Dogwood Blooms

I think my all time favorite thing about spring is the dogwood blooms.  Out of the blue, there is a splash of color usually white, sometimes cream, sometimes pink, in the most unexpected of places.  Dogwoods are unique (at least in my eyes) in the way they hide themselves amongst other trees - small and unassuming.  But then their flowers display their full glory and presence.  I love them best before their leaves appear to hide the full glory of the flower.  The glory is only displayed for a short time - a week at their finest and most glorifying, and then the leaves appear.  By the time this is posted all of the dogwoods around me will be leafy.  The dogwood blooms remind me of God - appearing in the most unexpected of places, humble, yet magnificent.  The dogwood reminds me to worship Him, and I hope now they will remind you to do the same.

My photos are usually landscapes and close-ups.  I love the detail of the close-up and the big picture view of a landscape.

The glorious dogwood bloom - a gentle reminder of God

See how the dogwood just pops.

The Work of the Hands

Princess's hand in mine

 After I let myself get "busy" doing the things that did not matter so much, I made sure to be intentional with my time.  Princess and I got busy working with our hands on her school off day.  We went to Lowe's and bought some soil, herbs, and pretty flowers.  Then we came home and spent the rest of the day diligently working with our hands.  We managed to work the first half of the day just on the herb garden we built.  Then we ate lunch and picked up Speed Racer.  And then all of us, Princess, Speed Racer, Doodle Bug, and me, planted the rest after school.  One of the things I enjoyed about our time that day was seeing my sweet Princess get her hands dirty and in the soil without being afraid of being dirty.  I remember making mud pies when I was little, and I learned to love the soil as a "soil engineer" back when I worked.  Getting my hands dirty and analyzing the soil was important to the work I did as an engineer.  Now my kids are finding worms and are not afraid to hold them.  We even saw a medium earthworm, a large earthworm, and a tee-tiny earthworm.  We explored all of the creation God offered us to see that day and loved it.

All of the playing in the dirt with our hands got me to thinking about how fulfilling it is to work with one's hands.  A few spring times have come and gone without my hands getting to dig in the dirt from being pregnant and not feeling like getting down or simply being busy taking care of a little one.  But I love to plant, to dig my fingers through the soil.  I think that's one reason why I love to bake and play in the flour and dough as well.

Scripture exhorts us to "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands."  1 Thessalonians 4:11  I think I need to meditate on and practice this more.

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands."  Psalm 90:17

The work of our hands ultimately is to do the will of the Father and believe in the one He has sent.  (John 6:29)

Scriptures calls to praise the Works of His Hands and not to make idols of the works we've done with our own hands.  Lord, may we remain humble and never believe that our work supersedes Your Work.

The work of Happy Harper hands:

 We planted these two new dianthus here and relocated the older one from the back to the front.

We added the carnation to this bed.  This is were we had fun watching and wondering over the worms.

Our herb garden - basil, lemon thyme, stevia, oregano, rosemary, and cilantro.

A baby caterpillar on Princess's hand - not a worm, but similar

Easter family photo

Easter update

This first pic shows Princess and Pea watching Bambi during Family Movie Night on Friday. We have gotten into the habit of doing a movie almost every Friday night. Pea is now at the age where he can sit still and watch for about 40 minutes, sometimes longer. I consider this an accomplishment. The second pic is of Princess and Pea in the bounce house at the Easter Festival we went to yesterday at Christ Church United Methodist. We took Aunt Julie and Cousin A and hunted eggs, bounced, decorated cookies, made crafts, and had free hot dogs, drinks and chips, while Daddy and Uncle Eric raced in Talladega.

The collage is of pictures from today, Easter. We had Easter dinner at my house. I thought that it was the best planned most organized event I've had at my house. We went to Easter service, and we had a written testimony on the screen about a man who said that the resurrection was all a lie, but at the end he accepted Christ, and everything was turned around. So the same testimony was then read backwards and it revealed the precious beauty of Christ's redemption. I was reminded of my Esther story. I am reminded of it almost daily and about how Christ almost always offers a reversal. I found a link to the video, so I am including it here:

Upside Down Easter Story from Dave Bookhout on Vimeo.

Anyhow, then we came home and got to cooking and organizing. Mom has joined my church, and she stayed to help with the nursery in the second service. We had mom, Jenn, Tanner, Eric, Julie, A, us, Robby, Sherri, Robby, and the Farrs from Michigan. We had a ton of food - ham, potatoes, green beans, corn, carrots, baked beans, deviled eggs, chicken, rolls, Easter cookies that Princess and I made, and strawberries and cream. After we ate, we hid eggs and hunted them in our yard. We ended up hiding too many and the boys were not very interested in finding the eggs yet. Princess and Aunt Jenn dyed eggs last night, so Princess only wanted to find the dyed eggs, but overall, great fun was had by all (I think).

It was such a great pretty day today - a day in which the Lord rose. He is risen. He is risen indeed! Oh, thank you, Lord, for the precious gift of You.

I invite everyone to come visit Valleydale Church. We are doing a series on Mythbusters - who is God really. It started today, and we have 4 more weeks of it. I think it will be really interesting.

Hope your Easter was awesome.

I did not explode any dishes this year. Last year I did.

First egg hunt

Today we went to the Dawson Baptist Church egg hunt. Princess and Pea hunted eggs, played in bubbles, watched a puppet show, and rode a pony. We divinely ran into Princess's best friend, CE, and her parents, and had a blast with one another. Our friends introduced us to Sam's deli, and we had a great lunch. After lunch, Princess, Pea, and CE ran around in the yard over and over again. Pea was so tired that he passed out in the car. Unfortunately, the 15 minutes in the car was all the nap he took.

Can Jesus Be in My Heart?

Today was a good day. We went to the park to meet an old high school friend of mine and her two little boys. We tried to talk about how hard it was to be a mommy but we were too busy chasing our kids to really talk. ;) We spent two hours there, had a picnic, and I literally really did chase the kids. Okay, I chased Pea, let Princess try to fend for herself and tried to keep an eye on her even when I was chasing Pea. Pea found a football and pretty much hijacked it until we left the park. When we got home, he took a 3 1/2 hour nap.

It was such a beautiful awesome pretty day that I suggested that we see if we could meet our friends Freddy and Amanda for dinner, and luckily they were able to meet us. Unfortunately, dinner took forever and the kids went crazy, but fortunately we were outside. It was great to spend the beautiful evening outdoors with friends we don't often see. I love spring, if you cannot tell. :) (It is the season for birthdays. ;)

But the best thing happened tonight. I put Princess to bed, and we read about Jesus choosing his apostles, and the story talked about praying for friends that do not know Jesus. Well, Princess mentioned that she should pray for her friend CE to know Jesus because she said that CE does not know Him yet. Then I told her that she did not have Him in her heart yet, and she asked me more about it. I told her that one day she could ask Jesus to come into heart. Then she prayed to God and asked Him to come into her heart. (I don't know if it counts for a 3 year old!?) Anyhow, then she said that she does know God. I explained that Jesus was in my heart and that Jesus was in daddy's heart. So then she wanted to know if there was plenty of Jesus. I said yes, that He could be in anybody's heart who wanted Him there. She wanted Him to be in her heart. Then she wanted to know how big God's love for her was. She concluded that His love was like the sunshine and that His arms are big enough to hold her. She was very excited about our whole discussion and so was I. God is so good, and it is so neat to see how God works in our children's lives.