Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Category Archives: Blogging

A Fun Afternoon

This afternoon, we met up with Dad and Mom Smith and several families from our home school support group at nearby Shaw Nature Reserve. We’d been there once before, and thoroughly enjoyed our first taste of it this year, taking a close to 3 mile hike.

Also, Dad and Mom Smith bought us a family membership for our birthdays! The membership covers up to 10 adults (children 12 and under are free) and includes admission to Shaw, the Missouri Botanical Gardens (including the Children’s Gardens), and the Butterfly House. The part of it we will use the most is the admission to Shaw Nature Reserve. It’s about 15 minutes away from us now, and has so much to offer! But we’re looking forward to checking out some of the other spots, as we’ve lived in the St. Louis area for almost 9 years now and have never been to any of them. We’re also hoping to take some friends and family to enjoy some of these displays of God’s creation.

I just couldn’t pick a few pictures to post, so I’m embedding another slideshow. Just click on it to go to the album (where you can see large ones and/or download full size pics). Enjoy!

Been a while

I just checked and it’s been over a week since I’ve posted anything! Several of the things that have happened in the last week or so definitely deserve their own blog posts, but since I’m not sure when I’ll get to them, I’m going to give a brief rundown of some recent events.

~ I’ve started a running program. Me. Weird, eh? (This hasn’t been in the last week… it was almost 3 weeks ago. I just didn’t want to admit it)
~ We made it through our first chicken butchering. It wasn’t as bad as I expected.
~ I discovered Parmesan on popcorn. Yum.
~ I scored what was probably my best bargain ever.
~ We ordered and received seeds for our garden, and I’m close to having it all planned.
~ I acted on that neat frugal tip I posted
~ Jonathan bought wood for our upcoming bookshelves – I pranced around like a kid at Christmas. That’s appropriate, b/c the money for the shelves was our Christmas present from my beloved brother and sis-in-love.

There’s probably more, but I’ve got to stop for now. This list should remind me of some things I want to comment on further.

EDIT on Monday 3/16:
Two things I forgot in my sleepiness the other night:
~ My man has started joining me on my walk/runs!!
~ We were blessed to have the Emmaus Bible College Ensemble in our area last Friday night – wonderful!

Back in the land of the living

The family started coming down with stomach yuck last Tuesday (Feb 3), and I’ve been pretty seriously sick since Saturday, so I’ve been a blog slacker!

I’m mostly better now, but running to catch up so that I can pull together the last minute details for our chapel Valentine’s Banquet tomorrow night, so I’m still going to be a blog slacker. But I have some really great links to share with you. Please check them out.

First, what I missed while I lay in bed on Tuesday – the 5th annual Cookie Day at the Missouri capitol in Jefferson City. Folks from around the state, from several different organizations, come to the capitol to show their support for midwives. This year was extra special because it’s the first year that we’ve had legal midwives in Missouri! Lots of neat pictures at that link.

And secondly, a very educational and insightful article on maternity care from Consumer Reports. And be sure to take the Maternity Care Quiz.

I’m off to prepare for the banquet!

More Snow!

Thought I’d just link to a slideshow of the picasa album I made for snow pictures. We had more snow last night (it was glorious!!) and I got some next shots this morning. I’d click on the slideshow to go see the picasa album if I were you. But I’m a bit biased.

And I’m gonna tell a little story on myself…
Last night, while it was snowing fast and furious, I realized that the chickens needed to be watered. On my way out to the coop, I spotted one of the sleds. And I glanced up at the sledding hill. And after I fed the chickens, I just couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the sled, trekked up the hill, and sledded down in the dark… in the falling snow… face first on my tummy. I whooped and hollered all the way down.
It was So. Much. Fun!!

I think snow is one of God’s most beautiful and marvelous creations. And I love the way that I feel like a little kid again when it snows.

Pictures!

I have at last uploaded some pictures from December to my Picasa albums. Click on the slideshows to see them individually, etc.

The Byrd Visit:

The Bloom Visit – did I even mention this?!? It was such a treat to have John and Ruth in town for a couple days! We ate together and played Rage at the chapel on Saturday night Dec. 20th, then on Sunday John shared about Immanuel Mission as well as sharing a very challenging and encouraging message about being a Refresher. They joined us for lunch on Sunday and visited some more before heading in to St. Louis. We were so blessed to have them with us – they have been such an important part of our lives over the years, and they are refreshing people!

Christmas Day:

And New Year’s Eve at Believers Bible Chapel:

The Byrd Visit

When we abruptly went off line in mid-December, some of our favorite Byrds had just gotten into town. Actually, Beka and The Cousins were on their way to Kansas City for a visit with family there. We enjoyed having Papa and Mama with us on Thursday and Friday, and Beka and the kids got back to our area on Saturday evening. We treasured every moment until they left on Tuesday morning!

Saturday night, we had seafood chowder for dinner, at the special request of Beka and Ethan. Seafood chowder became something of a hobby (obsession?) for Jonathan and I this last year, and Beka and Ethan were eager to taste the fruits of our experimentation. I think they liked it! I’m working on cutting down the recipe to a reasonable size so that I can post it on Love You Can Eat. For now, here’s a teaser…

Sunday morning at chapel we got to show off Beka and The Cousins; then Sunday evening we also got to show off Papa and Mama (they went to meeting in St. Louis in the morning). We don’t usually have a Sunday evening meeting, but Dec. 14th was our Christmas Supper and Program. It was neat to have some of the Byrds with us for this special evening. One of the highlights from the Christmas program (at what would generally be considered a pretty conservative church) was the Henkel twins playing their electric guitars. They played their own arrangement of a couple of Christmas classics. I couldn’t get the video upload to work, or I would share it with you.

As always, it was such a joy to see our kiddos enjoying their time with their cousins. The deep down, soul-satisfying kind of joy. My brother and I didn’t have cousins our ages with whom we could really fellowship, and it is a delight to my heart to see my children play with Ethan, Isaiah, Abigail, and Chloe.

I haven’t done a good job of capturing the “little moments” in this post, but I’m so thankful that Papa and Mama came to visit, and that Beka decided to come as well with The Cousins. I wish Eric could have pulled away from work and come, but we are all so thankful for the time we had together. And I’m thankful that they didn’t let the possibility (which turned into the reality) of them getting sick from our leftover germs keep them from coming!

Here are some more pictures (you can click on the slideshow to get to the pictures individually/download the full sized files, etc):