Today we started the spring baking, baking granola and cookies for the summer months. This takes the chill out of the air in the house now and helps limit oven heat in the house during the summer. I learned this trick from my mother-in-law. It is also a helpful not to have to do these things during garden season.
The loons are back!!! . . . and the ice is out!!! It’s a wonderful time of year!!!
Lots of play is being conducted outside now . . . . for this I am thankful. I am much more fully aware of the change this brings in quietness in the house this year for some reason.
Grandpa bought two new dump trucks for the children so now all five have one . . . they just love pushing those things around! We have quite a crew . . .
Dumping in the bees . . .
Japheth is trying his hand at it this year . . . We put out one hive. Grandpa’s doing seven this year.
When it has all it’s layers on then it will look like this . . .
“I thank-you for the valley, I walked through today
The darker the valley the more I learned to pray . . .
Thank-You for every hill I climbed, for every time the sun didn’t shine . . .”
Today I have this song, “Have You Had a Gethsemane?” (on Israel Homecoming by Bill and Gloria Gaither) on recycle, singing over and over. I can’t listen to it enough . . . it touches my heart right now like no other song and fits the season of remembering Christ’s suffering and agony and fits my mood too. (Wish I could play it here for you . . . There won’t be copyrights in heaven will there? 
)
“Through God we will do valiantly,
For it is He who shall tread down our enemies.” - Psalm 108:13
Through, God, Jaden, you will do valiantly . . . there’s no other way! I pray a blessing upon your head this day, and ask the Lord to show himself strong on your behalf. Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened unto you . . . I love you, son, live for Him!
“Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness.” - Psalm 112:4
This morning the temp here was one above. In the past two days we’ve had several inches of snow. So winter it back for a bit; it never really went away, yet anyway.
But I feel snowed under in more ways than one. How does one climb uphill when one keeps sliding downhill? I thought I had learned to be content to live with a mess, but I guess God wants me to learn it again at a deeper mess level than before!
Yesterday I took all five with me to get some blood work done, just the normal TSH check on my thyroid levels. We switched doctors recently and are now driving an hour and fifteen minutes to their office. We listened to a cd of the reading of the last twenty chapters of Psalms and some of the beginning chapters of Proverbs . . . It was so delicious to my soul. I just soaked it all up. The children enjoyed it to! Japheth Jr. complained of an upset stomach part way there. God did answer our prayer and not let him throw up till after we were home a few minutes, praise the Lord! Then we stopped at the grocery store. One can’t pile too many grocery items when you have three children sitting in the cart and two hanging on the the sides! O well, sticking to the budget goes better that way I guess.
Today is Jaden’s first birthday besides the real one! So now for a few months the children’s ages are 5,4,3,2,1. Poor chap, his cheeks are still chapped . . . . I can’t seem to get it to go away.
My favorite verses that I heard yesterday are from Psalm 136.
“Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever!
Oh, give thanks to the God of gods!
For His mercy endures forever . . . .
For His mercy endures forever . . . .