Happy Independence Day!

For the past twenty three years our family has traveled to my Grandparents home's in Salina and Aurora to celebrate the fourth of July in the "small town" way!  We have missed only one year in all those twenty three and that was when I was nine months pregnant with Katie...fast forward to this year and we have Kirsten due to deliver her baby boy, our first grandbaby, any day now!  (Katie is hoping that it's closer to her birthday).  Wow, how quickly the years have gone. We stayed home this year and started our day out with breakfast in the park sponsored by the Lions Club.  This afternoon we parked at the high school and walked down to Main street for the parade.  This evening we'll watch the fireworks with friends.  We love where we live and I'm happy to say that Independence Day here still felt like the "small town" tradition that we love.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July!

The last "entry" of our parade! What a surprise! We love our cousins!!

Summer Reading

I just finished reading "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller.  Loved it!  The basic idea of the book is "Story", and going about creating a good one.  Here's a quote from the book: "If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you."
One more favorite quote from the book:

 "The most repeated commandment in the Bible is "Do not fear."  It's in there over two hundred times.  That means a couple of things, if you think about it.  It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn't let fear boss us around.  Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated.  And I guess it serves that purpose.  But fear isn't only a guide to keep us safe; it's also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life." 

So I've been thinking lately; What's MY story? 

The girls and I decided to sew ourselves a hobo bag, that was our project for this week. We found a couple of cute tutorials for similar bags here and here. We did lengthen the shoulder strap a few inches but both patterns were great!

Both girls sewing and my bag still on the cutting table.

Finished bags! Katie's bag is from the tiny happy pattern and mine and Hannah's are from the Lula Louise pattern, all of them are reversible. They were so much fun that we took them to the zoo with us today!

Nathan update

So we got our "phone call from the airport" call this morning at about 7:15.  Nathan sounded so upbeat and happy!  I asked him how he's doing and he said "GREAT!"  He was the 'flight leader' for a group of elders and one sister missionary.  It was so good to hear his voice, I don't think he's ever talked on the phone for more than one minute, and he was so talkative!  He said in one of his letters that he has learned to be more outgoing and talkative, that is such a good thing for him!  Their flight left here at 8:30 a.m. and arrived in St. Louis around 11:30.  We shipped his bedding, bike helmet, and other misc. stuff last week and it was due to arrive in the mission home today about the same time as Nathan.  Here is a picture of the quilt we made for him, everyone who came to his luncheon the Sunday before he left had a chance to sign on one of the squares.  I think it turned out really great!

I'm looking forward to sharing in Nathan's mission adventure.

Weekend project

Saturday was such a wonderfully warm day that we spent the whole day outside working in the yard.  I have a spot that I have wanted to turn into a birdhouse garden.  A few years ago I put plastic over the area and killed the lawn/weeds growing there.  The plastic got removed and then the weeds grew back!  It's been that way for a couple of years now, full of weeds and good intentions...  I didn't get a weedy before picture but there were so many that it required a pickup truck and a trip to the dump.  Here is the product of our day's work.

We will put a weed guard down and fill it with decorative rocks to finish it up, but it's a huge improvement from how it looked before.  Plus it helped with my organizing/declutter projects, I was able to get those big posts and the birdhouses and plant hooks out of my garage and shed. Yay!

Next thing I need to work on are lovely little baby boy things. 

Our grandbaby is due to arrive next month! 

Thursday Thought

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize

 they were the big things." Robert Brault

Don't blink....

May

Wow, no posts this month at all.  It's been a busy month and is going by crazy fast! Nathan has finished up work and is taking this week to get things ready for his mission. Really it's so he can spend time with ME before he leaves:) We have a long to-do list to tackle. Wish us luck! 

We have some monster rhubarb growing in our garden!