Happy Spring!

   I hope you are having a wonderful first day of Spring! We have actually had the feel of Spring around here a fair amount lately - before it actually was Spring which is a little unusual for this area. But now that it is Spring by the calendar we have more snow falling, but it is a lovely Springy sort of snow. :-)

  I thought I would show you some pictures of things that have been making me think Spring lately...

Tapping Maple trees. We did that last week and then added some more this week. The first day we went out I had lots of fun helpers, Buirlen and Aaron (above) and Megan and Matthias (below). The weather was just lovely that day too. Nice and warm and the sap was truly running. It then did get a little cooler but this week when Dad, Jonathan and I went out it was lovely then too and it was cold enough though that we could fully walk on top of the snow which makes getting around sooo much easier.

 Little rivers showing up in our driveway are a sure sign of Spring. As a child I loved to play in those little rivers and I'll admit I am still a little tempted to try damming them up or rerouting them, sending stick boats floating on them and such like. It is just so fun to be out in the Spring.

 I always love watching the water pour out of the gutters as the snow melts off of the roof.

 Aaron, Debora and I were able to go on a bike ride. That definitely felt like a Spring activity!

 This morning I had flowers arrive as I am doing some training with a lady who is wanting to learning how to arrange flowers more. Flowers truly give me the happy Spring feeling.

 Since I don't often do flowers for wedding during the winter (they just aren't real common up here in the North Country- winter weddings that is) I was feeling a little "flower hungry". I even decided to use the rose leaves that I would normally discard and make them into a wreath to brighten up our house a little.

For Breakfast I tried to think of something that made me think Spring - so I ended up making boiled eggs and muffins which I served on a cute Spring Tray that my college roommate had given to me. 

  With all the uncertainty in our lives today It is lovely to remember this verse: "As long as the earth remains, there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” Genisis 8:22

Spring can remind us that God is still the same and He is still watching over us.

Just thought I would share our view today. You wouldn't automatically think Spring when you see it but there are signs of Spring here too. Do you see the holes in the middle of the river and how it looks dark and thin? The river has been working itself open and is almost to our house now. That is one of my favorite things about Spring - the opening up of the river and getting to see all the wildlife that comes with it - Swans, otters, eagles and more.

I hope you have a lovely Spring and that you will see the steadfastness of God throughout all the changeableness of life. If you are staying home a little more (as many of us are just now) I hope you can enjoy it and be able to celebrate the simple things - like Spring!

Introducing Debora - (and Winter Fun)

We are excited to be hosting Debora a Rotary Exchange student from Brazil. She moved in this past Saturday and will be here until some time after her graduation in May. Rotary exchange students generally have 3 families for their school year.

    We are having a lot of fun learning more about Brazil. We haven't learned any Portuguese yet however. Debora had never seen any snow before coming to Minnesota so their are a lot of things that are new to her.  

 Skiing included. She was a little nervous about that one but made a great effort to give it a try. I don't know that she will want to do it again but she survived the evening so that was good! :-)

 On Sunday we found out that she hadn't been out on our ice covered lake yet so we took her out there too. Something that you need to do if you are in northern MN in the winter.

I am guessing you will hear more about our adventures with Debora.

Doing Hard Things - Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

 We have been hard at work just lately getting our basement a little more finished.

We (Ken mostly) finished hanging the little odds and ends of drywall that still needed to go up. Then came my job.....

Mudding and taping all the drywall. Ken had done that in the basement of our last house and said "Never Again" but since we like to save money and do things ourselves when we can I said that I would give it a go this time.

   Yes I did all the mudding with my eyes closed - wouldn't you do it that way too? Just kidding - of the pictures taken, this was the least blurry and so naturally my eyes were closed in it too. :-)

   Mudding and taping is where the stepping out of my comfort zone came in. Sure, I said I would do it but I had never done it before, I have heard that it is hard to do at least if you want it to look good and I actually felt rather overwhelmed by it. The project got put off for quite a while but then deadlines for getting it done approached and I just jumped in and got started. And I discovered, as it seems like I always do when I work on a project that seems overwhelming, that it wasn't all that hard. It isn't like it was super easy or quick - it did require work, figuring things out and diligence to get the job done - but overall it was doable.

