the times He has carried me over the rough and trying spots in my life. So I guess for me, a birthday celebration is really a thanksgiving celebration to God for all the blessings of life He's so lovingly given to me! Thank You, Father God for another year!Isn't this just the cutest cake!! My sister makes such cool cakes and this is a special garden scene, with a white fence and flowers around it and plants growing in the dirt. You can even see the carrots growing in the dirt below ground where the one piece has been cut out and decorated! So the whole cake was a real hit with me because I love gardens and chocolate cake---how much better could it get?!:o) Thanks, Bridge, you did a lovely, yummy job!:o) Also my baby sister made my birthday supper, a wonderful meal of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and rolls...very good AND I didn't have to make a thing! Thanks, Am!:o) What a wonderful thing family is and how special to have sisters!:o)

I don't like posing alone...and why should I, when I have all these dear people
around to share my life with!

My grandma posing with us--did someone say "cake"? She'll be right there!:o)
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On my birthday, Nathan and the two little ones took me over to some of our friends who have greenhouses, and I picked out some flowers and we also got a bunch of flowering bushes to plant in front of the house. And when I got home from my birthday supper over at my folks, SURPRISE!!! I saw that the boys had made the bed for the bushes while I was gone! What a neat birthday gift! Here is Damien carrying some of the flowers to their new home:o) Poor guy, he had a cold and didn't feel too great that day-


Faithful Aubrey digging holes and planting lots of bushes! Thanks, Bub, great job!:o)

Nathan...My Honey Bun...Daddy...it's a family blog, what am I s'posed to call him? Well, he's all of the above and more:o) so anyway, yes, you can see it's him...He did a wonderful job on our front porch, with the lattice--now we just need to get the gravel and the rest of the "black stuff" put down in the beds, hopefully this week...

Thanks, Honey Bun for all your hard work around here!:o)

Tyler doing most of the back-breaking and building work on my new flower garden up by the road--my sister gave us the old wheel. Thanks Ty, you did an awesome job!

The finished deal--I'm looking forward to seeing how it'll look when the flowers "grow up"!:o)

My baby dears--the weather has suddenly gotten quite warm!

Yeah, maybe winter's finally over!:o)

Jensy "riding" in our back yard...

My sweet Kaiti Beth...

Bow Shoot

The Bow Shoot that Nathan took some of the boys to last Saturday. It was a traditional archery competition--even though it was a cloudy sort of day, and wet and muddy from all the rain we've had recently, they had a great time! Tyler taking careful aim...


Damien shooting at an elk target

Looks like Aubrey is giving it everything he's got!

He always was our "Robin Hood":o)

Ty and his friend, Drew

We've enjoyed finding and collecting some of these,

left behind by archers of the past...

Who were they- These archers of long ago?

If April showers bring May flowers,

what do May showers bring?

Arrowheads!

Heavy downpours bring them to the light of day-

If these old arrowheads could talk, imagine the interesting stories

they might tell us!

We've also found some things made from glass/pottery...

I don't seem to have a knack for finding anything too great, but the boys do.:o) We found a piece of earthenware or ironstone, with enough writing on it to look it up--it says "stone china" on it with the name J.W. Pankhurst & Co. It was made in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. J.W. Pankhurst & Co. produced earthenware and ironstone during the years 1850-1883, at which time someone else took over the business after Pankhurst went bankrupt. So I assume from my findings that this piece is from that time period... I wonder who all handled it, ate off it or used it for food of some kind, and how did this piece end up where it did... I surmise from the various different things that have come from that one place, that Native Americans and settlers have both lived there at some time or another, or else the one had articles belonging at one time to the other. I just love history!