Go. Be. Do.

It's that time of year when, at dusk, the lawn lights up with little yellow flashes that can't help but catch one's attention...and maybe even stir up some excitement.  They do for Alex and me, anyway, and out we go with a "bug jar" in hand to see how many lightning bugs we can catch.  Let me just say, I find it harder to track them these days, but they always let me know where they are with their little lights...usually just out of my reach.  Alex, being able to look up at them and see them from a different angle, follows a lightning bug for a long time in comparison to my tracking record.  He walks around with arms held high, reaching out and even jumping at times to get them.  He is determined, but so are they to be safely out of range of those little hands. God spoke to my heart tonight on my firefly hunt with Alex.  As I watched him go across the yard with eyes upward and hands held high, I was reminded of this: I am to follow Christ in such a manner.  My foc

Friends are like flowers, beautiful flowers. Friends are like flowers in the garden of life. Are you a Daisy? Are you a Rose? Are you a Dandilion? You can be what you are and I'll be what I am. We can be friends in the garden of life. Something brought this song to mind and it has been since the 4th grade that our school sang it for our closing program.  By closing program, I do mean closing...the school system consolidated and shut the doors of our elementary school that year.  I have some wonderful memories from the four years spent there...I loved the playground -the swings, slide, hopscotch, teeter-totters...pretty much everything but the monkey bars.  Still not a fan.  During recess, I remember the 5th-6th grade teacher would always have a bottle of Tab with her as stood out there monitoring us. Yes, I know, some reading this have no idea what that is...ask your mom. :)  We had this huge field to play in too...loved going back to the edge of the field by the woods.  F

A friend of mine once told me in their family they celebrate birthdays as a season...meaning that the month of your birthday is your birthday season.  Gifts or special outings can be attributed as birthday gifts throughout your season.  I like that idea...alot. I have always liked my birthday being in May.  Best month to have a birthday if you ask me.  Pretty flowers blooming, warmer weather, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, beginning of summer vacation...and me.  At the end of this beautiful month came my time to enter this world.  I dare say the world has never been the same, either. :) Thinking about seasons always brings my mind to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8... There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and

Timothy Steven has graduated from Kindergarten!  He and his nine classmates had their graduation ceremony Friday night.  What a great evening for us all to see our children enjoying the celebration and getting ready to move on into 1st grade next year.  This wasn't easy for Tim, though...he has his mama's soft heart and has a hard time with good-byes.  He's been with some of his classmates for three years now and they are the best of friends.   Before I could warn his teachers that the end of the year would be hard for him, I was told that Tim broke down the first day of graduation practice.  This was about two weeks before it was even going to happen.  He made it through all the practices, forcing himself to smile through it instead of cry...his teacher told me he would just keep saying "It's not today!" and go on smiling.  Bless his heart, he saved the crying for me on the way to school each morning of the last week of school.   Tim did so well at graduation

Alex is always thinking ahead.  He is rarely without a plan, and can come up with a "Plan B" pretty quickly, too, when need be.  Some of my favorite times with Alex are at bedtime, discussing the Bible stories we read each night.  His way of looking at things is refreshing...and often amusing as well. Just last night we read in Genesis 24 the story of Abraham sending his chief servant out to find a wife for his son, Isaac.  The servant prayed for God to lead him to the bride for his master's son.  (It's a beautiful story of faith, trust, obedience, prayer, faithfulness and thankfulness...but, just before bed isn't a time to go over all of those points.)  The boys and I talked about how the servant prayed for God to lead him to the chosen girl for Isaac and how God answered that prayer with Rebekah. We then talked about beginning now to pray for the girl that God has for them to marry one day.  Praying for their future wife to grow up loving God and wanting to o

Tim loves to go fishing...but not necessarily to fish.  He will throw a line in the water, and has been known to reel in a fish or two...and even throw them back all by himself.  His favorite thing about fishing, however, is the worms!   His love of worms started very young...he's never been afraid of them that I remember.  Thankfully he's never eaten any of them either (not that I've seen anyway).  Helping me plant flowers each spring, he is always looking in the shovels full of dirt I turn over for a worm sighting.  Tim gets a container of some kind and puts a little loose dirt in the bottom and scoops up the worms we find.  He almost always names them or gives them a title...one day we had a whole family of worms from Grandpa Worm to Baby Worm in the container.  Their title is based on their size and squirmy-ness.  When he's through playing with them, he frees them back into the dirt and wishes them well with a sweet "Good-bye, Wormies!"  When it rains, Tim