Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Category Archives: Activities

The BBC Nursery Project

Last fall, my dear friend Sue and I started working on re-doing the chapel nursery. I forgot to take an official “Before” picture, but here is one in the midst of stripping the old wall paper:

The plain white walls looked so much better!

In April, the upper portion of the walls were painted:

On Saturday (a year after we started!) we finished painting, and on Sunday, Jonathan put the trim back up for us. We’re not totally done, but close enough to show off some pictures:



We love the feel of the room now.  It is a wonderfully warm, comfortable, relaxing room for mamas and babies.  

There are some lovely faux wood blinds behind the beautiful valance Sue made. One of the things we still need to do is make a curtain for the window, for when privacy is needed (for brides using it as a changing room and such). I’m sure I’ll post pictures when we’re completely done, but, as you can tell, we’re giving ourselves (as mothers of 6 and 7 children) lots of grace on the timing of this project!

Nature Pictures

We’ve had several opportunities in the last couple of weeks to get some neat pictures of God’s marvelous creation.

Here’s a garden spider that Ellie spotted behind the school barn: 

Mushrooms in the front yard:

Two praying mantis at BBC:

A walking stick at BBC:

A walking stick on our back deck:

FoMM Retreat

We just got back from the 3rd Annual Friends of Missouri Midwives Family Retreat.  We had loads of fun and fellowship and accomplished a lot, too!  There were over 80 people in attendance, which is almost doubled from last year.  




Here are the folks still around when we remembered to get a group picture late Sunday morning:
And a pretty scenic view on the way home:

A Special Day

Last Saturday, I met up with one of my dearest and longest-known friends at Forest Park in St. Louis for a fundraising walk. Tracy was walking for NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), and Stephen and I walked the 3.1 miles with her. It was a great opportunity to visit and enjoy the company of a super special friend.

The walk was well organized and well attended. Here’s a shot of a very small portion of the walkers:
After the walk, we went to the zoo for a bit. Stephen was tired, so I carried him in my wrap. It was great for him, but my hip didn’t make it long with the extra weight. We made it through the River Walk portion of the zoo, and saw neat things like Giant Anteaters:
And Asian Elephants:
Then Stephen and I headed for home and Tracy enjoyed the zoo for a couple more hours. But before we left, some nice young ladies took our picture for us. Can you tell Stephen is tired? 😉
Thanks for a wonderful time, Tracy!

At Shaw Nature Reserve – Part 2

Ellie is becoming a young lady, isn’t she? I think one of the reasons she enjoys hanging out with GracieT is that she’s light enough to carry around – unlike her own baby brother!

The stepping stones were a big hit.

I carried Stephen in a wrap most of the way, but caught this sweet shot when Jonathan was carrying him –

This picture is too funny. You must click on it to get the full effect.

They have a wonderful newer area that I think the kids could explore for hours. The girls loved the tables and chairs.

Our Afternoon at Shaw Nature Reserve – Part 1

As I mentioned in my late night/early morning post, we spent yesterday afternoon at Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit. It was our first visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially fun was the fact that we went with other families from our chapel, and enjoyed fellowship as well as a gorgeous view of God’s creation.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the day. “Few” is relative to the fact that we took 132 pictures of our time there!

You just might see this one again on our next Christmas card –

Here are our Blessings with the Treasures of our dear friends Alan & Sue.

No, we don’t generally encourage our girls to hold hands with boys, but this was too sweet a moment to not capture.

Aren’t they sweet? GracieT turned one last week!

Katie enjoyed the dandelions.