A Year Later....

Ok, so it's been a year since I've blogged. Pretty sad, I know. I have had so many great blogs in my mind over the last year, I just haven't gotten them into the computer! I'm hoping to change that. "Hoping" is the key word here. I often have great aspirations yet seem to have trouble following through. But lately I've been convicted of my need to share our lives with our family and friends (especially the poor grandparents who rarely see pics of their grandkids!). I apologize for doing such a poor job of this. So here goes...

First off, you'll notice we've changed our blog (this is the view from our land and our own wildflowers) and added a new title, "A Fruitful Life." The significance of this is found in the verse above, Deut. 28:2-6. It is our desire to honor God in every aspect of our lives by walking in obedience to Him. This is what He calls us to do. And even though we ought to do this with nothing in return, it amazes us that He graciously lavishes blessings on us as a reward! And this is the Fruitful Life we speak of. We thank God that He has blessed us in the city, and now in the country. He has blessed the fruit of my womb (with baby #6 on the way!!) and the fruit of the ground (we had a great big garden this year!). We don't have cattle yet, but maybe in the future:) And flocks...well, we may be getting a flock of chickens from a friend real soon! And He has blessed our basket and our kneading bowl (we have never gone hungry!). He has blessed us as we go in and as we go out. What a great God we serve! He has been so good to us and we are so undeserving.

Here is Zack with one of our squash plants when it was just starting out. It got A LOT bigger than that!! Zack really enjoyed working in the garden.

This is Steven tying up supports for all our tomato plants.

Unfortunately, I can't find the pics of the garden at it's peak, but it was beautiful! Here is some of the bounty.

Watermelon & Canteloupe

Squash, Zucchini, Tomatoes, Okra, Cucumber, Corn & Watermelon (and more that isn't here)

Enjoying the Watermelon!

Sammy...

We are so thankful for a successful first run at the garden. We learned a lot (especially Steven, who gets all the credit for a job well done!!) and hopefully will have more success next year.

Moving on...

We have had lots of birthdays lately. Hailey Jo turned 1 yr on June 28th. It was my first girly party and I had LOTS of fun decorating in pink!!


Then came my birthday and Ben's birthday (which we share) on August 14th. Notice which side of the cake has all the candles!!! Ben turned 4 & I turned 33.

Ben got this shirt from Grandma & Grandpa

Then came Sammy's birthday on September 18th. He turned 3!

Next month is Zack's birthday, then Steven in November, and our new baby will be born in December! Then will come Jake's in February. After that we'll have a birthday break for a while.

Here are some random pics of the kids, just for fun :)

Jake mowing the entire front yard (for the first time!). We don't have a riding mower yet, so the boys work hard keeping up the land.

Zack does his share too!

My favorite little girl!

Daddy's favorite girl too :)

Her brothers are crazy about her too...

The boys got into a puzzle craze and finished this 500+ piece puzzle! (with a little help from Mama) It made us hungry every time we worked on it!

We enjoyed a wonderful visit from Grandma & Grandpa (Steven's parents) at the beginning of this month! We had such a great time visiting, playing games, going to the zoo, visiting Natchez (Nachoz as Grandma called it:), eating pancakes and goodies and just having fun! Thanks so much for coming!! We miss you!

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully you feel caught up a bit. Don't expect this much each time...ha ha. I sure hope my next post doesn't start "A Year Later..." again!!