Stevie's Dance Rehearsal

 This past weekend was Stevie Joy's dance recital!

Her rehearsal was Friday night.

All the girls in her class were so precious and sweet!

This is her with her friend, Kyndall

 

Here she is right before they were about to go on stage to practice

She has this secret handshake with her teachers, she LOVES to do it with them :)

 

Can you tell how pumped she is!? (and her teachers too!) ;)

 

costumes!

 

Stevie was sooo excited to get on stage!

She kept asking again and again to go out there.

Prior to this recital, this whole week we have been talking about fear and anxiety and how they have no place in our bodies.  That the Lord cannot give what He does not have and so fear and anxiety are not from Him.  We have also memorized and quoted the scripture, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phillipians 4:13.  Well I *reackon* it worked!  Sister was not scared one bit!  She was in love with the stage!

  So graceful!

 

I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of work to get her here.  With 3 other babies and she is barely 4 years old, and it's expensive (relatively), often I feel like her dance is work!  However, seeing her light up on stage and watching how much joy it brings her made it all well worth it!  I almost cried her little dancing was so sweet!!  Now I was just praying she would do this well at the recital!  Her little classmates were a little scared so it made me nervous that it may rub off on her.  So we kept saying our verse over and over just in case ;)

Up next the recital!

Animal Loving

I love animals and always have.  Particularly, baby animals.  Before we moved, Seth said that once we moved the farm he wouldn't mind if we got a few more animals, I am not sure he wanted to increase by: 

an inside dog (Seven), a cat (mimi's cat, Jasmine), 4 kittens (Yucky had babies), 11 chicks, 2 cows, a baby calf, and an outside dog (Lulu)!! 
He has not complained *yet though ;)

Here is a little animal update:

checking in on the baby kitties

nice face Tee Tee (Stevie)

Bomb Bird (the black kitty) was the first kitty to open its eyes

Neela loves the baby kitties!  Their is a little chair up in the loft that she is always asking to sleep in so that she can sleep with the baby kitties :)

Whenever Titus holds the kitties for like 5 whole minutes he goes, "awwwwwww!"

White Angry Bird Kitty :)

Stevie the kitty

he takes the responsibility of feeding the mama cat very seriously!

we have some chicks for our chicken coup

I am pretty sure the kids wanted them to live inside!

 

We are enjoying the farm life so much!  We talk a lot about how God put us in charge of the animals and how they are God's creatures so we should love them and take care of them!  Also, that we should enjoy our work and do it with a happy heart :)

Picking Blueberries

Our family has a saweeet blueberry patch down the road from our new house and we have been going nearly every day to pick blue berries :)

It's such a good little treat, we usually go in the afternoons after naps

we hop out of the pool and go grab a "sweet treat" as the kids call it :)

cutie!

this is his official "blue berry picking" cup

this boy and his facial expressions are too much!

posing with frankie :)

 we came home to find some little baby birds that Uncle Thad rescued from work

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and for a little taste of what's been going on lately:

reading this awesome book!

 

making fun crafts with the kiddos

 

being silly

 

"monkey see monkey do" 

 

we've been having some wonderful days around here, nice balance of relaxing and crunkness :)

We are all looking forward to mamaw and paw coming for a visit soon

R.I.P Grey Grey

Well our little Grey Grey didn't make it.  It was pretty sad.  The other morning I woke up and went to check on him/her (not sure how to tell the sex on kitties too well) and again the kitty wasn't thriving :(  I called my father in law to see how to handle it.  I didn't want the kitty to keep suffering, but I still didn't want to lose HOPE!  We had claimed a healing over this little baby kitty and I was ready!!

When things started to look even worse, I knew that the *best* thing for this little baby was to go.  I had come to terms with it, but the kitty was still breathing!  No one else was home that could come and put it out of its misery and I just simply didn't feel that I had it in me to do it.  I called my friend, Liz, and she helped a lot.  She actually shared a story with me about suffering that helped me feel that the decision to help the kitty go on was the right choice. 

So I prayed and prayed a few more times that he/she would just go ahead and pass,,,and guess what?  The kitty did.  I was so relieved, it just peacefully drifted off to sleep.

I thought the kids would be really upset, but they really were not.  In fact they were asking great questions and saying wonderful things.  Well, Stevie Joy and Neela were,,,Titus was chasing after Lulu (the outside dog) and begging for pops!!!  Neela was doing pretty well, she kept wanted to hold the little shoe box, she is the one who picked the flowers for the kitty kitty's box, and she sang for the kitty.
Here are a few things SJ said:

Stevie:  "It's okay Yucky, you still have 4 kitties here with you, it will be fine, don't be sad!"

Stevie:  "Mommy, if the kitty is going to Heaven to live with Jesus, then does that mean that Jesus is going to come out of my heart? I don't want Him to?"  I explained to her the spiritual realm

when looking at some pics of Grey Grey on the computer Stevie saw a picture of the kitty and said,
"Oh good Mama, Grey Grey is not hurt anymore now, he was hurt but now he is so happy!"

Wow, just hearing her ask these questions and say these comments makes me so HUNGRY!  I want to dig deeper and learn more and more and more, to pass these things on to our kiddos!  I want to be still and rest in Him and be even more equipped to teach them and sharpen them :)

Grey Grey is buried out in our little orchard with all the little animal friends' bodies that my hubby grew up with.  We put flowers and rocks, said a little prayer,  and sang a little song.  Our hearts and minds are content and happy.

Mother's Day Weekend

Seth and the kids blessed me so much this past mother's day weekend!

Saturday, Stevie and I got to have a little quality time while I took her to get her dance pics done, check out how pretty she is, she did SOOOO great for her professional pics too, I am very excited to see how they turned out

 

After naps, Seth took Titus and went and bought a few supplies for my Mother's Day present (taking Titus was part of my "present" ha, I love the boy, but he's crunk as junk and wears me out!)

Saturday night we put the kiddos to sleep and Seth's brother (Uncle Thad) offered to keep an eye on them for us so we could go out just the two of us without the kiddos (SCORE!!!)  We had a blast :)

Sunday morning we met Yucky's kitties for the first time:

Took Mimi her gift from all of us (tanning stuff, yes, Seth's Mimi loves to tan, we bought her a mister fan for laying out and some sun lotion and sun protector for her lips).

My turn:  the kids got me the biggest card EVER!!!  and a flower rocket (some fast growing flower plant thing, it's cool)

Seth gave me another awesome gift too for mother's day, but it's semi inappropriate for this blog :)  So you'll just have to wonder wonder wonder ;)

We finished up breakfast and headed to church (I had free range to pick out all church outfits this morning since it was Mother's Day I didn't feel mean, lol!  this meant that Stevie was NOT in an Angry Birds shirt, and that the girls were in matching dresses, and Seth was NOT in flip flops!)

After church I actually took a nap!  YES! It was perfect!!

Then we did this cute little mother's day craft together:

I love it!!

Seth, Me, Stevie (in an angry birds shirt), Neela, Titus, and Olive

 

It was a great Mother's Day, I love my family!  I am truly a rich woman!!!