Happy Birthday to our sweet boy, who would have been 18 years old. We enjoyed imagining all of the amazing things you would be doing this year.

We love you and miss you so much! 

We know you are having fun in Heaven, with your Savior.

butter cream birthday girl!! #13

How did my baby get to be 13 years old?? My sweet, little Damsel girl. I love her so much.

Here is the picture I got of the cake, as I couldn't get it prior to digging in.

This batch was made with butter milk, which we quite liked, and a tradaitional, beautiful light blue tint to the frosting, that my girl requests frequently.

I am calling it Robin Egg Blue Frosting Delight

spring, birthdays, mother's day

What a busy, fantastic, amazing, bittersweet weekend filled with many milestones.  

Our Braveheart's 17th birthday was amazing. I spent all day making his favorite cakes..that would be strawberry butter cream cake and rhubarb cake. (fresh cut from the garden and fresh ground berries)

That same evening we held an event to celebrate our boy's birthday  at a Trivia Night for his fellow Boy Scouter who is raising money for his Eagle Scout project. We held it at our church and we had a great turn out! 

 This project will be dedicated to Braveheart as a memorial!!  This project just oozes our boy. It will be a bird observation deck. Many of you know how much he loved birds and bird watching. How can I express the blessing it is to our family to have so many people show up to support this project and remember our boy's special day and then to know he will have a special memorial in our city?

Next, it was Mother's Day. I was loved on by my kiddos left here on earth, but oh do we miss our dear one.  We fancied up his grave site for Spring, personalizing it just for him. That is pleasing to the soul.

It is bittersweet........

Just a taste of the beautiful blooms popping up around me, reminding me of my precious one until I see him again in Heaven.

Braveheart's 17th Birthday

Happy 17th birthday to our precious Braveheart in Heaven. 

We love and miss you so much. 

Hugs and kisses all the way to Heaven.

See you when we get there.

Oh man, I love those blue eyes.

warm weather, birthdays and gardens...oh my

Here are the seedlings I bought from Azure. On a whim, because the warm weather and sunshine made it impossible not to, I carved out a half hour to tidy up part of my garden and get these cool loving plants in the ground. I tried to keep the garden simple and plant things I will eat...nothing else. This is only about an 1/8th of my garden. The soil made me so happy, it was moist, dark, pleasant smelling and full of moist, active worms. That's right....NO TILLING NEEDED!!! Nothing could make this gardener more happy! My hubs was not so sure, since he loves preparing my garden for me. No worries honey, there is still much to be done. :)

I will try to work on a little section at a time, since my adrenals do not like it when I work too long in the garden.

You can't see the large pile of debris on the burn pile or compost bin, but it's there and I purposely left all the leaves at the fence due to creeping charlie, the weed that keeps on coming. UGH.

We had a fabulously beautiful day celebrating daddy's birthday on Sunday. I am so thankful for this loving, steady man. We have really been through the fire together and with God as our shield, we have clung to Him and one another. We will love and care for the ones God has left here for us to care for (Gold leader is all grown up) and we will see our dear boy again one day. We miss you Braveheart!
We will have joy. 

Even when our hearts know the kind of loss that one ever wants to know.

We have joy for them...

For each other....

my first birthday without you

Sat. was my birthday.  I am 43 years old.  I did ok.  There were lots of business to keep me occupied.  Oh how I wish I could have called him down for his portion of cake.  I have 15 years of memories of giving him his portion of cake or dinner.  I have often baked in the kitchen, sometimes he would help too, then calling him down.  I know that once, when he was little, I would call him from playing outdoors, with his siblings, but mainly, this last few years....from his spot upstairs, playing video games.
Here is what I posted on my carepage:

My birthday marks the first of a series of our family birthdays in our sweet little family. Oh so bittersweet does today leave me. For today is not just the day of my birth and the first one without our dear Brave boy, but it also, as the 2nd, marks 2 months since he has been on earth!
Oh how death doth sting....for us here on earth...
Missing our boy at every turn but finding love and comfort in our Savior and our dear family left here on earth as we comfort and move toward one another, held by your prayers and dear close friends that love us.
1 Corinthians
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Braveheart's labor was not in vain...he now is Victorious!!

Love you and missed you my birthday sweetie.

Happy Birthday Ninja warrior boy #12

Today is Ninja/Secret Agent boy's ( 3rd son ) birthday. He was born 12 years ago. The only child of my brood to be born in the afternoon light hours. He was not in a hurry to come out either by date or by labor. This signified the beginning of his unique personality.
He requested a boston cream cake/pie. I obliged him. I think it turned out quite good. I pretty much only make home made frosting and whip cream now. I really love the taste and it is so easy. I figure that is healthier than store bought even though it's still sugery goodness.
Here is the recipe I followed for my first actual chocolate butter cream frosting! It is so good and very rich! Wish I could post a photo. I will get this straightened out soon. We are taking the boy skating with his sister and a couple friends and then home to play. It will be simple this year.

#9

HAPPY BIRTHDAY
to our only precious girl!

happy birthday mom!!

