Loving on my Babies Today

[February 23, edit:  Today would have been Mattias' 2nd birthday.  Please join me in celebrating his life by taking a few moments to do something in his honor and then posting about it in the comment section.  His mother has already read this post and I will be sure to invite his family to read the additional comments.  Thank you all for taking a moment to bless this sweet family!]  

About a month ago I was introduced to Dana's Blog, "Roscommon Acres" by a lady in my Bible Study Group. 

Roscommon Acres is a blog about a family in Nebraska with 6 children.  They live in the country.  They have an orchard.  They have geese.  They garden.  She’s thinking about taking up beekeeping.  They homeschool.  And Dana writes about family life.  Her life is not so different from mine.

Except in December, a heartbreaking accident killed one of her babies.  He was 21 months old.

About the same age as one of my little Farmhands.

The thing is, when you have healthy babies, you take it for granted that they will be here tomorrow. And the day after that. And all the days after that.

This mom was careful, but some things can’t be prevented.

If it had been my child instead of hers, what regrets would I have right now? I would regret that the house wasn’t cleaner and at the same time I would regret that I spent so much time cleaning it.  I would regret that I didn’t play more. What would you regret?

I invite you to post in the comments section one thing that you will do with your children this week in honor of Dana’s son.  I would like to invite her to come read this post and our comments and know that her son has made a practical difference in our lives.  Now, if you will excuse me, I have some serious business to take care of down in the sandbox…

(Incidentally, this story is what inspired this week’s Motivated Moms Giveaway.)

Our New Friend!

Well, our computer is not working correctly and I can't add photos to my blog posts right now.  To me, pictures are the best part of a blog post!  I could tell you about the skunk that showed up yesterday and was walking around our property, trying to climb in the sandbox.  And I could tell you about how we chased him trying to get a great picture (which was pointless, since I can't even post it!).  I could also tell you about the children's plan  to just let the dog loose so that he could scare the skunk away and my visions of all of us (including the dog!) in sharing a tomato-juice shower if that had happened.  But all that just isn't the same if I can't include a picture.

So that's why my blog posts have been few and far between lately.

But there is one thing I can still write about.  My little farmhands have a new friend!  Avery is a little girl who is the same age as my little Farmhands but she has spent her entire life in and out of the hospital.  She has lots of medical issues but the saddest part of her story is that her immune system is so compromised that she can't be around other children.  Well, maybe she can't come over to visit, but she can receive mail!  And my little farmhands are having lots of fun drawing pictures for her!

I love this picture of Avery!  Doesn't she look like just the kind of girl who would like to be friends with little farmhands?


Avery looks great in this picture, but the reality is that she's not doing very well right now.  She is in the Intensive Care Unit right now with various medical issues and needs prayer!  Please take a few moments to visit her website. You can see a video of her story here and read her parents' online journal here.  And please pray for Avery!

Blessed to be a Blessing

Well, I must admit, when Thanksgiving rolled around this year, I was feeling a bit “bleah” about the whole holiday season.  Our family lives far away and for various reasons we didn’t really have anyone else to invite over for Thanksgiving.  So we did something very strange, very untraditional, and it turned out to be our best Thanksgiving ever!

The first thing I did was decorate the house a bit.  I went easy on myself.  I pulled a picture off the wall and hung this one in its place:

This is a picture that a friend of mine salvaged from the leftovers of an estate sale.  I really like it!

Then, I pulled out an old wicker garden basket.  (You can tell that it’s a garden basket… it still has dirt on it!)  I put a fleece blanket in the basket and stocked it full of Thanksgiving books for children:

 

I set the basket on our coffee table.  We have one of those glass top display coffee tables that we use to display all our nature study (found it on Craigslist for $20!  Yay!).  I haven’t changed the display in a while, so it’s still displaying seashells from our trip to Florida last winter… Oh well… The pilgrims probably saw lots of seashells when they landed on Plymouth rock, right?

Next I got busy turning my little farmhands into pilgrims!  I happened to have some white fabric on hand, so turning a farm girl into a pilgrim girl was easy!  I just sewed up a quick pilgrim hat and apron.  But a pilgrim boy was harder…  How does one make a pilgrim hat with just supplies on hand?

This beach bucket seemed to have potential…

I got busy with some newspaper (for a pattern) and felt.  Here are some pictures of the pilgrim hat in progress:

 

 

When I got finished sewing the hat, the little farmhand-turned-pilgrim decided he didn’t want to be just a pilgrim boy.  He wanted to be a pilgrim MAN…. with a MOUSTACHE!  And so I did one of the craziest things I’ve done as a parent.  I stayed up really, really late one night crocheting a beard for my preschooler.  I think the final product was really adorable though!

We had already decided to surprise some local people with a visit from pilgrims!   We compiled a list of some friends, some neighbors and even some strangers to go visit for just a few minutes.  So the night before Thanksgiving we prepared a little gift to give each person we visited.  First, the little farmhands colored pictures:

Next, we cut the pictures apart and glued them onto brown paper bags which we then filled with popcorn.  Popcorn is great “pilgrim food!”:

By the end of the evening we had several bags of popcorn prepared:



Four of the families we visited have several children.  So they got something special! 

I found a tutorial with instructions to make this great paper bag turkey (stuffed with popcorn) here.  What can I say?  Google is my friend!

Then, we became pilgrims!  We read some of the Thanksgiving books in our baskets and we even slept in front of the fireplace, just like the pilgrims!  (Ok, not exactly like the pilgrims… We dragged mattresses into the living room so that we would actually get some sleep!)



And so on Thanksgiving day, several people in and around our little town (many who we had never met before!) were very surprised to have real live pilgrims visit!


Wouldn’t YOU be surprised to see these two walking up your driveway, come into your house and sing this little song:

Be thankful unto Him, and bless His name,

Bless His name, bless His name 

Be thankful unto Him and bless His name,

For the Lord is good!

Psalm 100:4