Morning Glories.

We planted Morning Glories on Tues. or Wed. I know I bought the Jiffy-pellets on Mon. The seedlings are already sprouting, as you can see for yourself. Truly amazing! We numbered each one. I mixed four different seed packets together. Then the children each got a grid sheet. They got to guess what colors will come up in each of the 63 little pots we planted. I plan to plant them along the fence so we have some beauties climbing the fence.

We have had a little gardening incident so far. We planted two cauliflower and one broccoli plant out in a little spot in the yard. We also have a rabbit that is appropriately named Peter. He ate them! I had hoped the deer would leave them alone and they did. It was Peter Rabbit neatly clipping them down to the nubbins. I have one broccoli plant up in a planter that should be safe. Ah well. The deer seem to think that our strawberry plants and roses are here simply for their luncheon delights. Last year I shot a couple with the BB gun while they were sampling my blueberries. They were cheeky enough to return though. It is the price we pay for living in such a beautiful place, I guess.

Unbelievable.

Our neighbor gave us this outfit for the Firecracker when she was born. I thought,"It will never fit her." Yet here she is able to wear it almost a year later. It is unbelievable how time flies. She is learning to walk too. Pretty soon she will be toddling after her brothers and sisters. They are so amazing!

After all this time!

I know that our vast reading audience has wondered what happened to our blog. Life pretty much! We have priorities and the internet isn't one of the top ones:) Now I again have the desire to put some stuff on our blog. I might even find some time to do it.

We are getting to the end of our school year. The boys are playing baseball and we have Friday night games for the next six weeks. I hope I can post some pictures from that. I also need to update our profile since some nicknames and most ages have undergone some changes. The kids sure enjoy seeing pictures of themselves so that is a lot of fun. Well, we shall see if I get it together for a little bit, hmmm?

After all this time!

I know that our vast reading audience has wondered what happened to our blog. Life pretty much! We have priorities and the internet isn't one of the top ones:) Now I again have the desire to put some stuff on our blog. I might even find some time to do it.

We are getting to the end of our school year. The boys are playing baseball and we have Friday night games for the next six weeks. I hope I can post some pictures from that. I also need to update our profile since some nicknames and most ages have undergone some changes. The kids sure enjoy seeing pictures of themselves so that is a lot of fun. Well, we shall see if I get it together for a little bit, hmmm?

Why Not?

I know it has been a while since I blogged. I have several reasons why. One is that I am having techinical difficulty with my digital camera uploads. Since I am not necessarily a techno-savvy person that is a big mountain to scale for me. I really haven't had the time to try lately.

We also established this weblog to be fun and show off our family pictures. We have gone through a series of hard providences. We have come out on the other side a little more patient and thoughtful (I think, I hope anyway). These things always serve to remind us that we are not as big or tough as we think we are. We really do need to hang onto Jesus. When it comes down to it, He is all we have. We really are thankful for our church family that has been Jesus with skin on for us.

We are hoping and praying that this year will be one to blog happy things about:) It has started already:
My good friend, Valerie BBG, had a beautiful baby boy. You can look here to see for yourself.
We also got a new niece on Dec. 21! She caused much excitement for her parents, her aunt, uncle and cousins. Most of all for her big brother. He is quite enamoured with her. We know he is going to take good care of her.

We also got my mom for Christmas. Not just for a visit, but to stay! She has a nice, little place just down the street from us. She has decided to call it Providence, which is a very fitting name for the house. It is a good reminder and testimony of God's goodness even in hard circumstances.

I bought sauerkraut!

You might well ask why. I will tell you-for Reformation Day. Now you are probably wondering what that is all about. I am not going to miss this opportunity again. We are going to celebtate October 31st with German fare and some fun educational things, that have yet to be decided. In case you were wondering, it is the day Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Whittenberg. Celebrating God's providence through this man is a much better way to spend that day, I think, rather than simply not celebrating Halloween as we have in the past. Well, so much for leaving the controversial things to Carmon:)

Look who's nine!

Yes, our oldest is nine, as of tomorrow. We have a lot of fun playing with our funhouse pictures. We couldn't find a pirate, but our BusyBee settled for being a WWI flying ace. What a blessing our boy is. Happy Birthday!!!

I love a contest.

I do love contests. I like playing games and having fun. I am honest enough to admit that I like winning, but I also enjoy playing too. So here is a contest definately worth entering at the In A Shoe website
This contest is quite a challenge for me on several fronts. I had to learn a couple of new computer skills. One was learning how to insert a link in my post. The information was graciously provided on Karen's website. Then if you link to the contest you can actually enter for a second contest for another worthwhile prize. I hope my friend Valerie(BBG) is proud of me.

The contest has a prize from Vision Forum for $700.00 worth of products. That is for the family that guesses the number of items in the new Vision Forum catalog that is coming out. There will also be a drawing for 2 $50.00 gift certifcates from VF as well. Nice prizes and lots of fun. If you click on the In A Shoe link and then follow the directions you too can enter.

Fun, fun, fun for everyone.

Good News.

We had to postpone our carwash until this last Saturday. We were blessed with great weather and a wonderful crew. We raised $410.00 all together. Some came from people at church that donated even though they could not come to the car wash. Some was also earned at the carwash. The money all went to Dave and BeckyLynn Black for the Ethiopian churches they minister to. Our family has been blessed to be involved with their ministry in a hands-on way. This was great for us and the children.

