It is hard to believe another year is done! As I get older the years truly seem to pass quicker than the year before. God has been so very good to us this year! This Christmas season has been exceedingly precious with great answers to heartfelt prayers. I feel truly loved by God and am excited to walk hand in hand with Him into 2010.

I have been reflecting on my word for the year and hope to share it soon. We had a great visit with my sister and her family for Christmas. The cousins received matching pajamas and they happily took pictures together. My heart is full and overflowing and I hope to share some blessings in the near future.

Thank you to all who sent Christmas cards. What a blessing to hear from each of you! I am delighted to be a part of your circle of family and friends.

Happy New Year!


Love,

Here We Are!

Merry Christmas!

Can you believe how quickly December is flying by? I feel like I am missing it completely. I am not complaining mind you, just stating a fact. I leave the house so rarely these days and every day seems to just blur into the days around it. The sameness of each day and lack of variety in activity makes it hard for me to believe we are in the middle of the wonderful Christmas season. That is because I have spent the last two weeks living with H1N1 in my house. This is day 15 of its visit. What an unwanted house guest! I keep telling him to leave, but he insists on staying until he has visited each one of us individually. Isn't he thoughtful?

Actually it started sooner than that. Four weeks ago we traveled to West Virginia and had a wonderful time! We made some memories that we will talk about at family reunions for years to come. While we were there though Joshua came down with congestion. Nothing serious, but definitely serious enough to make him an unwanted guest in any church nursery! He passed it on to some of his siblings and so I spent the week after our trip at home with the kids and missed church.

As the last kid recovered, someone came down with a stomach flu. The two youngest spent the next several days with the side effects this brings. (I will spare you the details...you are welcome!). Thursday evening of this second week of confinement finally saw the last child better. I looked forward to a normal weekend.

Friday morning we woke up and my husband complained of achiness. He proceeded to sleep the entire day! By evening a fever kicked in. Saturday morning Rachel woke up with a fever and by Saturday afternoon I also had a fever. Somewhere after that Ryan also came down with it. We also had aches, coughs, sore throats, headaches, etc. The fevers were high! Many times almost 105! Somewhere along the line someone asked if we had H1N1 (swine flu) and I looked into it. I was surprised how exactly we fit the list of symptoms. My husband ended up going to the doctor who confirmed that we did indeed have it. Before the four of us fully recovered the rest of the family started coming down with it. The last one was Jack who just got sick this past Thursday evening. People are in various stages of the recovery process while Jack is now in the worst of it.

Talk about family time! :) We have had lots of it! We were even ALL home for one Sunday. That is something very unusual in this pastor's family home! And when you say swine flu most people stay away so we have not had many visitors. We have had a few brave friends who have so graciously saw to our needs, especially while my husband and I were so sick. Nothing like hearing a knock on the door and finding someone standing there with ginger ale, orange juice, homemade soup, pizza, chocolate, get well cards and on the list goes. I feel loved and cared for...by my dear friends and especially by the great God who gave me my friends!

I have not taken many pictures during this time....we have not been much to look at! LOL! We had managed to get our tree up on Thanksgiving evening before we all fell sick and we decorated it the next day. My youngest has lived in pajamas most of the last two weeks which is fine with him. He loves his Thomas pjs. What is the use of being sick if you can't wear fun pajamas? ;) Here Joshua is holding Ricky's stuffed mongoose while watching Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. The children have definitely watched more videos than normal. It is one of the few things the "sickies" have felt like doing.



God has been so good to us and made sure all our needs were supplied during this time. He also sent extras along the way which have so encouraged my heart. I received a photo shoot gift card from a very sweet and thoughtful friend! That is something we are definitely going to enjoy using! We received another humidifier. I am so thankful for that! My sweet and wonderful Aunt sent me a jumper in the mail. And I received my prize from Amy's give away. How fun!




Another friend found for me some wonderful Americana pieces for my kitchen at our local vestry. One of the items was this beautiful bowl! It is a nice, heavy ceramic piece. She said she only paid fifty cents! AHHH...Don't you love a bargain?



I love all my Americana. I am now trying to collect a piece of Americana from every state. I already have several states. I have been taking pictures of different pieces and hope to show you here on my blog soon.

Also during all this illness I have enjoyed doing some reading. I read a book I had never read before. The Mysterious Alabaster Bottle by Elizabeth Rice Handford. I have always enjoyed all her books, especially Those Kids in Proverbsville.

