Gingerbread house time in Lili's Kindergarten class

5 grands

Chloe's bunny & Samson

Hoedown fiddles~Sophie & Lilie November 2013

Christmas~2013

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
― Charles Dickens

Sophie's Violin Recital~November 2013

http://vimeo.com/79111771
(Password:  Psalm23)

Love these 2 trees

Summer...

Fall...

Winter...

Watching KT's Grass Grow

KT is all excited because today is the day he gets to mow his new grass for the first time-Oct. 16.

It is starting to turn green around here... (September 29)

YKT Weekend~September 2013

Yesterday's Knot Today (Sponsored by Breakthrough Seminars)

Marriage is not a love affair,

it’s an ordeal.

It is a religious exercise, a sacrament,

the grace of participating in another life.
If you go into marriage with a program,
you will find that it won’t work.
Successful marriage
is leading innovative lives together,
being open, non-programmed.
It’s a free fall: how you handle each new thing as it comes along.
As a drop of oil on the sea,
you must float,
using intellect and compassion
to ride the waves.
– Joseph Campbell

Let me love you if not for the rest of your life

then for the rest of mine.  

~unknown

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. –Mignon McLaughlin

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. 
– Mother Teresa

13th birthday--Mason playing drums for worship

No, I did not go on stage during worship--took this before church!

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Papa's little helper

A visit to Lena's house

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Then we can go over to Julie's...

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KT goes to Alaska

These are some of my favorite pictures of KT's trip.  Lord, there were a thousand pictures to pick from.  (Sorry about the ads--I used the free smilebox slideshow.)

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Old Town Chalk Art Festival--August 2013

The "Farm"

"May Your voice be louder...than all the others"

"May Your voice be louder
May Your voice be clearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your face be dearer
May Your words be sweeter
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life

Please keep my eyes
Fixed on You
Please root my heart
So deep in You
Keep me abiding
Keep me abiding...

...May Your presence be truer
May Your presence be nearer
Than all the others
Than all the others

May Your light burn brighter
May Your love move deeper
Than all the others
Than all the others in my life"

                 ~Jeremy Riddle

I like green better than brown

Father's Day

A Good and Beautiful Thought

Here is a Good and Beautiful thought...
"God is with us. 

This is the secret of the blessed life. 

The kind of existence described in the twenty-third psalm is available to all. 

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Ps.23:1), writes the psalmist. 

The Hebrew phrase is literally rendered, "I lack nothing." 

The psalmist could make this bold statement because he believed that God's presence is all that we need in life. 

Because God is with us we can lie down in peace, 

find sustenance for our soul, 

and even walk through death's dark valley with courage."

-James Bryan Smith

The Good and Beautiful God

                                                                                                                           (Leaking I by Melanie Cloud)

"Eternal Father of my soul, 

let my first thought to day be of Thee, 

let my first impulse be to worship Thee, 

let my first speech be Thy name, 

let my first action be to kneel before Thee in prayer."

                                           ~John Baillie

"Sometimes what happens to us when we suffer is that we become open to the mercy and grace and gratitude and gift and appreciation and joy that are always around us all the time."
—from Drops Like Stars by Rob Bell

Sophie's 1st Grade Spring Concert

Sophie's 1st grade Spring concert from Julie Thiessen on Vimeo.
Sophie's 1st grade Spring concert from Julie Thiessen on Vimeo.
(Password:  Psalm23)

Quote from the Holy Fathers

"Whoever prays for those who hurt him lays the demons low; but he who opposes his affronter is bound to the demons."
(St. Mark the Ascetic, Homilies, 1.45)

Chloe's new self-portrait

Black/White charcoal