Here are some reasons why I think it is good to step out of your comfort zone every once and a while and do something that seems hard to you:

• You can learn something new.
• You develop confidence. Each time you try something new and it works out you become more and more confident that will also happen in future times.
• You are a good example to your children. If they are going to grow and mature then they constantly have to be learning new things and doing things that seem hard for them. 
• You may be able to inspire others.
• Even if it seems like you fail, you can grow from it and realize that God might use that "failing" in a way that you never dreamed.

Thinking on this subject made me think of this verse....

Philippians 1:12-14

"12 Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14 And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear."

I think that Paul had to do hard things on a regular basis. At the time of this writing the hard things that he was doing had landed him in jail. But I just think it is super cool that he didn't let that get him down and his Brothers and Sisters in Christ were inspired to also do hard things because they realized that they didn't have to be afraid. Our God is bigger and mightier than any chains - whatever sort of chains they might be. 

We can practice doing hard things on simple things like home improvement projects and then use those skills we have learned to serve God fearlessly and with passion!

The Wise Old Owl

  On Saturday morning I happened to glance out the window just as an owl flew up to sit in a tree near our house. I know owls live around here but we don't often see them so that was fun to get to see it. I showed Ken and then pretty soon all the kids were looking out the window at it as well.  I believe it is a Barred Owl. I think it looks so majestic just sitting up in the tree.

   Ken had given me a camera for Christmas and this was a fun opportunity to try it out a little more. I really appreciated the large zoom that it has for this photo shoot. The picture above I took through my office window but the one below is from our front porch.

 Owls are often considered wise I believe because they just look like they should be. :-) But anyway I thought I would share a verse on wisdom to go along with this post.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!" Psalm 11:10

  Thinking about this verse I would say that an owl probably is wise - They, like all of the natural world, do fear the Lord. God has created them to praise him just by doing their normal day to day activity. But then they don't really have a choice. We do however and the best choice is to Fear and Praise our Lord and Savior. It might not sound like fun to "Fear the Lord" but that is something we are told to do. When it talks about fear of the Lord it is that understanding that God is Almighty, he is powerful and he is just. We need to obey Him. There will be punishment for those who don't. But it doesn't mean we live in a scary world were we always need to be afraid - not at all! God also is full of love and mercy and he gave us Jesus to pay the penalty of our sins when we believe in Him and obey Him. Fear of God will lead us to a place of peace, contentment and true joy! I hope you have found that! 

Matterhorn Music Video

This is our most recent music project. Aaron found this song and wanted to do it and I have truly enjoyed getting to play it with him. Jonathan was the mastermind behind the recording (both sound and video) and it was so fun to have all sorts of other family and our friend, Will to help out with the producing of it.

This Last Month - A busy one it has been!

  The last 31 days have been very full. It has been super fun and I have loved it. Here is part of what has been going on around here.

-We hosted a Cast Party for "Annie" at our house. Over 40 people came. It was super fun to reconnect with the friends that we have made in Theater. We did a potluck supper - Great Depression style (to go along with "Annie").

-Ken and I celebrated our 21st Anniversary. No big trip this year but we did enjoy an evening out.

-I had a fun lunch with my friend Lyndi whom I hadn't been able to spend as much visiting time with lately as I like. :-)

-We Sang at the Nursing Home.

-Jonathan recorded Aaron and I doing the song "Matterhorn.

-Mara and Thomas arrived on the 19th and stayed until yesterday, the 11th. We loved having them here! Thomas had a long break from the University and that included from his tutoring job as well.

-We went sledding out at my parents with a lot of family (after eating a yummy lunch there).

-We went ice skating.

-We enjoyed supper at Keren and Benjamin's and participated in a White Elephant gift exchange. It was rather fun.

-We celebrated Christmas. The morning was just our family but for lunch we were joined by some family and friends. I think we had a total of 18.

Megan made Mara, herself and I some dresses of her own design. They are rather clever.

Thomas made me a notebook and Mara made me these pretty mittens.
I was blessed with many sweet gifts and a very notable one was a lovely new camera from Ken. I have been enjoying that.

