Cooking with Laura

This past week I pulled a chair over to the counter and had Laura cook with me for the first time. What a sweet thing!

She thought it was great fun to be given mini chocolate chips.

I thought it was great fun to have a little toddler again who enjoys "baking with mommy".

Can't wait for all the fun we have ahead of us!

We would appreciate your prayers for Laura this weekend. She'll be having surgery on Friday to remove cysts from behind her nose. We're hoping for a very straightforward procedure with 1-3 days in hospital. There is the possibility of a more complicated surgery and longer recovery, so we are praying for the best case scenario. Thanks for praying with us!

Photoshoot of the Kids

When my friend Karen (of Reyburn Photography) was here earlier in the month, she volunteered to take some pictures of the kids. She and Rachel decided it would be fun to use the "Stairway to Character" and pick a quality to match each child. It wasn't as easy as you would think, picking a quality to match, but here's what we came up with:

David = Boldness. Check out the face -- all ready for battle!

James = Generosity. James is a very sweet, loving, and giving boy.

Laura had to be Joyfulness! She is nearly always happy and brings us joy all day long!

Andrew fit Resourcefulness very well because he is always inventing something. It was his idea to bring a spray bottle of water to help cool us down in the intense heat.

Rachel is our dependable girl who helps to take care of Laura.

And they decided I should sit on the hospitality step.

I just love this photo of my two girls together.

And here's the creative mind behind it all!!!

Thanks Karen!!!

Latest Knitting

I have a number of knitting projects to catch you up on! The latest project completed was this tie, which I knitted for a friend of mine to give to her grandson. David looks pretty cute in it!!!! The plan is to write a pattern for this, and perhaps a slightly different design. Sometime in the next few months perhaps I'll get to it.....

Mother's Day

Mother's Day seems a long time ago now, but we had a very delightful day. Christina's mother-in-law kindly invited everyone up to her house after church.

The tables were beautifully set and the food was delicious!

Flowers were everywhere:

Here is Christina in her hand-knitted jacket and felted flower:

Karen and Laura:

Lunch consisted of grilled beef and chicken, Thai salad, potato salad, fruit salad, green salad, and green bean salad.

Sharing a meal with others is one of my favorite things ever!

John loved having everyone around:

And all of the kids loved playing outside:

Rachel and Alecia spent some time making music:

And John had his turn on the tractor:

Beautiful things were everywhere:

The best part of the day was enjoying tea and dessert on the big front porch.

And the children had brought cards and gifts.

Christina's father-in-law, away on business, joined in the merriment by phone.

I loved the colors of this gift:

And everyone took home a flower:

Emily and I had fun making tissue paper flowers and they decorated the gifts we took.

Laura enjoyed watching everything.

Here we all are:

Many thanks to Cornelia for hosting us all!

Laura's First Birthday

It's about time I posted about Laura's first birthday parties!! Sweet thing -- she caught a virus just days before her birthday and broke out in terrible blisters all around her mouth. Even now she still has a faint red haze. Oh well. Even a funny looking mouth can't hide her joy!!!

I finally got inspired for the cake a week before the event and then managed to order a lamb cake pan from amazon three days before Easter when they had only 3 left. It arrived in time! It took two attempts before I had a cake worth eating and this attempt has the fallen head repositioned to the left of where it should have been sitting!!

Laura was not too excited about cake....which I'm happy about. She does love ice-cream!

And then there were presents to open.

And a shopping cart to push around!!!

Laura is into pushing things now and we are happy at this step towards independent walking.

Michael used Laura's party as an opportunity to hand out gifts from Japan. Laura got a stuffed rabbit.

Cousin John spent the evening pushing the shopping cart around:

And the rest of the kids dressed up in their Japanese party outfits!!

Laura was happy to see Grandpa:

We also celebrated with our Bible study group, which made for even more fun:

Not sure about the cake business:

But she does decide to try and feel it:

And the rest of the kids dove in and ate it.

And more presents from friends:

The lilac bush my Dad gave me when Laura was born was in full bloom for her birthday. The flowers decorated the birthday table.

And I found a spring teacup for Laura to match the fall one I bought for Rachel when she was the same age.

All in all it was a great birthday! A celebration of God's grace to all of us this past year and something to remind us to trust Him for the months ahead.