Friends in low places and friends in high places

I've got friends in low places and in high places (and my husband is a pretty good lightbulb changer too).
Thank you Marcia for hosting us last weekend. My handyman and I enjoyed our visit so much!

Lily Kate's 3rd Birthday Carousel Party

I'm letting the photos speak for themselves in this post! I am pretty sure Lily Kate would tell you herself that she had a wonderful time at her Carousel Birthday Party and I can only bet she is having fun sleeping in her new big girl bed now :)!

I had nothing to do on the first day of MARCH except bake a cake!

So, today, the very 1st day of MARCH in 2011, I had nothing I absolutely had to do except bake a cake to take to a luncheon tomorrow for 80+ seniors at our church. I was rather pleased to have a day like this, thinking I will catch up on some sewing, some music syncing, some dusting, and some phone calls and otherwise just sit on the porch and soak up the beautiful day reading and listening to my birds.

While I set out all my ingredients to bake a hummingbird cake, Jack and I decided to take our daily walk first. We went a little longer today walking around 4 miles just so we could view all the bursting bradford trees. It was eye candy for a tree lover like me! I did not take my camera knowing we would be taking a hike literally. Besides it is no fun to lug it around when you are walking for exercise purposes. But rest assured, I knew I would go back and record what I saw.

So, I came back from walking, and proceeded to bake my cake before lunchtime. And I thought while it is baking, I will download the pictures of the birds I saw yesterday and today and do a few other things. I soon learned it is NOT a good idea to multitask while baking a cake.
The phone rang, I was summonned outside for my advice on one of our outdoor projects and wham, it was lunch time. I had to hurry up and get that cake in the now 30 minute preheated oven! So I rushed the cake mixing and got our sandwiches ready and headed to eat on the porch.

I was quite satisfied with my accomplishments thus far in my day but then as I was bringing our plates inside from the porch, I spotted 3 eggs sitting on the counter! OOPS. Mercy me, I left the eggs out of my cake and it had been baking for about 20 minutes at that point. I was not a happy girl and my ever loving husband had to remind me that I really need to quit trying to master this multitasking stuff!

Well, I am here to tell ya, that the cake is really pretty good, even without the 3 eggs it is supposed to have. Of course, the jury is still out until after tomorrow's luncheon. I am not telling any of those folks until after the fact!

This colorful fella hangs out around our home all the time. I don't always get to take his picture or his cousin's because they are rather quick at their flight but since I was at the computer today downloading pictures ...and you already know I got a little distracted while I was baking that cake!

I know you will find this hard to believe but I took every one of the following bluebird pictures from inside my office window! I was in bluebird heaven!
It was as if they were posing for me and agreeing that Spring is a welcomed thing right now!
Mister Blue here is eyeballing his new home in our yard.
He and I had a very quick agreement on the rent. "Cheap, cheap", I said, "Chirp, chirp", he said!

and from what I can tell, this here is Mama bluebird and she lets DaddyBird make all the arrangements while keeping tabs on us with that little pooch in her belly :)

and with all that said and my eggless cake tasting very good, I MARCHed myself right outside and took more pictures for pure pleasure.







I hope you also received the pleasure I did from welcoming a new Spring and the month of MARCH.

I still am notfully convinced I can't master the multitasking thing :)

When bad things happen to good people

Our Sunday School class reads a variety of books for our class discussions. We just finished reading When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Harold S. Kushner. While we do not agree with everything any author says, there were many interesting foods for thought in this book.

He suggests "in the final anaysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking WHY something happened, but asking HOW we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.

I think we have all asked it before, Why, Why, and Why. This book challenged me for the future to ask," now that this has happened to me, WHAT am I going to do about it." Kushner writes " I can accept that the facts of life are neutral. We, by our responses, give suffering either a positive or a negative meaning."

I sat there thinking about all my grandchildren and the world they are living in. How can I help them to embrace life, trust God, and respond to life's unfairness and give positive meaning to their personal journeys?
Right now, they are being handed most everything they want and need, just as I was as a child. I did not suffer in any big way as a child. It pains me just to imagine any kind of suffering in their innocent lives.

My real shock and participant in suffering came at age 26. I was not prepared in anyway to accept a divorce and give it a positive meaning in my life. But I made some choices and found a Loving God to help me raise my children during 14 of those very hard single again years and I walked on through life. There is still suffering as a result of that divorce but there is also healing and multitudes of love displayed in my life and my children's as we have entered new chapters of all our lives. God has been gracious to us and good!

So today, I press on in a world of suffering. People around me are facing brutal things: cancer, lack of finances, crippling diseases, emotional disorders, broken relationships, family members at war, and hardships of all sorts. I want to help, be an encourager, and a support. Mostly, all I can really do is pray. I am positive prayer is the only way I made it through my suffering. God will give to them that suffer today, Himself, I pray, and He will provide who and what they need to survive their sufferings.

These are thoughts I will ponder and continually ask God for direction.
Some serious thoughts on a Monday from a usually silly, sappy Lolli.

COW!

3 short years ago, the COW found us in the Mall around Christmas time (Annie was then 2 and Lily Kate around 9 months)...

and then he found us with Brendan and Beckett this Christmas 3 years later eatting lunch...

and last week the COW car parked right across from me the other day at Walmart!...


and followed me to the basketball game later that day...

and begged me to take another picture with him this past Saturday!
Holy Cow, I think I have a new friend for life!

Eat more chicken yall!

made by Lolli with love

I totally forgot to add this picture at the end of my most recent post on "gingham". (Since the neck was so little, I decided to put it down at the back of dress, who knows I may start a new trend...)
I am lovin my new labels that a little bluebird gave me for Christmas (I call anyone I really love 'a little bluebird'-this bluebird was Regan!)

gingham

About 2 years ago I bought this baby blue gingham at a cloth barn on one of my jaunts to visit friends at the lake. I had in mind to use it for baby Knox who was not yet born at the time.
As I often do, I forget about the fabric once it is stuck away in my sewing cabinet and get distracted with my many other busy bee projects.
I was determined to make it into an outfit by Valentines this year and I accomplished my goal, even after keeping Knox a week here and there before Feb 14th!
I was extra excited that it fit him well because it is not easy to fit a little one when they are not around to try it on as you are sewing.

Then, after finishing his longall, I realized I had enough material left to make baby Greer a simple daygown and bonnet with the leftovers.





I even had enough to make a little slip to go under the daygown(the material was rather sheer)

when I completed the bonnet, I thought it looked too much like a "boy cap". I took it to church with me that Sunday morning and went to the nursery area and tried it on a little baby girl who was just about Greer's size.
Came home after church, and added a ruffle (after ripping out a few seams). (for you sewers I enjoyed using the OLD FASHIONED BABY daygown pattern on this project)
To me, that was what it needed, and I sighed a relief.
Can't wait to see her in it. I just mailed it to her this week. Stay tuned for a future picture of my 2 youngest little loves in gingham.

Funny thing is, just 5 minutes after I posted this, I received these precious pictures of baby Greer from my daughter in law who gets major hugs for being so diligent about sending Lolli new pictures!



and her mama says she dislikes bonnets something awful! This may be the last bonnet for baby Greer. I do not want to be on her bad side :)