New Pictures

I took my youngest son grocery shopping today, and he was the most popular little boy in the store! It seemed that everyone we passed either smiled, said "hello," or tried to tickle him; he must be in that super-cute phase.


If you want verification of his (and his siblings') cuteness, take a look at our new pictures from our March escapades (click here).

Up, Up, Up

There is only one way to go, and that is up. Benjamin is learning to climb and his diaper is a nice anchor when it comes to climbing. Now, how to get to the next rung of the ladder...

Safely Gathered In

"Today was the best day!" This was the comment David made as we finished up canning wheat. Little by little we are gathering and storing. The children were very excited about doing this.
It feels good because it is right.

I really enjoyed reading about and learning about storing food. This is where I was able to learn the most, Provident Living: Family Home Storage.

Chalking Fun!

Because the weather has been very beautiful for playing outside, we decided to do some drive-way art. We really had fun this time because my children are finally getting to an age where they can draw and write words. Here are a few examples:

I only helped a little with this, and was impressed with the results.

Lately we have enjoyed reading "Ladybug Girl" books, and the children wanted to pretend to be the characters from the book. I thought I would draw them:
Ladybug Girl, Bumblebee Boy, and Little Bug Boy

Of course we pretend to have pets too.

We feel so blessed to have had lots of rain, and pray that we can have more to keep us in a stable condition with the water, but we love the sunny days! There is something special about Texas sunshine! We love to go for walks/bike rides, chalk, play at the many parks in our area, and we are even learning how to jump rope. The joys of being a child and the freedom of the outdoors!

Nice Kitty, nice Kitty...

Last night we had one of those Family Home Evenings that would be a great church video (as a good example).

Each person has their role down so nicely. The littlest one leading the music at our make-shift podium. Our oldest giving the lesson with a flannel board. Then, my favorite part, the game. We played a game called, "Nice Kitty, nice Kitty." We all sat in a circle and the person who is "it" pretends to be a cat and tries to get someone to laugh. The others would have to say, "Nice kitty, nice kitty", without smiling while the cat tries to make them laugh by being/doing what cats do.

I think we are all terrible at keeping straight faces and we would burst out laughing, not to mention we couldn't stop smiling the entire time! The children loved pretending too. We were rolling around on the floor.

Times like these help me to see the wonderful blessings of having a family. The joy is more than I could have imagined.

CROP Walk

Each year, my family participates in the Austin CROP Hunger Walk (CROP stands for "Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty"). This is an event where participants raise donations from friends (you) in order to help combat the growing problem of hunger—both locally and world-wide. In addition, funds raised help victims of the recent earthquakes (e.g. in Haiti and Chile).

I'll be walking with my family and I'm looking to find friends who will either make donations to the organization or come and join me in the walk. 75% of the funds go toward global hunger resources and 25% stay local (Austin).

This is us last year.

"What can I do to help?" you ask: You can simply donate using the secure CROP Walk site (link), or you can join in on the fun this weekend, either Saturday or Sunday (location info, link), and raise sponsors/funds from other friends. (Here is my family's CROP Walk site: link.)

Want additional information? The CROP Walk website, www.cropwalk.org, has links for additional information.

-Additional Information-
Official Austin Website: www.main.org/cropwalk/ for more information.

Main CROP Website: www.cropwalk.org

You can make donations or join in the cause from any of the above sites, but it is easiest from my family's CROP site.

-CROP Walk Specifics-
The walk will be held on Saturday and Sunday (March 6 & 7) at Walter E. Long Park (map), at 9:30 am (Saturday) and 1:45 pm (Sunday).

What Could it Be?

Just the other day, when we were enjoying a warm evening, a rumor started that we might get snow this week. I said that I didn't believe it and predictions have been wrong before. I knew it would be cold and that it would rain, so I wasn't surprised when we woke up to rain, but there was another sound with the rain: ice.

I walked David to school our heads turned from the ice that was blowing out of the north, and not long after that the ice became small and clumped up together to make big fluffy snowflakes. Here is the result:

We played in snow here for the first time,
and you can see we are well equipped with proper clothing.

Snow?

I heard a noise and came over to see Rebecca pelting the windows.

I think I won't be so hard on the weather predictions in the future! We had snow all day and there is still a little bit on the ground.