Happy Birthday to the cutest 5 year old!

And happy birthday to the awesome, fun loving, violin playing,

 picture avoiding auntie whose birthday she stole.:) 

 

Miss you Mary girl!

The Life

Its living in the country. On a farm. Working hard. It's shoveling silage to hungry cattle in the mud and bitter cold when your muscles are just tired from constant work out, your fingers and face are freezing(and everything else for that matter) and you just got done spending a whole afternoon putting up fence and chopping vines and brush and brambles away from the wire and driving steers down a muddy laneway to their new pasture and fixing fences with icy wind cutting right through you like a knife. Sometimes we complain. About the mud, and the cold, and the frozen hoses, and having to haul water and chase cows that get out. But really, it's the best life in the world. We wouldn't change it.

Because every day we're part of God's creation.

And you're really a part of it when you're on the back of a horse.....

That good earthy/fall-ish smell and the squeak of saddle leather and hoofbeats? Can't beat it.

 

The roundbales in the field; each and every stalk and kernel of corn......

Old barns and ripened soybeans...

 

Little brother on old faithful...

 

....who has let us all learn to ride on him.

 (and the dog can't resist having some fun too)

 

 

 Corn ready for harvest...

 

Country skies....

We thank God for all of this.

Nicaragua

Here is a slideshow of some of the many pics from Nica. Enjoy. :)

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d6376431k4428428o1/nicaragua

Girl's Camp

This was an incredible week of camp, focused on the heart. There was excellent teaching in the morning and evenings by moms and older girls, lots and lots of singing, prayer, early mornings reading our Bibles, group time with everyone sharing what they learned from their devotions, games, exercising, memorizing scripture with relay races and going to the lake. It was wonderful and we're so thankful to the Lord for blessing the week in an amazing way!

 

Playing an ice breaker game the first evening

Claire and Michael

Claire did so much work putting the camp together and did an excellent job teaching on the heart. Thank you!!

Julia

Juliana and Mary cooking s'mores

 

Gotta have a campfire!

Julia and Selah doing the cornhole toss!

Anna

Kayla

 

Go Mary!

Pool time

Deb, Juli, Sarah and Julia

Anna was our song leader

Jumping rope

A new kind of umbrella!

Liz and Anna

Playing the flip-flop game

Julia and Joanna

 

Brad came to make sure we sang our theme song, "God Sees the Heart", right.

Julia, our amazing piano player

 

The girls had to memorize a verse every day and then do a relay race. This was the sack race. They hopped to the leaders, said their verse and hopped back to their team. Whatever team finished first won.

The girls saying their verses

Then it was the leaders' turn! :)

Joel

 

We literally ate like kings the whole week! Thank you soooo much Mrs. P.!!

Kay and Mary

Sisters!

Jo and Ana

Lydia and Jo

A fun game of signs

Juliana, Jo and Kara

Yummy tent food!

After church on Wednesday night we came back to camp and ate tacos in a bag.

They were sooo delicious!

 

We thought it was funny that all the C. girls liked Fritos and all of us Reynolds liked Doritos so we got a picture.

For dessert we had sundaes in a bag. Julia and Jo ate one too many, haha.

They were a hit!

Amy, Kay and Mary

Our amazing cook!

Looking over the scavenger hunt details

Off we go!

 

Team 3's findings

Team 1's findings

A beautiful sunset at the lake

Abby, Kayla, Halle, Mary and Cassia holding Amy, who was their team leader

Practicing a song

 

Group sharing

Heading out for a morning run

Oh, such yummy breakfasts'! (Right Deb? *wink*)

Note taking

Another relay race

The shaving cream fight

The fearsome three

(It was a water fight too)

Claire had to spray everyone off before they could jump in the pool and the hose was cold.

Back to the lake to enjoy another sunset

 

 

 

"Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 1 Tim. 4:12