This is my sweet mama. She is an amazing woman. She is a pilot too! (the best, I might add) I made her this lovely ripple blanket. Oh how we all loved it and Dylan is already telling me that he may have to have a second crochet blanket similar to this one before he goes off to college. (music to my ears really)
I made this out of my stash mostly with some good will finds in between, so no choosing colors but just crazily using the blues I had with some whites..ooo it was so fun! It turned out to be quite large as well.
Do you see that cake up there? My hubby bought that for my mom, we have been staying there this weekend as we lost our power then she lost some sewer power due to the large influx of people to her old, old house..please pray for that one..wow, anywho, that is the VERY large cake he bought! Yikes! AND..he ended up getting those never blow out candles..what a hoot. It was beautiful though and quite tasty.
We love you mom/grandma!

happy birthday secret agent boy! #11

Dear friend God brought into his life. I love how each kid gets that special friend to encourage one another!

Don't you just love this kid's handsome smile? What a kid. He turned 11 and if you don't mind I will just just muse for a moment. I was so proud of how selfless my kids were when Braveheart first became ill 2 years ago. They stopped everything and gave up things only caring for B and his welfare, understanding his prioritized needs. We strove to give as much attention to the other kids as we could and my mom was mostly living here to help out. (thanks mom) but suddenly last year we realized something happened to this precious little boy. We aren't sure what, but emotionally he was troubled. Part of this was his personality, true; he really has always been a 'strong willed' child that has given me a run for my money, but we began to see some real issues arise in him...

After much prayer and love and training and work and more prayer..we are so pleased with how he has come along. So much joy back in his heart and countenance! Praise God!

Now, can I just brag on my man for his 'gifting' love language?? We were getting all the kids some swimming supplies for birthdays this year, can you see his back pack? He loves that thing. (I got these for $2 each on clearance) Birthday boy keeps telling me about that and all his gifts. He is even loving that hoodie he requested himself..can you say hot? Well, my husband wrapped each gift up inside each larger gift so that each time he opened one he had a surprise inside! The whole family had a blast wondering if there was yet another gift inside! Boy, was that a hit. Damsel prayed that night, thanking the Lord for dad's great wrapping idea..it was so precious! The kids are requesting more of that one. You're the best dad..but I didn't get a pic this year..soon I will though.

#18!!

I can't believe I really forgot to put this up on June 1st but things were a bit crazy..so here it is, better late than never!

happy 13th birthday my brave boy

We are so thankful.........

I'M 40!!

What else can I say? I have so much to be thankful for.

happy birthday lynn #40!!

This is my dear friend from many moons ago. Do you remember that friend that you grew up with? We just happen to still be dear friends. I was able to drive up and celebrate with her and her girl party! It was so fun. Happy Birthday Lynn!

family party

Just posting a few photos from girly's family party. I can't believe my baby is 8!! Has it been that long since I have given birth and held my little baby in my arms? I can see now why parents really start to long for grandchildren some day...but don't worry, I can wait awhile still. :)

I don't know if you can tell but can you see her little doll with her own little violin set? How cute is that?
Thank you Lord for my precious little girl.

little house on the prairie party

8 is great!!

Shaking the cream...

as all the girls took turns making butter, telling prairie stories and playing hot potato to fiddle tunes. Such a simple game but oodles of fun!

Prairie dinner using their own home made butter on the cornbread.

Are these prairie dolls related??

The bonnet girls.

The beads were a hit.

Square dancing all around while 'Pa' played the fiddle.

The whole prairie gang. The girls all went home with their own thimble and a stitching square, needle and embroidery floss. It was so much fun, thanks for coming girls.

happy #10

#10

Happy birthday son.

happy 17th!!

Can it be real? 17? I am still reeling from this fact. It's true, I am late even posting this. I don't even have a picture from that day or near it. We had a hospital stay going on while he had a planned party with his buddies. We had to skip the family part as it was too complicated that day. His buddies came and it was fun even though this is the second birthday in a row that got side swiped by family illness, but we and especially he didn't dwell on it. Unselfish. Growing up. Becoming a man. God is working out all these things in his life. Thanks and praise be to Him.
See that sweet little boy above? He is turning into a fine young leader of a man there in the current photo.
Many blessings to you son.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRAVEST BOY EVER!! #12

Can you guess who this precious boy is??

#12 ...you have no idea how glad and thankful we are to see you!!



^{Psalm 118:1
1} Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his love endures forever.

FUN CITY!!!!

Fun City was great! We have been trying to plan this since B finished phase 4 and here we are, finally there. We wanted to do something simple, but special to celebrate together as a family. We also brought our 5th kid, good family friend Casey.

We started out the first night bowling in the fun atmosphere of black lights and pizza. Hey, there's T just chillin'. He really has some skill at this game too.

The big boys are drummin' to a different beat on this electronic game. And you thought there was no exercise with these games. :)

We had to try the race cars. The kids (including the big kid here) loved those little race cars. I even raced and have formed the opinion that it was fun for the first 2 rounds then it starts to shake the stomach around a bit. I am sensitive that way.

Water park water slides.

Look at that thick hair!! It is so fun to rub it after he gets out of the pool and it gets all wavy and curly. He tells me has been praying that it won't end up curly, but I thought it was adorable. He won't mind it too much.

Daddy's birthday is Tuesday and he is 40!!
Can you believe it?
We had some cake and sang to him.
Happy Birthday honey, you're the best!

CAUTION: what you are about to see next could be disturbing to some of you, so view with caution as you are about to witness a sensitive, smelly teen filled domain.....be glad there is no smello-blog right now! :)
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Yes, in case your wondering, that's a TV they are staring at!! And YES, in case you're wondering, they did have their OWN room adjoining ours. :)