Make an Easter Garden

I don't remember now how I first landed on the blog... a google search? a link on someone else's blog/site? I don't know the blog owner, but I greatly enjoy reading her posts. I thought this post about making an Easter Garden, complete with photos, was really neat (even though personally I don't enjoy playing in dirt. lol) Check it out because YOU might want to make one too! :)

Even if you don't decide to make a Resurrection Garden, you might enjoy reading her posts.

Catch-up :)

My nephew says this is going to be a long post. We shall see. :)

Contrary to what may appear to be true, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. : ) I've fallen behind in blogging for several reasons: not much was happening, too much was happening, I was procrastinating, and I was having too much fun connecting and keeping up with friends in FaceBook. If you know me and have found me here but not in FaceBook, look me up so we can connect! I'm listed there as Faith Cooley Young.

December felt like the Grinch had sneaked in and back out one night. We wanted some decorations up because we knew we would be here at home by ourselves for Christmas Day, but we wanted to keep decorations to a minimum since we knew we would be visiting family just after New Year's and we didn't want to come home to a huge un-decorating job. I learned from my grandmother who told me (more times than I could handle!!) one January, "If you don't put it up, you don't have to take it down!"

So we decided on setting up the tree and hanging one longgg string of lights. Because Ken loves nutcrackers (has a shelf load of them as well as 3-4 24" ones), I bought up an army of little ornament nutcrackers one year after Christmas and promised him that "some year" I would do a nutcracker tree. This was the year!

We assembled the tree (yes, artificial. I hate the smell of pine). Then we strung one strand of lights through its branches. I specifically opened a new package of lights because last year's strand blinked on the top half of the tree, then the bottom half, top half, bottom half and I didn't want that craziness again. Next we hung beads, balls and nutcrackers, topped it with a star and plugged in the lights. All the lights came on, and then the top half blinked off, the bottom half blinked off, top half, bottom half... Grrrrrrrr!!

I said, "Where there's a will, there's a way! I will fix this!!" I'd rather see all the lights on all the time than top half then bottom half. So I located the flasher lights and replaced them with regular bulbs. Yesss!!! :)

We plugged in the lights again. Sure enough, all lights came on and stayed on... for about 3 minutes. Then the top half blinked off, and didn't come back on. Then the bottom half blinked off, and didn't come back on. And we said, "Forget it! We're having a dark tree this year."

We intended still to hang the longgg strand of lights but lost heart and never did.

The weekend after Christmas we traveled over to be with Ken's parents and family. I thought I had taken some pictures there, but if I did, the Grinch must have swiped them because I can't find any. Then the Saturday after New Year's, we started our year with a trip to see my family!

All but ONE household of my parents' descendants were together for Christmas, but by the time we arrived, two of the families had already traveled back home. Still, we were thankful to be able to see as many as we did! I enjoyed little Christopher snuggling up to me. Apparently I was too focused on holding him and didn't take any pictures of him or of our fun time together with my brothers' families.

We have a wonderful host of nephews and nieces and great-nephews and great-nieces and enjoy giving something to each one. I had gathered a number of things in my shopping cart but wasn't feeling very excited about some of them when I found "sticky hands" akin to the "sticky feet" we had given Rose & Fanie's two boys this past summer. Remembering how all the kids wanted to play with the sticky feet, I knew the sticky hands would be a hit! Here's Karissa having fun with hers.

Philip & Jennifer's kids kept Uncle Ken occupied with reading to them...

or serving as their personal horsey! First Elanor (because she's the oldest!)...

then Jeremiah...

then Hana...

One time Ken put Hana over his head, he suddenly had a new "hat" STUCK on his head!! We laughed so hard we could hardly help him remedy the situation!

Shylah wasn't so certain this horsey was safe to ride, but after Uncle Ken PROMISED her he would go real s-l-o-w, she cautiously agreed. Of course, it took only one ride to convince her how much fun it was and she was ready to ride again and again!

And when Uncle Ken was plum tuckered out, they were just happy to be near him. (I like that pretty much myself! :))

Hana has such a contagious grin. I don't know if anybody can look at her happy grin and keep from smiling! (Are you smiling yet?!) Her smile just lights up her countenance! She's my "Happy Hana." :)

Elisha also has a contagious grin. I missed a Kodak moment when he opened his "loot bag" and pulled out the packet with the sticky hand. His little brow wrinkled as he tried to figure out what it was... We could tell the instant he recognized what it was. He broke out into a grin bigger than this one and his face shone!!

I SO enjoyed holding Micah! He's cuddly but squirmy and usually ready to smile. I held him so much he was probably relieved to see us go!

It won't be too long before he won't need Grandma Becky to hold him up!

