Celia's Celebration Tea For Two

This weekend we had another wonderful celebration honoring a fabulous lady and her new little girl, Ruth. This Celebration was a Tea For Two and we had tea, cookies, cakes, and a special song with the words of tea for two changed up to fit a new momma.

The treat table with diaper cake as the centerpiece.

The table decorations consisted of a jelly jar with flowers from my gardens, smaller jelly jars with special m&ms and honey dipped spoons.

The guest of honor with her daughter, Shalom admiring all the goodies and excited to be getting her dream of a tea party.

Who wouldn't have smiles with all that deliciousness to choose from. : )

Another angle of the goodies.

Shalom with her honey spoon lollipop.

The great grandma holding baby Ruth.

The grandma holding Shalom after a tiring party.

We also had ladies bring in cookies enough that we could do a cookie exchange. It was fun, encouraging and a blessing for all who attended. I would have liked to have gotten some pictures of some of the tea cups ladies brought. They were to bring their own, and there were some pretty fancy ones. Sooo much fun!!!

A full summer

Well, it seems I wasn't able to load pictures for awhile for some strange reason, but really I didn't have much time for that anyway. We had a garden full of produce that was wonderful to enjoy. The canning for the year didn't go so well as the pressure cooker wasn't working properly, and I ruined several loads of food due to that. I was bummed about all the beans that I lost, but with the help from my little helpers, I was able to get some pasta sauce canned for next year. Thankfully we had way me than we needed canned last year, so that will last us this coming year also.

Here are my helpers carrying in tomatoes. They carried in several loads like this.

I am looking forward to them getting a big enough that they can help cut up the tomatoes. Usually my mom and I do it together and it goes so much faster with that extra set of hands. When they are big enough, I will have some great kitchen help.

Benaiah didn't do much help with the canning, but he does love to climb up on the couch with a library book and sit and turn the pages. Most of the time the book is upside down, but in this picture I caught him looking at it the correct way. : )

The big excitement of the summer was the building of a new loft bed, so that everyone in the house has a bed to sleep in. Josiah was not enjoying the couch so much and my grandparents gave us some wood that their neighbor gave them that was actually used for a loft. So, with some extra wood and a friend pitching in some help to construct another bed, all four children have a soft bed that is their space.

The loft completed and yes, Benaiah does get caught going up to the top every now and then when the children forget to put the ladder up. One night we found him laying on Alegra's belly while she was reading and he was sound asleep. But he does love his little toddler bed too.

And Benaiah is walking now. He loves to be outside walking around and exploring.

Which makes him tuckered out and it isn't anything unusual to find him sound asleep in his bed after crawling up in it on his own. What a joy he is!

A Date To Portage. MI

We have been long overdue for a date just the two of us. So, we planned a date for last Thursday and were very much looking forward to it. We read that at Celery Flats in Portage they rent surrey bicycles, so we thought we would give them a try and take along our camera for some good, fun photo opportunities.

We biked and at a good resting point, because believe me these bikes are extremely hard to pedal, we took pictures. We were both sweating by the time our 30 minutes was up, and that was with stopping for some photos.

A bicycle built for two or more....

This bench said "well done" and we thought it was the perfect saying to stop and rest.

We then walked over to the Celery Flats Historical part of the park and enjoyed a walk and more photos around the old buildings. It truly turned out to be a great place for some wonderful photos.

I really loved this lamp post and the setting around it!

I'm getting into sun ray pictures too, but trying to figure out how to make the people in the person clearer without losing the rays.

With using the delay button on the camera, if you don't want to be looking at the camera it can be a little difficult making sure you hold position long enough. Obviously in this picture we didn't hold position long enough and when I turned to be done with the dip saw the light still flashing on the camera. Oops! The next one we got a better pose. : )

That's better!

Jonathon loved the old mill in this picture and I loved the circle out of bricks. So, we thought this would make for a neat dancing picture. Hard to get a good action dancing picture when you aren't sure when the camera is going off, but we got this one good.

Was hoping to get some close up focus with us in the background blurred and this spot turned out to be the perfect place for that. Loved how these turned out!

And loved the character of this old building!

And again!

After pictures we were starving, so we headed to a restaurant and had a delicious meal. What a great evening we had together. I'm so thankful that our lives don't revolve just around our children and that 13 years later, and much work to have a happy marriage, we are still loving life and each other the same, if not more, than when we were first married. Good times for sure!

