Kite Fun, First Fruits, and Friends!

This year we decided to celebrate the Feast of First Fruits with friends and kites.  The children had so much fun enjoying the beautiful weather, running around with friends, and sharing great memories.  We might have to do this every year. :)  Sorry for the overload of kite flying pics, but that's all Alegra took and they are fun and cute and filled with great kids!  :)

And we can't forget all the little cuties that we spent the day with.  We are truly blessed with wonderful friends for us and our children.  Watching them grow is fun, but the years are passing too quickly.

Passover 2016

This time of year is always a special one for our family as the spring feasts of the Lord are upon us.  We love celebrating with our brothers and sisters all that God has done for us in the sacrifice of His only Son.  Passover is a time to reflect on that sacrifice and then look inside our hearts as we enter into the feast of unleavened bread at the sin that we need to clean out.  These feasts give us great conversations with our children and are such a wonderful picture to help them see the greater love that our Messiah has for us.  I only have pictures here of our first fellowship time with our City on a Hill family having seder together.  The next day we celebrated with some worship and teaching closer to home with families that are within our community fellowship.  Then on Sunday, we celebrated His rising for the feast of First Fruits with friends coming over to fly kites and have a campfire.  What a wonderful day to just hang out with friends and enjoy what He's done for us!

 Alegra and I were both designated to capture the evening in photo.

I love my photographer.  :)

 This year Josiah was asked to participate in asking one of the children's questions.  We were so proud of him for being brave enough to accept the part.  He did a great job!

 The plague bags are always fun for the children, filled with reminders of the plagues that Egypt had to deal with.

And then lots of dance to end the evening.  I even got in there and danced half a song.  Haven't done that for quite some time.  :)

 My girl gathered up some flowers for me. :)

As we continue this week of Unleavened Bread, we are reminded of all that we need cleansed of.  So much hides, is pushed back into the corners of our hearts or is so small that we don't think we need to deal with it, but that's not what God requires of us.  He wants our whole hearts to serve Him, with not a bit of sin that we hold onto.  I pray this week draws all of our hearts closer to Him and closer to serving Him completely without blemish.

Field Trip - Dairy Farm, Old Cars, and a Nature Hike

It seems that I haven't blogged about life around here lately.  I guess that just shows that this mama is a busy one.  I usually like to do a field trip with the children more often than we have this year, but it just hasn't worked out of finding something fun and close by, and it really is a lot of work to haul everybody up and go somewhere.  :)  

My aunt thought of us when she read about Dekalb County's Ag Day at a Dairy Farm near Butler.  The day turned out to be beautifully sunny, but still just a bit chilly.  My children have been very exposed to a dairy farm down the road from our house, but this was a good opportunity for them to compare the two farms and see how another might operate differently.  It was fun for me to hear them talk about the differences and what they liked better between the two farms.  They also enjoyed pettting animals and fresh air mixed with some Vitamin D.  

After the farm tour we headed to my cousin's house for lunch and a tour of her old cars.  All of us enjoyed seeing the old parts and pieces and newer fixed up versions of what used to be old.  Her place is a fun one to walk around.

After lunch, we took a long stroll back to the pond and a walk through the woods.  What a delightful day to just be outside and enjoy creation.  Some of the children had fun riding the golf cart, while the others took turns walking along with us, who wanted the exercise.

We finished up with dessert after our hike, and then headed to Auburn to take my Aunt home and to stop by Jeremiah's coffee shop where Alegra has some of her photography displayed for sale.  She had one more picture to hang up and her bio to drop off to put with her photos.  We've heard great things about his chai, so we had to get a cup of that too, and boy oh boy, that was delicious!!

What a great field trip day!  The children asked when they get spring break like the other kids.  Well, we aren't.  Instead they are finishing their books, taking fun days like this that we can still count as school, and be completely done with school for the summer by the beginning of May.  I would much prefer that than taking a break and stretching school out til later in the spring.  

Looks like I need to get back at blogging.  We have a goal for June and July to do lots of fun things to occupy time since we are doing a "No Electronic" time for the children.  We have our list of what everyone wants to do during that time, so I suppose there will be plenty to blog about then.