With all that said, December keeps marching on whether I can keep up or not. Our days are reduced to homeschooling the healthy, caring for the sick, and keeping the dishes and laundry under control. Food requires little effort as few are very hungry and those that are want soup and toast. We have tried to keep up with our special calendar but have not been able to real well. (To read about this special calendar, click here. This is where we got the idea for ours.) We experimented with some new Christmas candy recipes and are enjoying the new Christmas wall calendar we made with Grandma last month. But it has not bothered me that our December is so unusually quiet. I can honestly say I am very thankful. Thankful that we are not sick with something terminal...just temporarily sick. Thankful to have a warm and comfortable place to live, especially when it is SOOOO cold outside. Thankful to have family and friends who love me and my family...love us enough to pray, call and care for us.Thankful that are cupboards full, and I have all the medicine, kleenex, orange juice and ginger ale needed to care for my family. Thankful that we LOVE being a family and truly enjoy being together; otherwise, it would be quite trying to spend these days constantly together.

Evenings, when it is finally quiet, I have been far too tired to blog. That requires coherent thoughts and I have not had too many of those. LOL I have enjoyed Farmville, a cute farming game that my sister and I enjoy. I have thoroughly enjoyed our late night phone calls as we farm on our laptops. Go ahead, roll your eyes, but we have enjoyed alot of late night laughter together. What a precious blessing to count your sister as your best girl friend. I am abundantly blessed to have her in my life. I am a far richer person because of what she has taught me through her godliness and character.

I look forward to saying good-bye to the swine flu soon. We are almost done! I am looking forward to sleeping all night because no sick children need help. I am looking forward to getting back on a regular schedule and routine as I tend to thrive on those things. But even as I look forward, I am thankful for our days together and for experiencing God's goodness through the last four weeks.

I have enjoyed reading many of your blogs. I love feeling like I had a chance to visit in your home. Thanks for taking a moment to visit with me. I am honored you chose to visit!

Thanks for stopping by,

The Way Life Used To Be.....

I am sure there are many of you who have had sickness in your home in recent days. So many of my family and friends seem to have been stricken with one thing or another. When I was home on Wednesday night with four sick children I asked my friends on Facebook how many were also home because of illness....and the comments came pouring in! It really made me realize just how many people are sick.

My own perception of the world has been mighty small as I have been housebound. Our youngest came down with heavy congestion while we were in West Virginia. By the time we reached home he was healing up, but then the others starting coming down one by one with sore throats, ear aches, fever, runny noses and headaches. By this last Friday morning the last fever broke and by Friday evening everyone was improved enough to play and run. The house was LOUD again with noise and laughter...and it was wonderful to hear all the joy after so much quiet.

Saturday morning had me excited at the prospect of seeing all my dear friends at church and I mentally started preparing and thinking through what needed to be accomplished to have everything and everyone ready on Sunday morning. But Jonathan kept complaining of a stomach ache and laid on the couch all day. This was not a symptom that anyone had had during this past week. Sunday morning brought definite stomach flu symptoms (No need to elaborate!) and so I am home again. My pastor husband offered to stay home for a change as long as I preached. I always have alot to say, but thought it would be wise to decline the offer. ;)

I am praying that this new "bug" does not go through the household and would covet your prayers. I keep joking that I do not know if life exists beyond the mail box as it has been eight days since I have been off the property. I have not been on my weekly date with my husband in a month! That is very unusual for us as we make our weekly time together a high priority. But with visiting family, traveling out of town, and illness we have not gone out alone in a long while. But we are going out together tomorrow (I LOVE my babysitter!) and you may hear me cheer when I go beyond the mailbox. :)

By the way, please don't take it the wrong way. I LOVE being at home caring for my children. I love being there for them when they want Mommy. I really can live and function like a normal human being even when I do not get to go to Wal*Mart once a week (contrary to popular belief). But I will be excited to enter the human race again. Being a hermit needs to be a temporary condition for me.

With all that said, I had fun looking through recent pictures of my kids BEFORE all this sickness began...pictures when they all were living life "full steam ahead"....and I am glad that they seem to be rapidly returning to normal.

This picture was taken at a Civil War battlefield cemetery...



My precious daughter...



Ryan....this kid is always ready for anything...



Joshua...his smiles lights up our family...and he is really talking now!



Jack and Joshua at Aunt Sarah's house...




Ricky...




Wish you could hear the laughter that accompanied these shots. Jonathan was especially having a great time...