An Evening on the Lake

Today has been a busy day and while I am getting caught up on blogging, Diella is stirring some herbal ointment that will soon be ready to pour into jars and the other three are playing checkers or in Benaiahs case, trying to ruin a game of checkers.

We had a lovely evening on the lake with my parents. Jonathon wasn't able to join us right away but did after he finished up work. There is just something about a lake that is so calming.

Dad had a good little in captain in Benaiah. He sure loved the boat experience, and I think Dad enjoyed him loving the boat experience.

Full speed ahead! Good thing the real captain was taller than the stearing wheel.

My mom and the three children. We are having fun!

They took us to Olivere Lake which runs to some other lakes via small canals that were very secluded. Felt like we were in a jungle.

We got clear back as far as we could go in the chain of lakes and decided to eat some supper and catch some fish. We also spotted a huge snapper turtle swimming in the water. We all decided would be best to keep toes inside the boat after that.

The phone rang and the Papa was almost to the lake, so we set sail back to the dock to pick him up. The sun was shining brightly and the wind flew through our hair. Hang on, Diella's driving!

Waiting for us to pick him up!

Had to get a picture of myself. Actually, we got a new camera, and I spent the evening trying out all the settings and learning how it works. Worked quite nicely after I got the hang of it.

My mom and Benaiah. Not sure what he was enjoying, but he sure was enjoying something....

Oh, the happy times on the boat!

Showing Papa the jungle canal.

And finally heading in to pack up and go home. That Benaiah sure thinks a lot of his Granpa Dan.

And he loves to roam on the boat. See him in this corner of the picture.

He just hung on and road with the waves. What a perfect sunset for the evening!

Our camera has a filter on it that softens a picture when you take it. I was experimenting with it and the sunset setting that it also has.

And another experimentation with the camera. Here is Diella enjoying the ride back in with the sun glowing around her.

We did have a wonderful evening to end our day full of hard work. What a blessing!

Camping Trip West Virginia 2010- Day 5

Day 5. We woke and began packing up camp. One thing that we were so thankful for was the perfect weather that we had. It's awful when you have to pack up camp when everything is all wet. We couldn't have asked for a better weekend, as far as the weather goes.

Jonathon was walking through some weeds right by our camp and found this little lizard as our farewell friend.

He had some amazing neon orange spots on his back and some of us just enjoyed him for a bit before letting him go.

One more potty stop then we were off, heading for home. With a van running good, happy traveling children, a beautiful day, and home awaiting our arrival, we blessed the Lord for all that He had done over the weekend. Too many things to mention, but it definitely wasn't a weekend within our control. From the good to the sad, He was in control of it all and I bless Him for using us as His tool of blessing. I pray that our lives are always willing to bless when we are needed no matter the situation.

And even though we had a rough start with the van, we hit 200,000 miles on our way home. Whew, no wonder she wanted a little break in Bridgeville. : )

Camping Trip West Virginia 2010- Day 4

Day 4. Plans changed for this day as I decided to stay at camp with my friend who wasn't feeling well. So, I stayed there with their little one and Benaiah and had an extremely layed back day. The others went hiking more and saw some great things.

This is a rattlesnake skin they found along a trail. I'd much rather they found this than the real snake!

Since I didn't join them on this hike, I'm really not sure what all the pictures are. All I know is that this area was either in the Rock City area in Coopers Rock State Forrest or near by the Rock City area.

In Rock City they were able to climb on rocks and watch real climbers climb up much bigger rocks than this one.

After Rock City they came back to camp, got a bite to eat, then headed back out to a trail that had native hemlock trees. This is where Jonathon forgot the camera but he said that it looked like a jungle and was wonderful!

After they got back to camp, we headed out on a trail at the campground. We were excited to find on letterboxing.org that there was a letterbox right in the campground we were staying at. I tried to find it with the little ones, but it wasn't conducive to stroller pushing, and there was water around, and I wasn't real thrilled about having the toddler so close to water on my own. So, I decided when the rest of the gang got back, we would take a shot at the letterbox.

Once again, with excitement, they found the letterbox and got all the books stamped up. Back at camp, venison stew was awaiting us.

The stew was so hot, so we scooped it out and let it cool off. Benaiah was hoping to get at it, I think from the way he drooled over it.

Last night of camping so we brought the rest of the smore stuff out to finish off our trip.

Some enjoyed it in separate pieces.....

And others enjoyed them in all their gooeyness.

All in all, God's creation was defnitely enjoyed by us all. That was our main purpose in going- to just sit in awe of what He created for us to enjoy.