Thomas and Mara

Ephraim and Matthias enjoyed getting on Thomas.

Hosting a big dinner is never to hard with the sort of family and friends that I have. I get so much help!

Christmas day was a lovely time for a walk.

Ken and I enjoying a laugh during a game.

Mathias loves Jonathan too.

- We dealt with some sickness. I was super thankful not to get it myself but my boys had some times of not feeling good.

 I tried out babysitting again. My family and Keren and Benjamin (Keren is my sister and Benjamin and Thomas (who is my son-in-law) are brothers) wanted to go see the Star Wars movie. I have decided to never watch Star Wars so I wasn't interested so I offered to watch Ephraim and Mathias. I did it at their house (they are neighbors). We started off well (You never know with 1 and 3 year olds) But within 10 minutes we had blood from one end of the house to another. Ephraim wanted to show me the glow-in-the dark stars in his room and so of course we had to turn the lights off and then he wanted to jump on his bed (and I was being a lenient aunt) and then he fell and hit a corner of a wall and cut open the back of his head. He had blood streaming out and ran to the other end of the house looking for his mom. We got it taken care of and had a great time with stories, games and music later but I did wonder if I was very good at babysitting anymore.

-We moved all of my Mother-in-law, Sharyl's stuff out of her 2 storage units and into her house and garage. That was a busy Saturday. It is nice to have it done. We were thankful to have my parents and our kids (including our very helpful son-in-law) help. Though not Aaron's help - that was the day that he was sick.

-Overnight we got a lot of snow which continued to fall on Sunday. Church was cancelled but since 3 households from our church (My sister and family, my mother-in-law and us) all live within 1/2 mile of each other we decided to have church together at Keren and Benjamin's house. We figured we would walk but Aaron was still feeling a little gimpy from being sick so Ken thought he could test out his new truck in the snow. It worked quite well.

At Keren and Benjamin's. Ephraim entertained after we had spent some time studying the Bible and listening to some thoughts that Benjamin shared, had communion and sang a song.

 -Then we had those people over to our house for lunch and games. We are so thankful to have family living close that we can hang out with even if there is a snow storm.

 -We had a special supper on the last day of Chanukah.

Potato Latkes are always a favorite. We also enjoyed baked chicken, fresh bread with sesame seeds and cooked apples.

-The morning of New Year's Eve found Mara and I sewing up 3 easy 1920's dresses for the party we were going to that evening.

 -On New Year's Eve in the afternoon Mara, Thomas, Jonathan, Sharyl and I went to an "Escape Room" that was at the State Park. We had to get a park pass for the vehicle but otherwise it was free. We had fun with that.

- We traveled up to my sister Martha's for New Year's Eve and New Years Day. She and her family live around 2 hours drive North East of us. They suggested that we wear 20's apparel for the evening.

Ken and I dressed up.

Others that dressed up (not counting Aaron who is on the end).

I had fun hanging out on New Years day with my newest niece - Buelah.

Here she is with my cute little nephews too.

 -We had the Rotary exchange student who is due to come live with us for a few months starting in March over for a day.

-We made candles.

 -On the 5th a couple of girls from church came over for the afternoon. They and Megan had fun with a art project (Making globes and planets).

-Also on the 5th we held a party with Soup, Snacks and Games. We had around 50 people here. It was fun.

-On the 6th Jonathan had us shoot a video for "Matterhorn" the song we had recorded earlier. We had over all the teenage cousins and Harrison who is 21. Jonathan also had his friend Will come help with the filming. I spent that day with 13 teenagers and college age people. It was fun and I found out that they can eat a lot. :-) They had fun turning part of our house into a "ski chalet".

Cousins!

 -Both of my sisters that live out of town were in town basically all of last week. So all of us siblings, except my oldest brother who is currently in Oregon, and our families hung out together a lot. We spent a lot of time over at my parents house.

We enjoy having music as part of our gatherings.

-We went to an art show premier (I don't know if that is the right term or not!) that showed the art of a friend from Theater. It is super neat fabric art.

-We enjoyed a supper at Nana's new house.

-Mara and Thomas left after being here a little over 3 weeks. We were so glad they got to come.

It was a good month. I am excited for this new year - I hope you are too!