Growing by leaps and bounds.

It is hard to believe that our little munchkin is big enough for the "jumpy duck" already. It seems that she was born only yesterday. She is such a sweetie. We are going to have to change her nickname from Our Latest Model to Bubbles. She likes to blow lots of spit bubbles. We sure wouldn't trade her for the world.

Look who's forty!

Yes, it is true. It happened on 9/11 this year! The best looking guy turned forty. His loving wife got some of his buddies together to have a surprise BBQ. It turned out so great. The birthday boy was clueless enough to even attend in his orange "safety" shirt from work. They all had a good time involving fire (on the grill), guns and fellowship. The next day the adult Heaths (with our Latest Model tagging along) departed for a beach trip. The kids all did extremely well by keeping all the secrets from Daddy's present (a new gun) to the surprise party. Pretty impressive really!

The Birthday Princesses!

I found the picture! The pretty Birthday Princesses! Yay! I am so blessed with these girls. I am thankful for their younger sisters too.

The Cake

Ah-ha! I found the cake picture. The Barbie part of it was even edible. The children's aunt found incredible pleasure in cutting the cake.

Switch!

Okay, If I had previewed it then I would have known that I didn't have the right picture in the previous post. Oh well.

This is the picture of one of the birthday girls. The picture with the birthday post is of our Monster child. She is doing her topless hula impression in front of all of our Costco. stuff that had yet to be put away. Okay, I am off to try to find the cake and the picture of both girls.

The Princess Diaries

Well, I think I got the picture of the Birthday Girls. Tabitha and Tahlia turned 5 and 3, respectively, on Labor Day weekend. We went shopping. The girls were each allowed to pick an outfit, a doll and a nail polish. The older princess surprisingly picked a pants outfit (albeit with plenty of pink), a Princess Barbie and white nail polish. The younger one picked a pretty pink dress, a Snow White fabric doll and pink nail polish. They picked Burger King to eat at because it has a playground. To each her own, I guess.

Sunday we celebrated with some cake and ice cream and a special dinner for their aunt as well. I will see if I can locate the picture of the cake. It was sooooo pink.

Down at the Carwash

One of the latest projects we are working on is a carwash. It is to raise money for the Blacks in their ministry to the Ethiopian churches. We have been privileged to send eyeglasses with them on one of their trips. That was a "hands-on" need that we could do. The kids got to help pick out eyeglasses at the dollar store. Then we packaged them up and sent them to Virginia to our friends that distributed them. It was great to get the pictures and updates from that trip. It is a great way for our children to be involved with our brothers and sisters in a different nation. Hopefully, it will stir their hearts to be compassionate and giving. It is also great to let the churches in Ethiopia know that we remember them in prayer and in tangible ways. It is so personal and we are thankful for this opportunity. So for a "hands-on" way to earn some money we are washing cars two Saturdays from now. I will take pictures to send and also to post. We are praying for good weather since it is prone to rain here anytime.

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. I Cor. 9: 1-11 Amen.

September Flurries

It actually starts tomorrow...
The birthday flurry of the Heath household. My sister-in-law will kick it off and it will end with a birthday leaking over into October. Does it count if his due date was September? The oldest three girls' birthdays are all in September. The big daddy-O has the dubious honor of turning forty on the 11th. We have a couple of nephews and one dear friend's son also in September. Our oldest son is the one that slid into October.

We do try to make each child's birthday a special treat. We have stolen some ideas from the Friedrichs, who have more children than we do at this point. So instead of big parties or expensive trips to Chuck E. Cheese's we do some personal things for them. I think that through out the years those are the things that they will remember. I plan on taking some pictures and posting the birthdays as they happen. Hopefully, I will make up for my lack of blogging this month.

For Rebazooka!!!!

I have not blogged lately because of the lack of anecdotal material. I want this blog to be a funny little window into our family. We have had some hard kind of things hit us recently that take precedence over blogging. I had a request to keep up some entertainment so here goes:

The word is famulus. I had never heard of this word before. It means an attendant or assistant, especially of a medieval sorcerer or scholar. Now how would you use that in every day conversation, hmmmmm?

I will blog some more when I have more energy. Hope this satiates my audiences thirst for new vocabulary words.

Seven Happy Years

My husband and I attended a couples' Bible study. One of the first meetings the couples introduced themselves. We were to say our names and how long we had been married. One very funny gentleman introduced himself and his wife. He then said they had been married for 19 happy years...and that isn't too bad out of 25. This Saturday my husband and I have been married for 11 years. Now you can figure out how that is related to the title.
We have had some hard times and some good times. We both have more mileage on us than we had at the altar. We also have six children that adds quite a bit to the equation. I sure am glad that we have each other. He is the best friend that I have. There was a teacher I had back in YWAM that said after 10 years of marriage he and his wife really loved each other. Then after 20 they really knew what love was. Then after 30 they really knew. I think he might really have know what he was talking about:) I love my husband more now than I did then. I am looking forward to the next decade in our marriage.
Happy Anniversary to you Mr. Heath.

For Five Minutes

I have achieved a clean house. Yes, I know it is hard to believe, but I have done it. It only took shipping out the oldest three to relatives and about a week of scrubbing. If I can avoid feeding the Menace twins in the house then I could actually keep it clean for more than the foreseeable five minutes.