So many beautiful things happened this year. There were trials and pains but we’re still standing! God saw us through and He promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He promised all things would work for our good and that, my friends, is what I’m hanging on to.

I want to be able to focus on all the good things God has done for me. If I do that will I not learn to see and recognize Him in the ordinary everyday? In the moments that are special but maybe not glittery and flashy?

He, after all, is the Creator and giver of every good gift – not just the big obvious ones but also the little ones.

I have a choice. I can choose to be grateful for the many little things God blesses my life with or I can choose to put my focus on all the things I wish were different.

I admit I’m a little weak and wimpy in this area of my life, I need to work on this. Just like when we haven’t used a muscle for a while and it gets weak and flabby, this gratitude and looking for the good can be forgotten as we strengthen the complaining and the bitter sharpness of regret and disappointment. It takes a whole shifting of the mind.

Reflect

Reflection can open our eyes to see there really were blessings even though we may not be attentive in the moment. Ann Voskamp has made a practice of writing her gratitudes every single day no matter how simple they may seem. When we look for joys and blessings, we might be surprised how many we have that we’ve overlooked or maybe we even brushed off in times past because it came to us in such a simple way it passed by unnoticed.

Joys and Blessings are All Around Us if We Open Our Eyes

Let that not be my story in 2022. Help me, Lord to notice the many bountiful blessings you send my way. You came to this earth so simply. You are so vast and great but yet dwell in simplicity too. You are everything. All the big and all the little and everything in between.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above… James 1:17

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalms 100:4

Noticing the good does not mean there won’t be bad things happen to us or that hurts will bypass us. It is no guarantee that life’s circumstances will be different but I think if we follow the Holy Bible and the wisdom it gives us we will feel differently.

 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. II Timothy 1:7

A Challenge

Write at least one thing a day that you are thankful for and then watch the accumulation of your blessings as the days, weeks and year go by. I wonder… if you are in a trying situation would it be even better to help you in overcoming if you were to think of positive things about that particular issue howbeit a crumb.

If you are one that does that already, I would love to hear from you and if you have seen it affect your attitude for the better.

God bless you each one in 2022!

May we be encouraged, uplifted and know that the Heavenly Father is right with us… always.

I love to commemorate the milestones in my children’s lives and so when my kids graduate from high school I like to give them a very special party.

It was only a few days before the party that my son who we were celebrating, accidentally burned our barn down. He was one disheartened young man looking at the destruction caused by the fire. I am so thankful that he wasn’t hurt, nor his sister who was trying to help!

All of our tables and chairs were burnt in the fire and we had to go buy more tables. We rented the chairs. I was prepared with rectangular tablecloths but when replacing the tables, we ended up purchasing more rounds, so I made do with the tablecloths I had by making table runners for the round tables.

What a beautiful evening September 11 was with perfect weather. I had so much fun and it was an honor to have friends and family join us for the celebration. I can hardly believe that my 5th child has graduated from our homeschool!

Justus determined, when I asked him what he would like for food at his graduation, that he wanted Greek gyros. I was a little surprised but was quite intrigued with such an unusual request. Usually it’s American, Italian or Mexican. Anyone else hear me on that?

My son-in-law built me this wonderful buffet server that you can see in the photo above. We get a fair bit of breezes where we live and so having a place for my plates and napkins is so nice! I can never set the tables ahead with plates because the slightest breeze will cause them to go flying.

In the terra cotta pots that you see on the top of the server, I planted some Vinca flowers (They are a great flower that bloom and bloom!) with oregano and basil in the other two pots.

Justus doesn’t really enjoy coffee, so I asked him what special drink he would like. He said, “Arnold Palmer”. I had actually never heard of that but it’s super easy to make. There are recipes online for it but basically it is 1/2 tea and 1/2 lemonade mixed together and served over ice.

A Mezza platter is different Mediterranean appetizers, like a charcuterie board but with a different type of assortment. We had pita chips, feta cheese, red bell pepper, figs, pistachios cucumber slices, radishes, Greek olives, Spanish olives, dried apricots, hummus and a flat bread from Trader Joe’s that I cannot remember its name.

The menu consisted of:

Gyros with Greek Chicken (recipe can be found here)

Tzatziki Sauce

Mediterranean Bean Salad

Herbed Greek Roasted Potatoes with Feta Cheese

The dessert table…

Dessert:

Baklava

Greek Butter Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (Justus’ favorite cookie)

Vanilla Ice Cream

After supper it was time to start the program!

My husband said a few words and then we played a little game. It was “How well does Justus know his friends?” We had asked 10 people ahead of time to give a memory of Justus. We then had Wesley come up, along with Justus, to the platform. The idea was to read the memory and then have each of them answer who they thought had submitted the memory. Russell told the boys the names of the 10 friends they could choose from.

