Wordless Wednesday

My son found this creature in our basement! Yikes!!

 

Rebekah's Birthday and a Not So Bad Flop

My first daughter, and fourth child, Rebekah, just recently turned 17! Wow! Where does the time go?

The day she was born I was on cloud nine! Finally a girl after having three boys! She wore a lot of pink and headbands. I even had her ears pierced when she was 9 months old. I did not want anyone to ever mistake her for a boy! Believe it or not, I still had an older man call her a boy!

Rebekah is now a beautiful, 17 year old, young woman, inside and out! She is very hard working. She will be a senior next year and also is in TBQ (Teen Bible Quiz) and studies very hard! Her team is going to the National Competition soon! She works at Chick-fil-A to earn money for college and maybe a car. I am so proud of all her hard work, but I am especially proud of her dedication to the Lord and living her life for Him! 

Rebekah with Anna 

Happy Birthday Rebekah!

I usually order a cake from Walmart for most of the Birthdays around here. As the children have gotten older they seem to appreciate a home made cake a bit more.  Rebekah wanted a special chocolate cake, so I found this recipe.  I decided to make a white cream filling to go in the middle instead, so there would not be too much chocolate, (if there is such a thing!).

Well, things did not go as planned! About 20 minutes into baking, Luke comes in and asks "what is that horrible smell"? Chocolate Cake Baking is not supposed to smell horrible!

One minor detail that I overlooked is that I was supposed to put the batter into two 10 inch pans and not 9 inch pans. The batter was overflowing all over the oven! It was burning on the burners. Yikes!

Well, I decided to let it keep baking and see if I could salvage anything. It seemed a bit crispy on top. I decided to put in an emergency call to Leigh, Jeremy's girlfriend. She works at the Bakery at Walmart and is an amazing cake decorator. She made a beautiful cake for Rebekah.

Rebekah and Anna being very silly!

I eventually made the icing and the cream center and put the cake together.  It was falling apart a bit, and crumbs were everywhere when I put the icing on. It was a little sorry looking, but it tasted amazing!

This is their version.

Mine

Yummo!

 I will have to try it again using the right size pans! This cake was very yummy and the Chocolate Ganache Icing is almost like eating Fudge! We really enjoyed the white cream center to break it up a bit!

Have An Awesome Weekend!

 

Pregnancy Prayer List Update

I am a little behind on updating the Pregnancy Prayer List. Most of you all probably already know that Danielle had her baby, but for those of you don't here is the info.

Congratulations to Danielle and her husband Joseph on the birth of their baby boy Seth.Seth was born on Monday June 14th at 9:24 p.m. He weighed 6 lbs 14 oz. Mommy and baby are doing well.  They did go through a few scary things, but God brought them through and they are doing well. Praise the Lord! You can read  updates from Danielle here.

Please remember to keep the ladies on the Pregnancy Prayer List in your prayers. Also if you or someone you know would like to be added, please leave me a comment or send me an email. I would be happy to add you!

Have an Awesome Wednesday!

 

My New Design and Snapshots Of My Garden

First, let me say a huge Thank You to my dear Hubby for all his hard work on my new design! He is one Amazing Person! I ask him if this can be done and he figures out a way to make it happen.  He is brilliant with the computer! I just wish I had better skills at designing things! We will still be tweaking a bit here and there.

Dear Hubby, Thank You from the bottom of my heart for all your hard work and your patience with me!

I Love You!

Now, on to my garden. I was wanting to take pictures of my garden every week, each week, to see what the difference was. These pictures were taken on Day 10. Now it has been 3 weeks and I have not taken any more pictures.

Please do not make fun of me! :) I am a city girl trying to live like a country girl and I am learning as I go along!

Everything is sprouting up and seem to being doing well so far. I needed to weed out some of the plants when these pictures were taken, but this has since been done. We planted extra seeds on purpose so that something would grow.

Everything was planted from seed except for the green onions, Strawberries, and Lavender. The green onions were planted from onion sets and the Strawberries and Lavender were from plants.

Corn

Another view of the corn.

Cucumbers

Sunflowers

Tomatoes

Green Onions

Lettuce

 I planted Strawberries and Lavender last year and they are supposed to come back year after year.

Strawberries

The Strawberries are a variety that are supposed to produce all Summer long. They seem to be in a rest period right now, but are starting to bloom again.

The Lavender is doing well. I probably need to move it to a flower bed though. It would be nice to have this space for more vegetables.

The hydrangeas are in full bloom. The blooms are a bit small though and they are a variety of colors. I need to look into some kind of plant food for them. I believe I have heard that there is something that helps the color be more even. If you know of anything I can feed them, let me know.

