My Sweet Husband

Last night when Daniel got home from a basketball game with a friend, he gave me this.

Of course, I was very pleasantly surprised!

First, I opened the card and read lots of wonderful things about how much he appreciates me and what specifically he loves about me. With my love language being words of affirmation, I always love that! :)

Then I opened these! What woman doesn't love getting jewelry?! They are rubies and match a ring he gave me a year or 2 ago. I love them!

Here's a close-up view for you:

Thank you so much, Honey! You are an Amazing Husband and I am so Grateful to God for blessing me with you!!

Traveling....

I forgot that I had these pictures on my camera. They are from our drive to Missouri to drop the 3 youngest kids off with my parents while we headed off to London.


Here's some pictures of Joanna asleep in the car. See Isaac playing with his firetruck back there?

Our A/C was broken, so we took Joanna's shirt off to keep her from getting so hot. Don't you love how the fingers start to fall out as she falls asleep? So cute!


Abigail and Isaac playing together during the long drive. They are all GREAT travelers!

I tried to get a good picture of Isaac sleeping with his firetruck, but it was a challenging task while we were driving, and my camera is cheap. So, this is the best I got. I think he's still cute when he's a little blurry! :)

Joanna was awake during the drive, too. I think she just woke up in this picture!

Later, I found these on my camera. Daniel took some of me napping too, while he was driving! Thanks Babe. You gotta love those sleeping pictures! :)

Silly Time!

Awhile back the kids got into the headbands and thought they were great fun! Here are some pictures of them.


All 3 together.



Isaac

Abigail

Hannah



"Tough" Isaac with Joanna peeking around his shoulder.


The Simple Joys of Life

The kids love wearing their bicycle helmets, especially Isaac and Joanna. (Or I should say "helmick" for Jojo.)
At nap time the other day, Isaac asked to wear his to bed, so I agreed. (After he fell asleep we unclipped it.)

Great Quote

I "stole" this quote from my sister's blog. I just think it is such a wonderful reminder of how much God cares for us. He knows us so intimately. He will NEVER give us more than we can handle, and He knows what that is better than we do. How many times have people come through difficulties realizing they, with God's amazing grace, were stronger than they could have ever imagined!

I have been reminded so often lately that the narrow road comes with it's hardships. Duh! The wide road has plenty of it's own, too! The question is not about choosing a trouble free path versus a trouble full path, it's whether you choose the path that has God and His army on your side to help you along, or the path that leaves you all alone with no help along the way. No one to fight specifically for you. What a sad, lonely place to be.

I am so thankful that God called me to Himself and I chose to follow. What an awesome army to be a part of! Thanks to all of you, my friends and helpers along this narrow path. I pray that I can help fight for you, too!

The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents to you as a gift from His all-knowing eyes,

understood with His Divine mind,

tested with His wise justice,

warmed with loving arms

and weighted with His own hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you.

He has blessed it with His holy Name,

anointed it with His grace,

perfumed it with His consolation,

taken one last glance at you and your courage,

and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you, an alms of the all-merciful love of God.

--St Francis de Sales

Happy Birthday!

Rebecca, Happy Birthday to you!

I so admire your passion to follow God wherever he leads you, your passion to know Jesus more, your passion for God's word, your passion for life!

I hope you have a wonderful birthday today!

Work Weekend!

My parents came the last weekend in October for a "Work Weekend". YEAH!! I love work weekends, you get a lot of stuff done and it's a party! :) We put in a new front door, and mom painted it, Dad & Daniel installed a new hot water heater (our old one was leaving a big puddle on the basement floor), they replaced the A/C drainage on the furnace, brought and installed a new (to me) stove, and countless other little jobs.

Plus we were able to eat lots of great food, watch some football and movies, talk (of course), and just have fun being together. Here are some pics from the weekend. Most of the pictures were a last minute idea, so they aren't great, but you get the idea.

THANKS MOM & DAD!!

Here is Dad working on installing the new door. Dad and I did that job on Friday, while Daniel was at work. Mom's job was to watch the kids or let them climb all over her. :) We didn't get any pictures of taking out the old door.

Here's a view of the new door from the outside, before mom painted it.

Inside view

The remains of our old door and frame.

The door all done now and painted from the outside.

Inside view

Dad and Daniel working on the hot water heater.



The night before my parents left mom was looking at our "motherhood" fridge poetry set. The next day I found this. Thanks mom!





The "it live" part I think the kids might have messed with.

Zoo

First, I wanted to let you know that all the pictures from my England posts maxed out my allowed picture space, so I decided to start a blog just for our vacations. I have transferred all of my England posts, except the last one, to that blog. So, if you want to read them again or anything, go there. (I have a link to it under my blogging friends, it's Asher Vacations.) Though, when I transferred the posts, the pictures decided not to work, so I need to re-upload all of them. Thus, it's mostly words at this point. I'm hoping to do that sometime in the near future. :)



The kids and I went to the zoo last week. It was one of the last warmer days for awhile.


Here are some cute pictures of Joanna on the way down to the Zoo. She loves to wear this hat. Notice she has it on inside out!

Here are Hannah, Abby, and Isaac climbing on an Orangutan statue.

This is inside the Chimpanzee and Orangutan house. They had a little alcove for the kids to sit in and watch the chimps. (Sorry it's such a dark picture.)

Now all 4 are climbing on an Orangutan.

Here are Hannah, Abby, and Joanna posing in some tall grass. (You can barely see Jojo in there!)

Joanna just chillin' in the stroller.

The train at the Zoo is free and the kids so enjoy riding on it, so we took a short ride that day. Here are Isaac and Joanna turning around to look at me.

We went to watch the penguins. (This exhibit was just built this past spring.) They mark the different penguins with colorful bands, to keep track of them. Hannah, Abigail, Isaac, and Joanna were picking different colors to be their "teams" , then they would watch them race. If only the penguins had known that!

They would run back and forth watching their penguins go.

We tried to get a picture of all of us together. When you ask strangers to snap a picture for you, you can't be too picky about the turn out. At least we've got some with all of us in it.

I know the date is wrong on all the pictures. I haven't changed it, yet.