Happy Anniversary to my Beloved Whom I Adore!

Nine years ago today, our two hearts were joined as one!

Kristine’s Prayer

O my heart’s heart and you who are to me

More than myself, God be with you,

Keep you in strong obedient, leal and true

To Him whose noble service setteth free,

Give you all good we see or can foresee,

Make your joys many and your sorrows few,

Bless you in what you bear and what you do,

Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.

So much for you; but what for me,

Dear friend?

To love you without stint and all I can

Today, tomorrow, world without end:

To love you much, and yet to love you more,

As Jordan as its flood sweeps either shore;

Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.

-Christina Rosetti

Tom’s Prayer

That I may come near to her, draw me

Nearer to thee than to her; that I may

Know her, make me know Thee more than

Her, that I may loveher with the perfect love

Of a perfectly whole heart, cause me to love

Thee more than her and most of all.

Amen.  Amen.

That nothing may be between me and her, be

Thou between us, every moment.  That we

May be constantly together, draw us into

Separate loneliness with Thyself.

And when we meet breast to breast,

My God, let it be on thine own.

Amen.  Amen.

Garden Update

Tom and I have decided that for the foreseeable future, we will be planting all of our vegetables in containers rather than directly in the ground.  Our plants are growing at an amazing rate!  We could never grow plants like these with the large yields that we are getting already if we were to plant them in the ground.  I really think the secret is in the water delivery system that these containers have.

 

Tomatoes

Crook neck squash

Watermelon

We have 6 *Earth*Boxes* which have a tube that you fill with water . . . .

. . . until it spills out this hole. 

We have 3 *Grow*Boxes* that have an opening in the front that you fill with water until it spills out.   In the heat we are experiencing right now, the plants are drinking four gallons of water a day and would probably drink more if I would add a third reservoir fill in the middle of the day.  It's just so, so hot that I can't bring myself to do it!

I am picking everyday!

Phase 1 Complete!

Finishing the upstairs of the house has begun!  Woo hoo!!!  Phase 1, which was installing the HVAC unit is complete!  As soon as the tax return arrives, we'll get the electrician and plumber to start their phases of the project.  

The new HVAC unit that Alan and Brett Hawkins installed for us!  THANKS SO MUCH!!!

What will be the boys' room is at the far end of the picture, the new bathroom is where the white bucket is to the left, and the rest of the area in the picture will be a new sewing/craft space for me.  Yay!

And this little guy has nothing to do with finishing the upstairs, but there are folks who visit this blog only to see his sweet little face, so here he is!

Luke's 3 Month Portraits

I should have posted these a couple of months ago, but I was annoyed that half of the photo shoot wasn't on the CD I bought, and I didn't care for the photographer, so I put them out of my mind.  I just came across the CD on my desk and decided that I needed to share them!  These are the best ones from the shoot.

HMV Concert

The kids had their last HMV concert for the year tonight!

His Master's Voice Concert Choir

"Oh Sifuni Mungu" (swahili)

Christian Thomas - Soloist

Sarah - front 3rd from left, Andrew - front 4th from left, Christian - front center

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day with my children!  The only way it could have been any better is if I had been able to celebrate with my own mom.  I love you and miss you mom!

After morning worship, we went to Wayne and Judy Rogers' house for dinner.

Georgia Home Educators Association 25th Annual Conference

We made it to the GHEA annual conference this year!  We have had schedule conflicts the past couple of years and haven't been able to make it, so Tom took vacation this week so ensure we could attend, and wouldn't you know it, we all ended up with nasty colds.  While we missed all of the conference speakers, we did get to shop the vendor hall, which is always a highlight of the conference.

Ken Ham was one of the featured speakers at the conference and he humored me by posing for a picture with Luke.  We are so grateful to him for his diligent commitment to teach how the Bible and science compliment and support one another.  We look forward to taking Luke on a family vacation to the Creation Museum (Ken's brain child) in a few years!

After skipping his morning and afternoon naps, Luke finally zonked out on my shoulder, but he only slept for about 15 minutes.  Thankfully, he was happy and smiling even though he was soooooo tired!

We met up with the Fowler family at the conference (only half of them in this picture) - Kristen, Jeff and Grace

Mr. Fowler and Luke are buddies!

Nate and Luke at their first homeschool conference!  (Nate held by his Aunt Kristen and Luke held by Taylor Fowler)

Gardening In Containers

This is the extent of our garden this year, which is definitely better than last year.  Last year was so overwhelming that there wasn't a garden!  Our challenge here on this property is to find a location that gets enough sun for the plants to grow.  This is an experimental year -- I will be keeping close track of our yields and depending on the results, we will make the decision whether to till up the ground and plant direct, or continue gardening in the Earth Boxes for future years.  Our variety of plants is small -- 3 containers of tomatoes, 1 of zucchini, 1 of crook neck squash, 1 of cucumbers, 1 of bell peppers, 1 of watermelon, and 1 of spaghetti squash.  There is an unbelievable number of blooms on all of the plants, so we are anticipating a huge first crop.  Unless the deer find them first.  I can count on one hand the times that we have seen any deer (very surprising given how wooded our property is!), so we are cautiously optimistic!

Luke & Nate

It was a beautiful evening, so Lauren and I took the babies down by the creek.

One of our kitties, Klondike, followed us down to the creek and the boys were fascinated with him.

Klondike jumped up on my lap!

Love the look on the boys faces here -- "Let me at 'em!"

And then he continued on his way down the log which went across the creek.  Thanks for a fun evening Hawkins family!