I don't know if Micah had seen the kids riding horsey with Ken or what, but when Ken held him, he started jigging about until Ken could barely hold on to him. It was so cute. I needed a video for that!

Being with my sister is always a delight, but I had to share her during this visit! She was showing the kids how to play a computer game with cakes and frosting and other toppings. I think this was the night before Becky was to fly out, and since Rose & Fanie and family fly to South Africa on March 31 (THIS Tuesday!), it was their last time to be with "Oma Becky" for who knows how long?!

Sweet Liliva takes a turn at the bakery game.

As the evening lengthened, the reality that this would be our last visit with Rose & Fanie and the kids really hit us and dampened our mood. We tried our hardest not to cry because we don't want the children to think serving the Lord in Africa should make them cry, but we couldn't stop the tears because we dearly love them and are going to miss them soooooo much!

So we took some time to sit and talk and admonish and encourage and pray together and express our love to them. Our hugs have to last a long time!!

We are so proud of them for serving the Lord and training their children to love Jesus and be like Him. Our hearts are so torn! We want so badly to hold them close to us, but we want to see them obey God and follow His leading for their lives. Did I mention that we are going to miss them?!?!

Before we knew it, we were saying good-byes to Becky and Tab as they left for the JFK airport to return to their places of ministry, and then to the rest of the family who "stay by the stuff."

A couple weeks after we returned home, a knock on our door announced someone. Since Ken had noticed when he came home from work that someone had mowed down our mailbox, we assumed it would be the culprit. Instead we found our neighbor lady waiting to talk with us. She was not the culprit, but she knew who was the culprit because her security camera had caught the entire episode in full color, complete with date and time stamp! She had already been to see the property caretaker to report the damage and offer a look at the video footage. Within a few hours, the property owner, caretaker and sheriff were at our door and at the door of the home from where the vehicle had been before driving up the hill and nailing our mailbox! At first we thought it not so necessary to involve the sheriff, but they explained that there was damage to federal property (you only think you own your mailbox!) and this was a hit-and-run incident. Oh my!

As bad as our mailbox looked, we were relieved that he had hit the mailbox with such force instead of our car! The video showed that he verrrry narrowly missed hitting our car, then swerved completely off the pavement into the grass. He hit the mailbox with the passenger's side of his vehicle! The neighbor was also glad that he had hit the mailbox, and especially the concrete base--which did move about two feet, or he wouldn't have been stopped before he would have rammed her truck! (That's her red truck in the photo below.)

We didn't press any charges, just asked that the mailbox be either repaired or replaced. By the next day, things had been straightened out good as new. Whew!

I don't remember the date now of this next photo, but we have had more snow this winter than any winter in the 11 years we have lived in TN! We still have not seen the grass completely covered, but this was a fairly nice snow for here.

And now it is only about a week shy of FOUR months since I have posted. I was determined to post before April 5! Yay!! :)

Happy 49th Birthday, Ken, and 70th, Dad! :)

Happy 49th Birthday, Ken! :)

Celebrate the Gift of LIFE!!

I'm so glad you were born. :) (Since Ken was born on his dad's 21st birthday, Dad says he [himself] became a man and a father the same day. Funny thing is every year, Ken asks Dad, "So how old are you now?" and every year Dad replies, "21 years older than you!" lol Ken can never remember Dad's age.)

People are always saying to me, "I hope you know just how wonderful your husband is." I realize it every day and shake my head that I am so blessed. :) There's just so much wonderful about you people can't help but notice. Easy going. Conscientious. Peacemaker. Available to help. Ready to laugh. Always have a song. Loaddds of love. For God, for wife, for family, for friends. (I'll say the rest where the world can't hear. :)) God wrapped it all up in the awesome package of YOU! I hope you have a day that makes you feel as SPECIAL as you are. I hope you have many, many many MORE! I love you. Happy Birthday!!

And...

Happy 70th Birthday, Dad!!

Celebrate the Gift of LIFE!

Wow, the big 7-0! I'm thankful God has given you so many years. I'm appreciate your wise counsel, your faithful prayers, your unconditional love, your consistent walk with the Lord. I'm happy for the song in your heart--as long as it's a song! lol ;) I hope somehow in all the stuff going on today (call to Mom revealed it's already been a doozy), you know what a special blessing you are to the world, your friends, your family. Happy Birthday, and MANY more!

Hail!

While sitting at my desk working yesterday, I heard this pinging sound on our roof and thought, "What in the world is that?!" It was not rain. It couldn't be snow. Sometimes hoardes of birds land on our roof (what's up there anyway?!) and we hear all those little feet hitting the roof, but this sounded different than that too. So I dashed to the door and saw this (ok, so you hafta get the big picture to see what I saw):

And this is what the floor of our porch looked like:

It lasted all of 45 seconds? TN blizzard. lol All gone by the time Ken returned home. My photos were the only proof.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Just shortly before Thanksgiving, Ken found out that he would not have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving morning found us going "over the river and through the woods" (although not to Grandmother's house!) to Charlotte, NC. We smelled all the glorious aromas of the Thanksgiving meal as soon as they opened the door. Yum! Everything was perfectly delicious and fully enjoyed.

