Lessons from Sesame Street...

Do you remember the game on Sesame Street?

One of these things is doing it's own thing... one of these things just doesn't belong...

Well, we had a version of that in our kitchen on Father's day! We have started getting eggs daily now but not all of the chickens are laying. The egg on the far left is the first from one of them and it well... IT'S HUGE!!! Having been through childbirth four times I am feeling for this chicken! LOL

We were also able to get about a quarter of our garden in this weekend. I think I will revise my plan for next year but for now we have corn, snap peas, tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, lettuce, yellow squash, peppers, radishes, broccoli, carrots, watermelon, strawberries, cantaloupe, raspberries and blueberries. By growing a small amount of each this year I hope to find the ones that will do well on a larger scale next year. The berries of course are perennial but on all the others I wanted to see before I go overboard on something that isn't going to grow well.

Happy Birthday to Me....

My birthday present arrived today! I have a brand new fabulous greenhouse to play with! The process of getting it off the truck was not so easy but all of us pitched in to help the poor man (yes, one man... what were they thinking?) who came to deliver it. The important thing is that it is here and has made it safely to it's new residence next to my garden.

This will allow me to extend our growing season by at least four months if not all year round and also makes growing some things possible that might not otherwise work in our area. I am really excited about this new adventure.

We went with pre-built because all the comments on the "build it yourself" models were very frightening! It seems that they are very problematic and even though this was about 10% more... I think it will be a much smarter choice overall. It has built in shelves and is built from solid wood. 10 X 12ft. of planting playground!

Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday to me... Happy Birthday dear

completely spoiled and blessed beyond all understanding

Amy...

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Our first egg!

We found our very first egg in the hen house today! The shell was perfect and lightly speckled brown. After having been told that it might take up to a year for them to start laying this was an awesome surprise after only a few months.

We cracked it and it was a double yoker... how cool! The kids were totally in awe (ok, so were Ben and I)!

I drove home from Seattle today with my friends three girls and they will be staying with us for a bit. This is their first time here at our new house and it has been so cute watching them discover all the country life stuff!

Then they all sat down to watch their first sunset hear together (a big deal around here at the Kaeding's) and I could not pass up the photo op!

BJ, Raven, Alyx, Myka, Trinity, Tory and Jedidiah

Teenager?

"Do you know what today is?" That is the sentence that Ben woke up to on Friday morning. "Our son's birthday?" he said. "No, this is the day that I have to start using phrases like, I have a teenage son... my oldest son is a teenager now.... now that BJ is a teenager... oh, you know how teenage boys are... and open a window, this room stinks to high heaven!" I kid you not when I say that I really honestly feel about 17-18 years old. My brother will gladly add that I act like it too! I wouldn't disagree with that at all. It is now oh so obvious that my son and I cannot both be teenagers and so I am at a total loss as to how to handle this!

As if it all wasn't hard enough already I bought balloons and streamers to decorate for his party with and he didn't want to decorate. My son, the one who always wants streamers and balloons... this is all happening way too soon and way too fast. He is so sweet and loves the Lord so much that I cannot help but be proud of him but... oh, how I wish he would grow all the way up at once!

My mom and dad spent the evening with us and I am glad. My mom totally understood how I was feeling (she raised four boys and then me) and I think your first one becoming a teenager is pretty universal. She had a little fun laughing at me too!

This is my son's favorite dessert, Peanut butter cheesecake! I bake the peanut butter flavored cheesecake with a Nutter Butter cookie crust and then put it over a fudge brownie bottom layer and cover it in Nutella or in this case more peanut butter.

We've left the straight and narrow....

Spiritually you can't beat the straight and narrow but for driveways... we've gone for the wide and easy! Ben finally got to play with a real Tonka and took out about 14 large stumps from all over the property. Then they re-graded the driveway and broadened things out a bit!

This is from the top of the driveway looking up toward the house.

Before....

After!


This is looking down the driveway from the same place.
Before...

After!

Those of you with two wheel drive are going to be very thankful we did this! We just about doubled the width and it is not nearly as steep.

Quick Change Weekend!

Our weekend started out with an old family friend Lee (he was close friends with my g'ma and g'pa McCoy) coming over with his tractor to help us regrade our driveway. He let the kids sit on the blade to be the weight and take little rides. He was so sweet and fun to be with. I didn't get to spend much time with my grandparents before they past so it was fun for me to hear the stories and find out more about them.

We are the proud owners of a brand new dented BBQ! We were going to get one that was not as cool (but substantially better than none... which is what we had currently) and found one that was marked down $100 because it had a dent in the back of the lid! Stayed in budget and landed an even better BBQ than we planned!

We have the sticky tiles in the kitchen and some of them were starting to come up. When I couldn't find a match... I went another direction all together. The tiles there now are grey and so I went with black and replaced the damaged ones. Then I did a few more interspersed throughout and tada!!! It really gives the floor a fun punch and cost under $10!

I have started on my garden set up and will keep you updated! I am going with a "fruits of the spirit" theme... uh, yeah... you can totally decorate a garden... watch me! LOL!

Faithful...

God gave me a very interesting word picture last night and read it or not... I am going to share it with you.

Imagine that your husband, whom had never given you reason to doubt his faithfulness or love reveals to you that some of his closest friends have been cheating on their wives and lying to cover for each other. Although he does not agree with their behavior he has allowed it to go on. He has decided to show them grace and wait for them to repent in their own time and now asks you to do the same. He assures you that they will be caught up in their own web and reminds you that he has been faithful to you and so you need not worry about what is going on in their marriages but to focus on him and continue working on strengthening your marriage with him.

Perhaps you would not have any questions at all... but I would. How can I be sure of his fidelity if they are lying to cover for each other? How can he continue to be close to these people if they are behaving this way? Don't birds of a feather flock together? How can I trust him now knowing what kind of people he chooses to associate with and care for? Isn't there a line where giving grace is code for being weak and prepping me for when I find out that he has not been honest with me?

I have had some major disappointments with some of the people that God loves and has a marriage relationship with. They are part of the bride of Christ. These are people who genuinely love the Lord and yet they have cheated and lied to protect each other. They have hurt me deeply and caused me to question my relationship with the Lord. I have asked these questions of Him in the quiet of my heart and suspected Him of all these things and more because of the way they behaved. I have treated Him like I would a human husband in the same situation, full of suspicion and mistrust. There is one BIG problem with this however. He is GOD!!!

It was like I could hear as clearly as someone sitting next to me say

"He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind". " The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart". "God is love". "He will never leave me or forsake me". "God is Holy". "His Faithfulness endures from generation to generation" He has proven Himself to be just and true. He is not a man and yet I have treated Him as though it was He who broke trust when it was not. Men and women, who will never need me to forgive them for more than what Christ has forgiven me for, broke trust with me. I cannot hold Him accountable for what they have done. I must leave my worldly wisdom behind and put my faith in Him who is worthy. My mistake was not in trusting; it was placing my trust in people rather than in God. I have held the Lord at arms length and then wondered why I cannot feel the warmth of his embrace. Father forgive me.