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I had thought to play the game a bit different but Russ misunderstood and so we ended up playing it this way. If I was to do it again, I would have the friends not just give any memory but a funny one.

Our pastor said a few inspiring words followed by Audrey, Wesley and Justus…

I actually slipped in a speech too. I knew I would be a nervous wreck and say my speech all wrong if I did it live, so I cheated a little and prerecorded my message. It was such a relief to not have to think about it that evening!

Of course we had to have a slide show. They are a lot of work to put together and I spend days upon days doing it but I’m so glad I’ve persevered once I’m done.

And for the culmination of the evening and the reason we came together…. Justus’ b-i-g moment!

Walking up to the song Pomp and Circumstance we then presented Justus his diploma.

Justus with his younger sister. These two are the only ones still at home so they’re pretty close. I’m really thankful they have each other.

I had to share this picture of our adorable coffee trailer and the sweetest little girl that faithfully served drinks all evening.

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What an absolutely delightful evening we had! There was a happy lighthearted air all around and everybody seemed to have such a good time. That makes me feel so good as a hostess when that happens!

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I only have one more homeschool student and she is in 10th grade. I might have to have a celebration for myself when I’m done, right? It really is a privilege to homeschool and I’m so thankful we have the opportunity.

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Do you homeschool through highschool? Have you found it to be hard or easy?

Well as things go, my daughter who was married back in 2019 in a beautiful field by our home, is going to have a baby. What an absolute thrill for us.

We received a little wrapped package in the mail. Inside was a note attached to a baby pacifier announcing the special news.

Serenity decided to have a gender reveal party. Now I never did find out what I was having. All 6 times it was a complete surprise and so far all my children have opted to be surprised too.

But my daughter and my son-in-law wanted to know. Serenity decided to go with a twinkle twinkle little star theme for her party and we had so much fun planning it.

I flew to Serenity’s earlier in the week so that we could prepare all the desserts. We had decided to just serve drinks and mini desserts.

Well, with Covid, it caused a wrinkle… some were concerned about it, others were in quarantine so…. we decided to just roll with it and we planned a drive by gender reveal party. It ended up being so much fun!

We had the party at their church fellowship hall. When family arrived at the church and turned into the driveway they were given a menu. They were to check off all the items they wanted.

When they flipped the card over, there were the drink selections.

After turning in and receiving their menu, they made their way to the Diaper Station Raffle. To enter the raffle you had to bring a package of diapers and you were entered into a drawing for a $40 Amazon gift card.

The Italian soda bar was something Serenity has been really wanting to do at a party so this was her opportunity.

After each car picked up their drinks, they drove to our station where they picked up their selection of desserts.

Serenity had printed off an Old Wives Tales poster.

We tried to make desserts that we could use the twinkle twinkle theme and also blue and pink colors.

Serenity and her mother-in-law made the cutest little chocolate Bibles. Printed on paper was the verse, “Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

They were adorable.

So glad we could participate in this fun event.

Adjacent to the fellowship hall was a field where we gathered after everyone had had their fill of sweet treats.

We were ready to set those smoke bombs and confetti cannons off!

I was so busy trying to get my confetti canon to go off that it took me awhile to realize IT WAS PINK!

It was a fun day. I loved helping and making the mini desserts. When do we ever get the chance to operate a drive through? We did with this kind of shower and I had the best time doing it.

Looking forward to meeting Grandbaby #7! It will be such a special occasion. There is going to be some serious snuggling going on let me tell you!

Born to our oldest son Seth and his wife, Jessica, Marrion Kenneth was named after Seth’s grandpa who just happens to be my dad. My father is a very special man and at this point there are 4 grandchildren (including great-grandchildren) that bear some part of his name. Seth’s middle name is also Marrion!

Hope is quite happy with little brother.

We got to go visit and meet little Marrion. It was a nice time!

While we were there Seth continued with his commercial ice fishing line. Audrey went out with him for 2 days on the ice. What a tough girl! Russell took me out to see them one day on the snowmobile; I took off my gloves to take a few pictures and in less than a minute my hands were hurting so bad. I don’t know he can work in such cold conditions and enjoy it but he does.

It was time for us to head back to Arizona so of course, I had to get a few more photos.

Now it’s Seth and Jessica’s turn to try and get family pictures where everyone is looking. Oh my, do I ever remember those days!

While the wedding was going on the people we had hired to serve the food were setting up the tables. Unfortunately, it was too breezy to do it any earlier; we were so thankful that they could do it. Some of the family stepped in and showed them how to set up each table so that was a blessing. We just couldn’t have done everything without the help of different ones! May they be blessed!