Thursday evening and the better part of Friday was taken up with scrapbooking. I think I'm finally on the homestretch of scrapbooking our formal wedding pictures--I've been working on this for a year already! (In my defense, however, I only work on it when we all get together to scrapbook.) I couldn't find the embellishments I wanted (even though I bought 5 or 6 packets that weren't the right thing!), so I decided only to decorate with paper. No glitter, foil, brads, stickers, etc. It's been fun being creative.

No, we (Ken & I) did not go shopping. We have been there done that before, and we didn't find it either fun or conducive to the holyday spirit! lol In the space of perhaps two hours the year we went out, like three times someone gave my shoe a "flat tire," someone was vigorously yanking my cart trying to take it for themselves, and several someones were caught red-handed trying to steal things out of my cart! (We finally covered our treasures with our jackets until we could get through checkout.) And the fun didn't stop there! Twice in the parking lot, while we were jammed amongst the exit traffic, someone backed into our car. One man walked right by my window, hopped in and revved his pickup, put it in reverse and * BAM! * right into the side of our car. I barely had time to holler, "He's gonna hit us!" Not that it helped any. Then he had the nerve to get out and say, "Sorry, I didn't see you." So, no, we didn't go shoppin'!

Since we were only an hour from my dad's brother, Dan, and his wife, Anna, we spent most of the day Saturday with them. You can't find people any better with whom to visit. They are so full of praise to the Lord and testimonies of God's goodness that the blessing just spills all over you too! We took our laptop to show them lots (prolly too many!) pictures of the extended family. Eventually there were just too many babies to keep track of and everyone started blurring together. lol But they did enjoy seeing everybody. Oh yeh, their daughter, Cheri, stopped in for a while too, so she got to see most of the photos we shared too.

From there Aunt Anna asked Uncle Dan to sing a song together that their son, David, composed, "A Blessing in Disguise." Wow, what a song! He needs to get it recorded and promoted. People will be blessed.

Uncle Dan

Aunt Anna

"A blessing in disguise" was the topic the right on through supper and sitting around the table afterwards. One testimony shared was the account of how God worked through my car breaking down to bless me with a husband! :) (You just never know what lurks beneath a hood! lol) Telling that story is always fun. :)

Interesting tidbit: Uncle Dan told me my dad's nickname when he was little was "Skippy." I had never heard that before.

The trip back home on Sunday was miserably long. Somehow it seems that every time we are away for Thanksgiving, that Sunday is cold, dreary and rainy. To make matters worse, we got snarled in traffic due to a 500-foot construction zone and inched along the interstate during the last two hours of daylight. Since it was through the most winding stretch of the mountains and there were looney bins out there, the slow-go may have been yet another blessing in disguise. Above all, we arrived home safely. God protected us every mile! :)

Beautiful "Great Snowy Mountains"

I'm a mite tardy (yeh, riiight!) in posting this, but I still wanted to show you this. We topped the hill on the way home from church a couple Sundays ago and gasped at the sheer beauty of the snow-capped peaks of the Great Smokies in the distance. (This is where I like snow: in the distance!) So we went home, got the camera, and drove around all over the place trying to get good pictures! lol Somehow we never found the right spot, but here's one photo in which you can see the snow atop the mountains. (You might want to click on the picture to get the larger version otherwise you might think we can't tell haze and clouds from snow.) Enjoy!

Another Sprout on the Family Tree!!

Fanie & Rose (Stence) Blignaut have another SON! Abigail, Daniel, Liliva, Elisha, Kezia and Kihannah have a LITTLE BROTHER! Becky has another GRANDSON--18 grandbabies (and Great-Pappy & Grammy Cooley watching over Baby Rose in heaven)! The little guy is still waiting for his name! Update: His name is Lemuel, meaning "belongs to God," and is thought by many to be another name/nickname for Solomon. The only Biblical references to Lemuel are in Proverbs 31:1 and 4.

Thank You, God, for watching over Mommy and Baby Lemuel Josiah!

Baby Lemuel Josiah arrived today, Wed, Nov 12, 10:0 AM. He weighs 9 pounds and is 21.5 inches long.

CONGRATULATIONS,

Rose & Fanie!

Abigail, Daniel, Liliva, Elisha, Kezia and Kihannah!!

WELCOME, LEMUEL JOSIAH BLIGNAUT!