Spring is Springing

Signs of spring are popping up everywhere around here...

Beautiful weather,


warmer temperatures, budding trees


(including stinky budding trees)


and flower-picking expeditions.


How is the weather in your area? Any signs of spring yet?

You Capture: The Letter "L"

These are some of the "L" words I thought of this week.

Light

as in sunlight...


and moonlight.

Lessons

on the sofa...


and at the kitchen table.


Love

as in my two peas in a pod who love each other dearly.

Library

because who doesn't need more books? ;)


And, last but not least,

Lake

...with a splash from a rock.



Check out other You Capture entries at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

I don't think chess has ever been played like this before

Josiah says the caption of this photo is "Has anyone ever told you about Jesus?" The bishops are preaching to the congregation.

Jason played chess with Josiah a couple of days ago. Several years ago, Robert decided to teach Josiah how to play chess. Seriously--he was four years old. Josiah learned the basics--how each piece moves--and played off and on with Robert for a while until they moved on to something else. After playing with his daddy, he decided to teach Grace how to play chess. (Never mind that he had basically just relearned how to play!)



It was quite entertaining listening to the conversations! And quite possibly it was the first time these words have ever been spoken during a chess match...

Grace [holding the queen, and speaking in her sugary-sweet munchkin voice]: Please get out of my way--I'm going to have a child.

Grace [seeing Josiah's piece advancing towards one of her own and speaking with a loud fake panicked tone]: Please don't kill me!!

At the end of one of their games, Josiah announced that he had won. Grace decided to try her luck with changing the rules...

Grace [matter-of-factly]: No, you have get all my pieces.

~~~~~

I think it was also the first time the pawns were referred to as baby dolls, but I could be wrong.

After a few games, Grace let Robert take over her pieces and he beat Josiah.


Apparently while she started reading a good book... ;)


Grace had been carrying around--and looking at the illustrations of--Josiah's little stack of Magic Tree House books. She loves books--and, in particular, stacks of similar books. Hmmm...another fan of series?

You Capture: Warmth

Just last week I posted photos of our (brief) snowfall, and here we are talking about warmth.

But, more importantly, we are experiencing warmth. This was what our backyard looked like at 8:00 a.m. last Thursday:


And this is what it looked like at noon:


Whoo hoo! Now, that's the kind of snow we are used to in this part of Georgia...the kind that disappears very quickly.

Since last Thursday, we have warmed up quite nicely


and with that warm up, monkeys appeared in our trees.


(Unfortunately, the 8 year old monkey left the tree by the time the camera appeared. But I saw him climbing high into the tree as I watched from the kitchen window.)

With the warmth, there was the sudden appearance of long(er), skinny legs

as well as more shots thrown


and more baskets made.


Check out other You Capture entries at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Wordless Wednesday: Sunlight through the trees

I took this photo this evening while driving--it was one of those "turn the camera on, aim without looking, and hope for the best" kind of shots. I liked the way it turned out, with the bright reddish orange light from the sun and the trees so dark and blurred. The only editing I did was to darken the photo slightly.



Visit 5 Minutes for Mom, Shibley Smiles, and Baba's Farm Life for more Wordless Wednesday fun.

Rest

Who can help being out of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally. The very sea pauses at ebb and flood. Earth keeps the sabbath of the wintry months. And man, even when exalted to be God's ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigor or grow prematurely old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough.

In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

~Charles Spurgeon

All Kinds of Cuteness

I walked into my bedroom last night to see this sight:



See? All kinds of cuteness.

You Capture: Cold

This week's You Capture theme is cold. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who got very creative with this one, and I can't wait to see their shots. I, however, mainly have photos of the sky on cold days.

Now, cold is relative to most folks, so you don't have to leave comments telling about how I don't know what cold is since I live in Georgia. (OK, you can leave those comments. I really won't mind. In fact, I will sympathize with you.) My husband and I lived in Montana near the Canadian border for nearly a year--we missed the summer months, of course, and I was told (rather apologetically) that it was the coldest winter in the previous ten years--so, yes, I do know what cold is. :)

We had a lot of gray, gloomy looking skies over the last week (or more).




And we even got some sleet.


After our gray skies and rainy weather, it was so good to see some blue sky peeking out from behind the clouds! These are some shots from Wednesday.





And then...

This morning we woke up to white stuff


and the kids were more than a little excited!


It's melting rapidly as I type, which means we can have a somewhat normal school day. I can't tell you how disappointed Josiah is because of this fact!

Check out other You Capture entries at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Wordless Wednesday: Carpe Diem

Josiah (8) heard the wind slamming against the back of our house and you could see the light bulb going off in his head:

"Perfect kite-flying weather!"

I explained to him (again) how gusts of wind make for bad kite-flying weather since the kite is more likely to be damaged. He looked at me and said, "...Or I could wait for it to be damaged in the garage because it's not being used."

So he flew his kite.

Josiah (lower right, at the fence) in our backyard flying his kite (upper left)

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom, Shibley Smiles, and Baba's Farm Life for more Wordless Wednesday fun.

She's so unusual

Yes, another Cyndi Lauper reference...that's the title of one of her albums from the 80s.

Grace is the only four year old I know who will fold and stack her blankets just because she wants to.


She can also make our bed with impressive skill...again, just because she wants to. I dare say, she does a better job than most of the people in this house!



But all work and no play would make Grace a dull girl, and this girl knows how to play.

...Usually in her own unusual way.


And she loves books.


I mean, she really, really loves books.


She also really, really loves her babies.

(Yes, she's asleep in those photos.)

She looks forward to future events. Jason, you may want to turn away from the computer monitor now.


...But she has promised to stay little for a little while longer. And, oh, I'm so glad!

Lyrical Photographs: Hold On

Hold On
by TobyMac

Wake up to the morning light
Wipe away the lonely nights
Let a brand new day wash over you,
Wanna see you smile again
Show some love to your crazy friends
Wipe your tears away
Those days are through...

[Chorus:]
So, baby, hold on just another day or two
I can see the clouds are moving faster now
And the sun is breaking through


If you can hold on to the One that's holding you
There is nothing that can stop this crazy love from breaking through


We're breaking through...

Wake up to the morning sun
Thank the Lord for the things He's done
Lift your eyes up to the hope that's ever true


Wanna see you smiling, girl
You're a light in this jaded world
Wipe away those tears
This one's for you...

[Chorus]

And the stars are up there shining for you
Oh, the Father does adore you
His love will never change
And you and I, we were born to follow
The hope that will lead us to tomorrow
And no one can take it away


So, baby, hold on just another day or two
I can see the clouds are moving faster now
And the sun is breaking through
If you could hold on to the one that's holding you...


There is nothing that can stop this crazy love from breaking through
We're breaking through

All photos are SOOC.

Check out more Lyrical Photographs at my friend Kathleen's blog, Treasured Chapters. They won't all be photos of the sky. I promise.