Fall Catch Up Post Pt 2

Here is the second part of the catch up post I promised!

The weather is slowly getting colder.  The nights and mornings are very chilly but during the day it is still nice enough to let the children outside to play or help me work around the farm, to get things ready for winter. 

One thing that has hindered us being able to work or play outside, is the drought.  We are in a terrible drought here in the deep south.  No rain for weeks and weeks.  The ground is just powdered dust.  Our farm has no grass or weeds, even trees are dying.  We have wild fires all over the south and at times, the smoke is to thick the let the children out to play.  I have been feeding hay to our livestock all summer because there is no grass.  Hay is very expensive right now, as farmers and sellers are shipping it in from all over the country, to feed their live stock.  Our pond is at the lowest it has ever been.  The dock is on dry land and the water line is several feet from the dock.  Praise God, our well still has water in it.  If you think of us, please pray for rain.

One of the outings that the children wanted to get in this fall, was a trip to our local lake for a cook out.

Tim had to work but we invited his parents to join us that day.

William and Tim's dad.

Tim's  mom and Carolyn.

The play ground is a huge pirate ship.  The children have a ball pretending and running around together while there.

I pair up an older child, with one younger one when we go places.  Elizabeth was paired up with the baby and after letting her go down the slide each time, had to come down  herself!

Grandmas job was catching all the grand children at the bottom of the slide, both small and big!

This lake is a beautiful place to go but we usually have the whole place to ourselves.

The weather was chilly but beautiful.

It was to cold to take the children out on the lake in a rented boat (like we usually do) but they still had a great time eating and playing on the play ground.

One of the other places the children wanted to go to this fall, was a place called The Rock Garden.  They wanted to have a picnic there.  The Rock Garden is a lovely, quiet, whimsical place.  It is a mans dream of a mini village, all done in miniature, all by hand, made by him and volunteers.  It is fairly large with walkways.  All of the buildings have scenes inside with miniature hand made people.  A very unique place.  I love to take pictures of our children while there.

Timmy and Notre Dame

There is a small field beside it for the children to play in and a few picnic tables.  They hold weddings, family reunions and such there.  We have not been able to go since opening our home to  foster care again.  I have been covered up in infant and toddler care the last few years...So the children really were excited to do this outing. 

Not only were the older children excited to go and enjoy it themselves but to share the experience with the littles who had never been.

And to relax...

Tims parents also came with us on this trip.

The littles really had a wonderful time exploring and I enjoyed seeing everyone have a great time.  I also got a few very good shots of the children.

Whew, I think this about catches us up to the present.  We have been home schooling and taking a few days off here and there to work on preparing the farm for cold weather.  The boys have stacked wood on the back porch for our wood stove.   We have started picking up branches that fell, over the summer, fixing fences, raking leaves and all that good stuff.  God is so good.

 
Luke 10:2 - Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly [is] great, but the labourers [are] few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

May we all keep our focus on the blessings of our lives as we move into the week of Thanksgiving.   May God be with you and keep you.  May He lead and guide you, as you live and grow in Him.

Blessings,

susan

Fall Catch Up Post Pt 1

Today, I am going to catch up a bit on blogging.  We sure have been busy but with good things and happy outings.  The weather is getting colder by the week, so our time enjoying the fall weather is drawing to a close.  Antonio and Elizabeth are just too fragile to handle the cold weather for an extended period of time.  Georgia weather is pretty unpredictable, so we will still have a few warmer weeks mixed in through out the winter to enjoy an outing to a playground or something here or there but for the most part, I think we got in all the things the children wanted to do this fall.

Back in October my generous sister offered to take the children to the Lost Sea.  William, Carolyn and Billy were able to go.  It was Billy's first trip with my sister.  He is a very active, bouncy, impulsive, imaginative, brilliant child that can also be cheeky, stubborn and down right rebellious at times...and praise God, he did very well for her.

The Lost Sea is a cave system in Tennessee that has a lake in it, under the ground.  I do not have many pictures of their trip because of the low lighting in the caves but they had a wonderful time.  It was Billy's first time in a cave and it made a huge impression on him.  He loved it.

They saw a lot of cave formations on the long walk down to the lake and then went on a boat ride on the lake.

