What will they say about me?

Andy and I went on a date last weekend and

I got LA to take our picture before we left.

This morning we went to the funeral of a lady from our church, she was our friends' mom.  I did not know her that well but her children all spoke very well of her and wished that she could have lived longer so they could have had more opportunity to learn from her.  She was a strong Christian who did her best to follow the Lord. 

It made me wonder what people might say about me at my funeral?  What kind of legacy are Andy and I leaving for our children?  These are good questions to ask every once in a while, to make sure we are on the right track!  I have been blessed with a long line of Godly examples in my family, and as I thought about this today I was reminded of this lady, Marie.  She was my Great-great-great Grandma.  She was born in West Prussia in 1827 and had four sons and one daughter. In 1876 she moved to Russia, then moved to Asia in 1880, and then on to America in 1884.  All of this moving around was because they were Mennonites looking for religious freedom.  The following is from her journal.

So we lived with joys and sorrows, until April 9, 1866, when my dear husband passed away after an 11 day illness following a stroke.  So I remained alone with my orphans.  But God did not forsake me...  On June 4th 1868, I was married to Heinrich, but he too passed away on January 22, 1873...  Sometimes I feel forsaken by God and all who were dear to me.  But I thank God for His discipline for it is for our good.  I pray God to grant me grace that I may appear with my children before His throne and be able to say: "Lord, here am I, and those whom Thou hast given to me. Not a one of them is lost."  O God, grant me this grace.

Her life was very difficult, but her trust in God was strong!  I am thankful for her example.  There are many others I could write about too, God has blessed us with a strong Christian family, and that is a blessing we are very grateful for.  We pray daily that our children will follow the Lord their whole lives as well.  Then one day we will all be together forever, in heaven!

Psalm 145:4-5

One generation will commend your works to another;

they will tell of your mighty acts.

They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,

and I will meditate on your wonderful works.





Happy Chickens

Well, I can check one thing off my summer to-do list!  We got the chicken coop all done!  This February we got 25 baby chicks in the mail and they just started laying eggs a few weeks ago.  In the past we have always let our chickens roam free, but last year something ate them all, probaby a coyote or coon, who knows.  So we decided to build them a chicken coop this time. 

Andy built the nest boxes on the back, along with a window for light.  The top board slides back and forth so you can get to the eggs.

Hopefully the chickens appreciate their nice accomodations, it took me a long time to paint it all today!

Except for this one, she might be kind of mad at me, but she got too close to the paint brush!

A dry, thirsty land

Being a farmer's daughter, my mood seems to be fairly closely tied to the land and the weather.  The last couple weeks we have had temperatures over 100 degrees each day with no rain.  Since we were dry already to start with everything is looking pretty sad and thirsty.  The grass in the pastures is drying up and the farmers' corn isn't looking too good either.

This is our creek- isn't the water pretty?!?  ):  The people who lived here before us said the creek had never dried up in all the seven years they had lived here, but it has dried up both years we've lived here.  It still has a water in a few spots, but it's definitely not flowing.  We could sure use some rain.  All the dryness makes me feel dry right down to my soul.  They are forecasting a small chance of rain for the weekend so we are praying we'll get some.

This morning I was playing some hymns on the piano, and came across He Hideth My Soul, by Fanny Crosby.  It's one of my favorites, but it seemed especially good today, especially the chorus.  No matter what the weather or how we feel, God's love for us is immeasurable!

A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,

A wonderful Savior to me;

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,

Where rivers of pleasure I see.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock

That shadows a dry, thirsty land;

He hideth my life in the depths of His love

And covers me there with his hand.

Then I decided to read up about Fanny Crosby, since she wrote so many of our hymns.  She became blind as a baby, so her life was not easy.  She wrote this about her blindness.  "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." 

Fanny Crosby 1872

Then after she was married, she and her husband only had one child, a daughter, who died as an infant.  Knowing that gives the song more meaning, doesn't it?  Fanny Crosby wrote almost 9,000 hymns in her lifetime.  She didn't let the disability of being blind keep her from being used by God.

Our children's birthmoms

This sunflower bloomed in our yard this week- AJ said it was smiling!

A couple months ago I wrote the stories of how we adopted PD, DJ, SJ, and AJ, (click their name if you want to read them) but I didn't write much about someone very important in each of those stories, their birthmoms.  Our children's birthmoms have my respect and admiration, because they made a very, very difficult and selfless decision when they chose adoption for their children.  Our children's birthmoms loved their babies dearly, but they chose adoption for them because they knew they could not give their child the life they wanted for them.  They did what was best for their child, even though it was at great cost to them personally.  They were not looking for the easy way out, if they had wanted that, they would have chosen abortion.  They were not doing what sounded like the most fun, if they had, they would have parented their child. 