If you would like to hear some of their playing, you can go to this link. They are amazing and have won many awards.

Oh my, the candy bar did not turn out so great because we couldn’t find the candy box and all we had was what you see! We had so much we were planning on putting out but alas, we just couldn’t locate it. I went several times during the reception to look for it and even for a few months after the wedding we couldn’t find it. It turns out that it was under our nose all along. Isn’t that the way it goes?

My niece made the dulce de leche cheesecake. It was absolutely beautiful. We were so happy with her creation.

Dessert was a variety of cheesecakes.

Audrey had a funny speech prepared for the reception. She did a great job!

I also put together a slide show that we played at the wedding. Austin and Serenity had made a few humorous cooking videos that I incorporated. We still quote some of the things they said on these videos. haha

And there you have it. Part III of Austin & Serenity’s wedding. We made it folks! Thanks for hanging in there with me. You all deserve an award for that, I’m sure.

Part I of the wedding

Part II of the wedding

We raise our children for this very purpose but change is a very difficult thing. You realize that the time you had with your children was just not enough. In just a few years it’s past.

If you’d like to see a video of the wedding, here is the link.

Part III to come…

We then hurried to the field to do some set-up. One funny story that happened was the table that we had painted (you can see the girls working on it here) was set up the day before in the field and crazily enough a swarm of bees had taken up residence in there. Our son had taken the table and placed it upside down in the bushes, removed the drawers and generally tried to get the bees to move on. kkkkkkkkkk

There came a time where we had to go get ourselves ready. Serenity had thoughtfully purchased gifts for everyone in her wedding party as well as me and Austin’s mother. She wrote me the most precious note and once again I was in tears as I had been so many times when I contemplated the change that was coming to our family.

I had asked a friend to be my own personal hairdresser and boy did she have to go through it. She worked on my hair for quite a while but then I finally told her I didn’t like it and she was so calm, cool and collected about it and worked and worked with me tell I was happy. She’s the absolute best and I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made is having her as my hair stylist. Two weddings now!

Leading up to the wedding site, our guests had to take a 2 mile dirt road. To help keep our guests from feeling like they were lost, I had made signs that we placed along the way so they would know they weren’t completely lost.

I had so much fun making these signs.

Finally everything was was ready to go. One thing I must remember is some people like to show up early! It’s good to be done early enough so they don’t see all the work going on.

Part II coming….

The worst day we looked out side and saw this…

We’ve seen rainbows in our valley but not for a long time and this one was directly over where the wedding was going to be in just 5 days. How remarkable! A coincidence? I’m not so sure.

The weather warmed up from that day and the day of the wedding it was the warmest day in the whole week.

Typically there would be no cause to be concerned about the weather. After all it was the end of May and we were going into our hot season but the weather was being weird. So thankful that God took care of it all and the weather was just fine the day of the wedding!

Leading up to the wedding there were so many tasks to complete. Even though you can do a lot ahead of time there is plenty of last minute to-do’s.

Then it was time for the rehearsal.

There was a lovely rehearsal meal..

…and then I’d like to say we all went home to bed but no, it was back to making garland for the tables. At this point I don’t remember what time everyone went to bed but we had a house full of guests. A treasured memory is me and Serenity spending the last few nights sleeping together in our guest apartment downstairs talking over her future having some mother daughter talks.

We simply could not have done what we did without so much help. It was a tremendous blessing. God bless each one!

Having the serving window cut out felt like we were going to get this thing finished fast but it wasn’t to be.

Believe it or not we were only 5 days away from the wedding while all this was happening. People were arriving early to help and we still had plenty to do.

It was and is great fun to have our own little coffee trailer. Thanks to my dear son, Wesley for making it happen.

Then we went to see my son one afternoon at a rental he owns and was working on cleaning and fixing up. The tenants had moved out quite hurriedly (actually was hauled off to jail :/), the sister had taken all she wanted leaving the rest for my son to dispose of and guess what just happened to be left behind…? A very run down, falling apart little trailer.

Bells started clanging in Serenity’s head when she saw the trailer. Ding, ding, ding… “this could be your coffee trailer for the wedding.”

Neither her brother or her daddy caught her vision but they promised to keep it for her.

Russell hauled it out to the house after a few months went by. Believe it or not, before we brought it out to the house we had someone approach us wanting the trailer for themselves!

Wesley sweetly took on the job of fixing up the trailer for Serenity. We were so happy to have someone commit to helping us out. It took Wesley many hours and although he wasn’t able to fix it up like he really wanted (hubby didn’t want to put too much $$$ into it) it still looked so nice when he finally finished up.

Part II of the coffee trailer renovation coming…