Enjoying Nature!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day, so my sister Karla, and I took the kids to the Springfield Nature Center.  All but Gavin and Jadon...they are in school.  (I wish their spring breaks were the same week.)  I am sure we walked at least ten miles....well maybe five...I don't know, it was a long walk, anyway.  But FUN!  Here's some pics of the seven kids enjoying God's beautiful creation.

Count off.....before we start...just to make sure we end up with everybody.  Ages:  11, 10, 8, 7, 4, 3, 2.

They wanted me to take pictures of the deer.  I don't know why.....we have deer grazing in our back yard.  Just happened to catch this one at an inappropriate time.  Oops!

 

 Now this is REAL rock climbing!! 

We love skipping rocks!

Awesome day!!  And thank you to the big kids for helping with the little kids!
Love you all,
Mema

For Me, For You

This is a poem written by Todd and I found it this morning in my Bible as I was reading in the Psalms.  I love it because I do not have the gift of expressing my feelings with beautiful words as David does in Psalms.  But this poem gives me comfort that Jesus takes my feeble efforts and transforms them into eloquence to my Father.

"I would love to compose for You, a beautiful symphony.

I would love to weave for You, an intricate tapestry.

I would love to perform for You, an eloquent soliloquy.

All for You.


But my song always ends in painful cacophony.

My tattered threads reveal my frailty.

My words are simple and lack profundity.

I've nothing to give.


And You take my broken chords and compose a beautiful symphony.

With my tattered threads You weave an intricate tapestry.

You make my words an eloquent soliloquy.

And You give them to me

To give to You."

Amen!!

Ouch!

Baseball practice has started in Houston.  Lucas and Micah are both playing Little League and their season starts earlier than ours so they have already been on the fields.

Lucas is playing second base and doing a great job, but last Saturday the grounder he was fielding took a bad hop and caught him right in the eye!

This is right after it happened!

This is Sunday morning after he had slept on it all night!

This is a few days later......looks so much better.

 

This just shouldn't happen to that handsome face, although I think he was rather proud of it.  I guess boys wear those things like a badge of honor.  Go figure!  Sure did hurt me to see it and think about it.

You're one tough guy, Lucas!!!

Love,

Mema 

A Day In The Park

What a beautiful First Day of March!!  The kids and I thought this would be a perfect day to take a lunch to the park to eat and to play on the playground.  So here's a few pics of our fun day.

 

One problem......bathrooms are not open Nov. 1 to April 1.  So....we make a trek up to the zoo to use theirs.  They just had to look at the hippo while we were there.  Thank goodness for my "grandparents pass."  

Jude is 3!

Last Saturday morning our family gathered at Jude's house to celebrate his birthday number 3!  Jude said that he wanted an ice cream party....so he had an ice cream party.  We had homemade ice cream, and snow ice cream and chocolate ice cream with all kinds of "fixins", plus brownies.

That blue ball on the table is full of ice cream.  That's what you make it in.  Heather put the ingredients in it, then she and the kids and anyone else who wanted to rolled it around and around until the ice cream was made.

 On to the presents....

These boys are good huggers!

Are you comfy, Haven?

Such a fun party...but hard to believe that Jude Ezra is already 3 years old.

Love you so much, Jude!

Mema

Tea Time!

We decided to have a Tea Party for our morning snack.  Tea and Toast...yummy.  Haven is the designated pourer with her little pink teapot.  Tea, toast and "Go Diego", what more can they ask?

Smile, Jude!

Jude is the dipper.  Toast into tea isn't bad....but yesterday I saw him dipping his grapes into his ketchup.  Euuwww.

Smile, Cael!

Cael is more into the toast than the tea.  

Mmmmm! This is what I'm talking about......Rooibos Chai....my new favorite!  "Delicious caffeine-free chai with cinnamon, vanilla, ginger and lemongrass." 

I am going to go now and enjoy sipping my lovely tea.

Have a wonderful day!!

Donna

February Thaw

Well, it's Wednesday, February 16th and almost all of the big snow is gone.  In fact, it was over 60 degrees today and I told the grandkids that since I needed to go in to the Post Office and bank, that maybe we should just drop by the zoo and see if any animals are out there taking advantage of the nice weather.  They thought that was a great idea!

We just came out of the snake house.

 Looking at the hippo.....

 

They are doing a lot of work on storm drainage around the zoo, but it was just nice to get outside and walk around.  The backyard is still too wet and soft to let the kids play out there...today anyway....maybe tomorrow.

Today was ZOO-RI-FIC!!