sweet flowers...

Same fabric... slightly different designs....

Kyria's 

Anya's

Mikalah's

I had fun... the girls looked adorable - but I forgot to get pictures of them IN the dresses! - BOTH times they've worn them! :D  Maybe the next time they wear them :).... but wanted to get up these pictures. We have been busy - me at home and John with preparation for our church's 4th Annual Honor Service.  I had a sweet friend purchase some fabric that I LOVED ... she was saying "thank you" to me. I am going to use it to recover the seats of the dining chairs we recently acquired as well as making matching place-mats. Each of my previous sets of place-mats are in 4s... and we now have *6* chairs (Praise the Lord - as we currently have 5 members of our family!!) :D I will post pictures of that when they are complete - so that may be a little while. 

Mikalah is ALL over the place!! She is starting to try to cruise the furniture... so, watch out world: HERE I COME!!

Anya's enunciation is getting clearer DAILY now. She is very interested in letters and cooking and pretty much anything Kyria does! :D She can identify about 10-12 letters all by herself... and she tries to count to 10 :) and usually skips 4 and 7.

Kyria is learning and growing and being a good big sister. She is ecstatic about starting kindergarten soon. I have shifted my thoughts for her dress from play function to school function (not a big difference at moment); and I am contemplating making her a bag I saw on a blog recently (??) but I'll have to find it again :D

John is keeping his head above water :D but is often swamped with work - he calls it job security :D. We are both thankful to the Lord that he has a job as we still know people that do not. 

I am staying busy, busy, busy with sewing, cleaning, cooking, rearranging, playing, cleaning, correcting, singing, cleaning, reading....... and oh, so much more!! :D I have been fighting some sinus/chest congestion for about 6 weeks now, but have been able to fight through most days and sitting up most nights. (Yes, Mom, :) I am taking my echinacea!) All is well and better than we deserve... God is ONLY good!

A Mighty God!!!!!!

This past Sunday, Kyria's choir class sang...

 they are SOOO cute :D

ENJOY

Also, this past Sunday our church had Men's Night.

The men of our church formed the choir and different men spoke.

I was able to get the choir special on video:

ENJOY!

Award

Thank you, Rachel, for this award. 

Rachel Smith has kindly given me this award. She has a wonderful, Godly spirit; and she currently serves the Lord with her pastor husband in lower Alabama at Crossroads Baptist.  We met at college where she was my very first room-leader. She was a Godly example then; and she has continued to be thus as we have become reacquainted through blogging.

The rules of receiving this award are:

1. Accept the gift and post it on your blog with a link to the person that awarded it to you.

2. Pass the award along to other blogs that you enjoy and find to be lovely.

I pass this LOVELY BLOG award on to old and new friends that I have enjoyed reading since I entered the blogging world (some of them have not updated recently - but I have enjoyed them in the past).

April

Heidi

Kristy

Jennie @

MySpot

I probably would have awarded to a few more... but Rachel beat me to it :) and I so many of the blogs I follow have not been updated recently - I know that people are busy... So I leave it at these 4.

Thank you again, Rachel! I enjoy keep up with your family and your projects! 

Stand UP!

YEAH!!!

I got the phone!!

Look at me, Mom!

some of my flowers...

these actually look deep purple... 

until you see the sunlight through them-

very interesting :)

from my hanging baskets

one of my day-lilies 

I have several... but not all have bloomed yet

my light pink gladiolus 

more of my "purple"

gladiolus

Yes, Mikalah is pulling up and is quite anxious to be off and running!! :) She does not know how to sit back down yet, so she gets upset after a few minutes of standing - she is SOOO funny. 

I am in the process of making a dress for Kyria. She is going to be the flower girl in a wedding this fall. I have the main body finished and will post pics when it is done ;) 

John's dad will be coming to the states next week to stay for a while for some medical tests and check-ups. Please pray that he will have safety traveling from Japan. Sandy will be staying there; so please pray for her as well.

Last week we had many blessings fall upon our family... to name a few: John got me a new stove/oven (isn't he a nice man?-THANK YOU, Sweetheart!), the Lord provided a new dining table for us (John just had to pick it up), and I got shelves (very NICE shelves) above my washer/dryer (Thank you, Daddy!!). WOW - it was an overwhelming week; but in a good way! :)

After such a cool spring, we are now into the HOT weather... though not as bad as some places.... it is PLENTY too hot for me! :)

Pray you all have a great weekend!

just pics

Well, just a couple pics from the park... 

not time to write much...

I see you...

oh... this is a big one!

like my hair??

not really sure about this...

I am a BIG girl!

Anya doesn't move quite as quickly as Kyria :) I had a few more pictures of her, but they all looked funny ... :) we had a great week... a great anniversary... and I'll try to update more info a little later...

Rise & Shine...

Waking up with smiles!!

John put Mikalah on the top with Kyria...  

Anya climbed up herself :)

HOW FUN!

and, no, not every morning is this happy or exciting :) 

 -- but we try :D

Sunday beauties....

Well, here's some pics of the girls from this past Sunday. We were actually ready with a couple of minutes to spare... 

so here you go...

new shades

the sun was shining brightly...

she looks like an angel!

she was a bit tired... 

she got up about an hour earlier than usual

thus the blank stare

spinning & twirling

yes, we know....

we're CUTE!

We've had an eventful week... Please pray for Anya and for wisdom... she has some problems that we are trying to figure out.... the doc just wants to give us pat answers... and I'm not satisfied with that... 

BUT God is in control, and He is only good! I've moved furniture around this week... still sorting some little stuff that seems to just get in the way - yet cannot just be  thrown away... looking forward to different family peoples visiting with us soon.... Please pray for John's parents as his dad will be coming back for Dr. checkups and his mom will be staying in Japan. (They are missionaries.)

My hubby has a new blog... where he posts political/economical thoughts... He finds some of the most unusual news information sometimes. I believe his opinion is Godly, and he always incorporates a spiritual truth.  Since the mainstream news is mostly depressing to me, I enjoy reading his opinions; and the way he expresses them always makes me smile! :) Hope you read it and smile, too!

Interesting Read...

5 Character Flaws That Are Destroying America's Future

from Townhall.com

by John Hawkins

point excerpts... 

1) Lack Of Personal Responsibility: As a society, we encourage a "victimhood mentality" and an overweening government that never met an issue it didn't want to dive into with both feet; so we shouldn't be surprised that so many Americans expect to be rewarded for failure.

2) Short Attention Spans: Perhaps because of the internet, the stunning variety of news sources, or the complexity of modern society, we've become much less able as a people to follow logical arguments and deal with complex messages.

3) Excessive Self-Esteem: Perhaps because we've spent decades trying to pump up the self-esteem of children in our public schools, irregardless of whether they've done anything to merit it, we have legions of people in our society who have an excessive level of confidence in their beliefs and abilities.

4) Short Term Thinking/Instant Gratification: Thomas Sowell once said that killing the goose that laid the golden egg can be a viable election strategy as long as it doesn't die until you're out of office and no one finds your prints on the murder weapon.

5) Immorality: The default mode of Hollywood is hedonism and we've been told again and again, at least since the Clinton years, that character doesn't matter for our elected officials.

 read more...

very well said... please read the WHOLE article...