Thank you Aunt "S" and Uncle "B" for taking your time, to take the children on so many wonderful outings!  They have made some wonderful happy memories!

The yearly, fall fair also came to town.  I took some of the children one evening.  They had such a great time.

Our friend "J" came along with us.

Antonio is still going through hard spells since his botox reaction over a year ago.  He is coherent and normal for a few weeks and then not himself for a few weeks. (Weak, depressed, quiet, altered personality, delusional and overly tired)  He was going thru one of his bad spells but I took him anyways to try to make him happy and get him out a bit.

The little children all loved the exotic petting zoo.

It was a very happy evening.

To much fun and inertia at the fun house.

We do not always have the funds to go but praise God did this year.

I am so grateful that we have had a healthy fall so the children could get out and enjoy the weather and some fun things.  The children are growing up so fast and it has been a pleasure to see them having so much fun lately.  They are so silly and are very bonded like brothers and sisters should be!

 Kinsley saying cheese for me to take her picture!

William is a coffee drinker.  He usually drinks coffee just at home.  Sometimes I will treat him to one from our local Dunk n D shop.  He loves the coffee from there.  He likes it from there so much, I got him a shirt from there, a few years ago.  We never get the expensive coffee from the competitor, because of the cost and a few other reasons.  Anyways, while we were on one of our trips, a good ways from home, I offered to get each of the children a treat, for something special to eat on the long ride home.  William was craving pumpkin spice coffee and the only place around that had it was the expensive place.  William does so much to help me load and unload all the children and make their experiences rich when we go places, I splurged and got him the pumpkin spice coffee from the only place available.  Shortly after I handed it to him, he started laughing and said "mom, look what shirt I have on today!"  Whoops! To funny!

Part 2 coming soon!

May God be with you this fall.  May He lead and guide the new leader of our nation.  May He bring health and peace to our homes as we turn our minds toward God and all we are thankful for this harvest season.

Psalm 1:1-3  Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Blessings,

susan

  

 
 

A Trip To The Zoo!

For Timothy's birthday he wanted to go to a zoo with Elephants and Lions.  The zoo we usually go to is very small and is more like a small park with a few exotic animals.   So, for Timmy birthday, we took him down to the Atlanta Zoo.  It is huge and full of many exotic animals,  It  made for a long day but a very fun day.  The one thing we never took into account, was the time of year we chose to go.  We do not celebrate holloween and on the day we chose to go, they had trick-or-treating at the zoo, even though we went two weeks before holloween.  They gave out empty festive bags to every child as we entered the zoo (which we kindly declined) and then at every animal station they gave out different kinds of candy.  Praise God, we left the zoo with each child only having one piece of candy.  We try not to give our children much candy and they were thrilled with their one piece we allowed them to receive as we left.  Nearly every child and many of the adult patrons at the zoo, were dressed up for holloween.  It gave us a platform to talk to our children about our beliefs but also gave us some opportunities to see some elaborate costumes.  Thank the Lord there were not to many scary ones there.

Some were zoo employees dressed up.  The below one is because they have giant pandas at the zoo.  Kinsley was really enthralled with anything panda at the zoo.

We did see some elephants very close up!

There was no way we could see all the animal exhibits in one day, so we saw all we could.

Tim's parents came with us and took some pictures for us.  Tim and I actually got into some pictures together!

Grandma with my big guys!

Tim and his dad.

Three of my littles!

The reptile house!

Such a happy day of making wonderful memories!

The statue outside the gorilla exhibit.

Zeke does not get to go on  many of our outings, now that he is in public school participating in their work program.  It was so nice to have him with us on this day!

The children were not to impressed with the petting zoo, that was mostly goats, as we have them at home.  But the boulders and huge stumps in there for the goats to climb on were a big hit!

It was a wonderful day.  The temperature was perfect.  The children had such a wonderful time seeing animals they had never seen up close in real life before.  It was amazing seeing so many types of beautiful animals God created.  The joy it brings me to see the wonder on my children's faces as they learn and see new things.  It blesses me so much and brings me such joy.

Psalm 36:5-7  Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.  Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.  How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.

   

Blessings!

susan