When I think back to those days when we were so happy to be receiving our child that we had waited and prayed so long for, our children's birthmoms were filled with sorrow at that same moment.  I remember hugging them as we cried together, telling them we would always love their child.  Adoption is such a mixture of joy and pain...

And now, we keep in contact with each of them, but some of our adoptions are more open than others.  Some of our birthmoms know our last name and address and everything, and some wanted a more semi-open adoption, so we just send letters and pictures through the adoption agency.  I send pictures and a letter about twice a year to each birthmom, letting them see how the kids are doing and how big they're getting.  We hear from them sometimes too, and the kids treasure the pictures and letters they have received.  Openness in adoption is not something to be feared.  It has given our kids peace of mind to know some information about where they come from.

DJ, SJ, PD, and AJ by their "mine" they built in the dirt pile

I am so thankful that our children's birthmoms chose life for their babies!  They are very brave women.  

Liberty Blue + a recipe!

Andy's smoking some BBQ chicken for our 4th of July supper tonight, so while we wait for it to cook I decided to show you our set of Liberty Blue dishes we are going to use this evening.  They are perfect for the 4th!  The dinner plate has Independence Hall pictured on the front.

We are also going to be having Aunt Mary Ann's Scalloped Potatoes- they are yummy and gluten free!  So many scalloped potato recipes have cream soups in them but this one doesn't.  So in case you're getting hungry here's the recipe-

Scalloped Potatoes

6-8 large potatoes, diced and cooked
1/2 c. butter
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
8 oz. sour cream
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
paprika

Put cooked potatoes into greased 9x13 inch pan.  Melt remaining ingredients except paprika and pour over potatoes.  Stir to combine.  Sprinkle top with paprika.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Now back to the dishes.  The dessert plate in this set has Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home on it.

For dessert tonight I made the guys some chocolate chip brownies.  I can't have those since I have to be off gluten, so I made myself some black bean chocolate brownies.  Don't those sound good?  (:  They're ok.  When I get desperate enough, I make them.  Of course, every dessert is better with a good cup of coffee, right?  This is the tea cup in the Liberty Blue set, (which we'll be using for coffee later) it has Paul Revere making his ride to tell the colonists that the British were coming.

  So you can see why these are the perfect dishes to use for the 4th of July.  Hope your day is going well and you enjoy the fireworks tonight!

Beat that heat

It seems like everyone is having hot dry weather these days.  Our boys like to put the sprinkler under the trampoline and jump that way to keep cool.  AJ and SJ were putting it to good use yesterday afternoon. 

Another way to keep cool is just stay inside in the air conditioning!  PD and DJ were busy building with their legos yesterday so I got this picture of them.  If we had to choose one toy at our house, it would be legos.  The boys play with them so much, there's always something new you can build!  Right now they were building airplanes and hangars.

I hope you're able to keep cool wherever you live!

Freedom

Happy July 4th week!  I hope you have a fun time celebrating our country's freedoms with your friends and family.  Our kids have their fireworks ready to go- hopefully they still have a few left to shoot off on the 4th! 

We have it so good here in our country!  I am thankful for all the brave men and women who have fought to give us the freedoms we have.  Andy has three grandpas who fought in wars, two fought in WWII, one in the navy and one in the air corps, and one fought in the navy in Vietnam.  I don't have photos of two of them from back then, but I do have this photo of his grandpa who was a navigator and gunner in the air corps in WWII in Europe.  He's the one in the middle on the bottom row.  Their plane was called the Lady Luck.

I'm sure that seeing the things that they saw in war changed their lives forever.  How could it not?  This grandpa in the photo was shot down once, the other grandpa that fought in WWII in the navy was on the USS New York and watched the Bismarck sink, and the grandpa that was in Vietnam was a commander on a minesweeper and a PT boat.  We see those things in the movies all the time, but to actually watch it in real life, I can't imagine.  We should always be grateful to them and to all who have helped to keep us free.

No, our country is not perfect, things don't go the way we would choose in the government more often than not, it seems.  But is there another country you would rather live in?  I can't think of one!  God has allowed us to live in a time of peace and safety here in our country.  We don't have to worry about violence, civil war, or bombings like so much of the world.  We have so much to be thankful for!