This boy certainly loves his Daddy...




And the real reason I have kept my sanity this last week...



I am so glad God made dark chocolate! ;)

Happy Thanksgiving week!

Thanks for stopping by,

We Have Been On The Run....

...and we have loved every minute of it! We have had the best two weeks and it is hard to believe it is all over. We had so many wonderful experiences we were looking forward to and each one was better than we had anticipated. I have several hundred pictures to sort through from the last several weeks. I have so many things I am desperately trying to catch up on that it may take a bit of time to put all the things on here that I want to...but that gives me a fun goal to work towards.

But first...the story of why I am the owner of a sadly neglected blog. Two months ago my computer ceased allowing me to sign into my blog. In fact, the whole computer screen went crazy every time I tried to do so. It was really a mystery to us as I could read my blog....and in fact, I could go anywhere on the web....I just could not sign onto the back page of my blog ....which is essential if you want to put up a new post. :) We tried alot of things including many, many e-mails back and forth with out Internet filter people. (Is that a title? Internet filter people?) Everyone was at a loss in how to help me. So my blog became for the most part neglected and I spent my free time on the computer connecting with people on Facebook. How fun to find old friends and family members that you have not seen in years! But last weekend we were at Sarah's house....and her husband may not be a computer technician, but he knows more about what makes a computer run than most of us. I had our laptop with me and I told him about our problem and asked him if he had any thoughts about how to fix it. So he took the laptop and I went on talking to Sarah (we talk ALOT when we are together) and didn't think too much about the computer. I really did not have much hope Paul could fix it as we had tried a lot of things over the last two months to remedy the problem. But lo and behold....in less than five minutes he handed me the computer back fixed! WOOHOO!! I was so happy to sign onto Pleasant Places! I am anxious to look at all my favorite blogs that I had bookmarked but couldn't see. And now I want to get back in the habit of blogging regularly. It is hard though to re-establish old habits...know what I mean?

But before I resume my blog ramblings, here is the wonderful brother-in-law who fixed our blogging problem....and in case you didn't know, he is married to the greatest and prettiest sister in the world....(no comments from my husband allowed on that one! LOL)



I am overwhelmed with all the pictures I need to go through, so I just selected a few quick favorites to post for tonight...

We made a Christmas calendar with my Mom. I will tell more about the "why" during the Christmas season (I love Christmas! Almost as much as Mandy *wink*) but Sarah and I both love this picture of our wonderful Mom and the memories that it represents. I praise our great God for my wonderful Mom...




This is my Aunt Viney and Uncle Lowell...I had not seen them in years and they came to Maine to visit us!!!! What a precious time we had together! I am thrilled that my children got to know these special people. What an important role they have played in my life. I love them so very much and am humbled and honored they drove so far to come be with us. I love you, Uncle Lowell! I love you, Aunt Viney!



My parents came to visit!!!! What priceless memories were made! Grandpa specializes in donuts and ghost stories....and the children are still talking about them! Grandma seeks every opportunity to make a memory and make each child feel special as an individual. They overwhelmed us with love, gifts and thoughtfulness in a thousand ways during the days we shared together. I only wish everyone could be as loved as I have been....I have no reason in this world to ever complain.



Look at these sweet cousins....They always have a good time together.....



So much more to tell. We traveled to West Virginia and made some great stops along the way...including Hershey's Chocolate World. (My daughter will never be the same!) We do not travel much (who wants to with car sick children?) so this trip was a big deal! I will share some pictures soon.

I will sign off for now. I still have blogs I want to read...but I just want to say that I am glad to be back!



Chat with you later...



Thanks for stopping by,

My poor neglected blog......

Life has been full and busy....School has been full steam ahead....and I have great intentions that I do not have time for! I downloaded a bunch of pictures awhile ago to post here and have done nothing with them. And now my WONDERFUL PARENTS are here and I am taking more pictures....so I thought I had better post these quick as next week I will want to put up fresh pictures.

These are random pictures of us enjoying Maine's most beautiful season....Autumn. There are also pictures from Mandy's recent visit. (I so enjoyed spend a few moments with her!) and pictures from a few church activities. I am sorry for not being more diligent to post as of late. I have company for a few days and then we are going out of town for a week, so I cannot promise to be better in the next few days, but intend to be back on track shortly. I hope this post finds all of my blog friends well. God has been very good to us and I am so glad that we serve Him!










































































I hope to chat with you again soon!

Thanks for stopping by,