The butterfly bush is literally taking over! It has grown so huge and the blooms are huge too! Please do not tell dear hubby that I really think early next year we need to move this bush, he might think I have lost my mind! Just let that be our little secret! OK?

I really enjoy this bush! It attracts a lot of butterflies!

I do not know what these little beauties are called, but I need to find out! I planted them last year in this barrel and they came back this year looking like this! I need another plant because there is one bare spot because I planted another kind of plant in that spot and it did not come back.

And then there are the flowers that I bought this year that still have not gotten planted! I keep saying hopefully I will do it soon, but that soon never seems to happen. 

Hopefully it will be...........

 

New Blog Design

Hubby and I have been working again on a New Blog Design. I was wanting something a little different and fun. I had a few ideas and Hubby did all the work. You will probably notice some tweaking going on in the next few days. I am trying to figure out how I want everything all laid out.

 I am tired and need to go to bed, so I will be back tomorrow to do more tweaking!

Good Night!

 

As Per Lynnette's Request

Lynnette asked us to post pictures that represent us. Actually, I do not have a lot of pictures of me. I am usually the one behind the camera. I am one who prefers to do my hair and put on makeup before having my picture taken. Since I do not wear makeup everyday, you will not see a lot of pictures of me here! I do like to take pictures of my kids though, so you will see a lot more of them!

Hubby and I, Twenty-six years ago

Hubby and I about a year ago.

My hair is a little longer now and layered. I am getting sick of it though and I am thinking about cutting it again.

Our Family in January 2010.

 

And of course our sweet baby Faith that will always be in our hearts!

You can go here to see pictures of our dog, fish, and turtles.

 

Wordless Wednesday

My son Matthew made this out of dominoes.

 

Be Still

I awoke earlier than normal this morning. It was a real Blessing having a very quiet house for about an hour and a half! As I was having my devotional time the theme seemed to be "Be Still".

The past couple of weeks we have been through  a couple of things that have been a little unsettling and rocked my world just a bit. My heart has been a bit troubled and I have just needed to draw on God's strength. I must admit that at first I was angry and did not handle things as well as I should have. I was so set on being right that I was losing sight of how God would have me handle it. I know this is the main reason my heart has been so troubled.

The past couple of days the Lord has been speaking to my heart and bringing healing. If I had sought God in the first place, I believe all of this would not have been so hard in the first place. Thankfully, He is there to pick up the pieces and help set us back on the right path.

So this morning I believe that God was just saying, "Be Still". Later I found that Psalm 46:10 is the verse for today on Biblegateway.com.  Yep, I do believe God is talking to me today.

 "Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth."

Psalm 46:10

Is God calling you to Be Still?

 

Planting The Garden And A Haircut

Life continues as normal as it gets here at our house. Hopefully we should be done with school in the next couple of weeks.  Ahh, summer break! We are all looking forward to it.

I finally got my garden planted on Memorial Day! Now let's hope that it does well. I changed it a bit from last year. I will post pictures when things start to sprout. I bought some flowers to put in some pots and a little bit in the ground. Hopefully I will get to those tomorrow.

The excitement for this week is Anna got a big-time hair cut. It has been about 2 years since her last haircut and this is her third hair cut in her 8+ years of life. She wanted to donate it, so we found a Salon that participates with Locks of Love. We have been talking about doing this for a few weeks and I finally got my nerve up to do it! I love her long hair, but it will be easier to take care of. Since it is naturally curly it can be really fun combing it out. I think it turned out pretty cute.

Front Before

Back Before

Kim put her hair in several ponytails to cut it off.

First Snip

Almost there.

Last snip

All done!

What a cutie pie!

I started writing this post a few days ago. Since then many things have started sprouting up in my garden. I will try to get out there today and take pictures. I did not get the flowers planted into the pots yet though. Hopefully that will happen today or tomorrow.

Please remember Baby Vance in your prayers. The last update from his Grandma was things were going pretty well.

Also please keep Danielle in your prayers. Today she is to have on Amnio to see if Baby Seth's lungs are developed enough so that she can be induced. Pray for a healthy baby and delivery.

 

Pregnancy Prayer List Update ~ Please Pray For Baby Vance

Congratulations to Heather on the birth of her baby boy, Vance Gabriel. Baby Vance was born on Friday, May 28th. 

Please keep  Baby Vance and his Mama, Heather in your prayers. It was known before birth that Vance had a problem with his heart that would require surgery early in his young life. As of Sunday, he was being transported to another hospital and Heather was in need of a blood transfusion. You can learn more by visiting his Grandma's blog here. Please keep this dear family in your prayers.

Also, please remember the other ladies on the Pregnancy Prayer List. Please pray for Healthy Full Term Pregnancies and Strong Healthy Babies! I know they would appreciate it very much!

Blessings on your day!