faith, family, friends (a sweet combination, especially when you add food :) )

ahead comes a wildly unorganized post. i apologize :). There were a pile of pics on my card & computer that begged to be blogged, maybe not so much for those of you who don't recognize the many faces in the pics, but even just for us as a testimony of the great gift of fellowship that God has lavished on us. They are everyday moments of sweet communion and when uploading my pics tonight i realized how many fun visits we've had in the past few weeks, and I felt very blessed. So many in the world are lonely and hurting and hungry and not knowing the comforts that we easily take for granted. I pray that these rich blessings would not serve to spoil me, but to make me thankful. And I pray that if I were ever to be stripped of these incredible gifts, that by God's grace I could have the testimony of the apostle Paul:

"I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me...And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen." (from Phil 4)

So these pics start out with the most recent visits, this weekend...

we were honoured to have Kev's cousins here for a visit, from L to R you see Steve (actually Kev's brother who nicely happened to be around this weekend too :) ), his cousins Brent and Scott with their beautiful new wives Kari and Anna. They all live in the city while Kari & Scott are finishing up school, and we were determined to get together while they are close by - very nice of them considering their tight schedules of school & work. I have to say I am pretty thrilled with these two of Kev's cousins' taste in women, Kari & Anna are sweethearts and it was so nice to visit with them all. B&K&S&A come again before you leave the city!!

The kids barely left Anna's side until we got them in bed and Kari helped make dinner since, as you will know if you have ever eaten here before, I am NEVER ready for ANYTHING. sigh.

great game of Ticket to Ride, our (my) new craze. If you come visit, we will likely drag you into a game.

Aunt Joann, you are blessed :)

and last week, we finally had a reunion with my Dad's family again. Sadly, few of us actually made it, what with some being in Vietnam, some in Washington State, some in Virginia, some in Florida, some in Chicago...to those who missed it: we missed you!! But so sweet to be together with those who could come. :)

Joshua loves Oma (as you can see the way he dives into her arms every time doesn't totally turn her on :) )

and i had to show this b/c it is the extent of his tricks. Rach VD teases me b/c when Ashleigh was a baby I always used to make her perform all of her little tricks. I'm afraid after Ashleigh i've had to stop making my babies perform because a) they don't like to show off and b) they aren't learning anything worth showing off!! However Joshua can answer the question "how old are you?", as you can see here:

at least, he did it for this picture. he won't necessarily do it for you if you ask him. And no, he's not walking yet if you are wondering!! We've been giving him extra coaching as there is reason to believe Sierra might be walking before Josh (what is she, like 8 months??) Good thing you don't care about things like that when its your 3rd child (at least, you act like you don't :) )

We were encouraged that he was taking a few steps this weekend :)

so adorable, who cares about tricks??!? (do i sound like i am trying to convince myself?? :) i do love to see a tiny child toddling around and i'm afraid Josh is past that stage already. Especially with his new buzz cut he got last week, he looks so old now!!)

We were so happy to have Curt and Jen here, and settling close by, and even happier to witness his ordination into the ministry this weekend. What a powerful thing, that God has given these men to us as a divine gift to us preach His Word and to care for our souls. I was reminded (again!) to pray more diligently for the ministers of God's Word, and those studying to be. Congratulations, and God bless you Curt & Jen!!

how we love our dear Uncle Cliff and Auntie Etta!! If we could be half the parents that they were (by God's grace), we would be thankful.

sweet singing songs of praise, always so special :)

inserting a random shot of more yard work, thanks to Aaron and Jon and Ben and John for more help getting all the wood chipped up!!

more sweet music with some wonderful seniors from church. we love to sing around here, thats the other thing we will likely incorporate into the agenda if you come visit. :) and btw Wilf and Sharon, we can't wait for your welcome home party July 4 and some sweet singing by the campfire!! :) and maybe Wilf will play "O Lord of Hosts how lovely" on the piano to move me to tears as it always does. :) That reminds me I had better get the email out about that this week...

this is random too, one morning the boys had set this up, Joshua was "driving the car". I love when kids use their imaginations :)

they are such partners in crime though:

even more random, and kind of braggy now that i think of it, (but apparently i will keep it on anyways), is these t-shirts i made for Eli and Dauna's kids. its very easy to make t-shirts if you ever want to try. Just buy the transfers from Staples or wherever, if you have a good printer.

ok now we're getting really long ago, sometime in the past few months we saw these people off to their masquerade:

( a prize winning fairy above)

kind of fun to see the snow, everything is so beautiful and green now. i love it.

getting some coaching on walking from one of the favourite uncles (my kids have many :) )

and this is from Josh's first birthday, a while ago too but again, they beg to be blogged and i don't know why i didn't post them earlier.

lots of people out for his birthday pizza and cake :)

what a little hunny, just loving all the attention the day brought him. :)

loving his present from Beppe (he must be the 3rd child b/c I think that was the only present he opened that day, oh and the smarties from T&C that we didn't really let him eat :) ) ...I would have been horrified to imagine no big presents when Ashleigh turned 1, but really, what could he possibly need?? and i had just gotten back from MB and was kinda sick myself... hopefully JOsh won't read this later and develop a complex!! rest assured that he is totally smothered in love even if he didn't get a big present!!

out of order, these are before his cake and he just looked from one guest to the other, completely thrilled about it all :)

of course, TTR to end the birthday party :)

we even got Beppe playing :)
we also got in a visit to T&C's place, such a great time and we were spoiled rotten there. Thank again guys...and speaking of them, click on the link to their blog for pics of their trip to Europe, they are there now, the luckies. I'm so happy for them :)

a visit from my dear friend Amy and her adorable kiddies (3 of them :) )

and one fun day when Steve was up from Chicago for the weekend last month we had a pile of people coming and going, so fun... the Rogers guy who happened to be here that day installing our cable was very curious about the people of all ages who kept coming out of the woodwork of this house and hanging around on a Monday. :) We are thankful to God that Steve sustained his licensure exam that weekend and are looking forward to having him, Amy and Sierra close by for the summer!!

sweet family times - looking forward, btw to Fathers Day with Kev's fam!!

don't see enough of this pretty face:

these pics are from April, this post was completely out of order. and the grand finale, another of our favourite visitors of all time:

whew, so that was some of our recent visiting!! thanks also to Steve & Jo for the fun visits recently, and anyone else i've forgotten to mention! i hope it wasn't too boring to scroll through. aren't good friends and family one of God's greatest gifts though?? Praise the Lord!!

"Blessed be the Lord,

Who daily loads us with benefits,

The God of our salvation!" Psalm 68:19

have a really great week, all :)