Boyhood

The Hero in his Camo.

How do you like the Robot?
Must be a little hard to navigate when you can only see straight ahead!

Springtime!

You can never tell about the weather in our area.
After a few chilly spring-like days, we are having a snow storm!

The crocus, daffodils and hyacinths have been blooming
for the last couple of weeks.
We hope the snow doesn't kill everything that's coming up.


Can you believe it?? It is very sticky wet snow that's actually
broken a large pine branch in the front yard. Yikes!



I guess it's time for [hopefully] our "last" snowman for this season.
Said with a smile and my fingers crossed.


Anyone for a snowball fight?

Wax and Fire! - Ukrainian Pysanky Eggs

Yes, we did go a bit egg crazy this year!
It's such a fun thing to do with family, and we haven't done anything with eggs since 2001.

Pysanky eggs are reserved for the older ones - they take a good bit of time, they involve fire, and that dye is permanent. Period. Clockwise from left, Aunt Karilyn, Haley, Nate, Tim, Elli and Becca.

First you melt the beeswax in your little kistka, then you apply the wax to every area of the egg that you want to be white. When you dip the egg in the dye, the wax preserves the original color.

After you've covered your white parts, you move on to yellow, from there to green and so on. You continue covering and dipping in progressively darker colors until you end, traditionally, with black.

Here is what the eggs look like in process. You can see whatever the current color is, and the rest is ugly black wax . It's really fun at the end when you melt off the wax and all the beautiful colors are finally revealed. Mom likes to say it's like what happens when we allow Jesus to remove our sins and make us like Himself!

We had eight or nine different colors. The traditional colors are white, yellow, orange, green , red, sometimes blue, and black. I think we also had pink and dark blue (which, if used after red made a lovely shade of purple). Traditionally, different designs stand for different things. Fish stand for Christians, the Cross represents Christ, animals show prosperity, grapes stand for the Fruit of the Spirit, flowers for spring, triangles for the Trinity, and so on.


I think Pysanky eggs are my favorite kind to make. You put a lot of thought and planning into each egg, but it's always a surprise to see what it looks like in the end. Of course, the delight of getting to do things you're not normally supposed to probably adds to the appeal. There is something very fun about melting wax and playing around with fire! - GJ

Meditations: Lookin' Up!

Last week I ran across one of my favorite verses again, and I’ve been meditating on it ever since. The verse is Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.” I love the phrase “perfect peace”, but recently I’ve been reflecting on the condition. To gain that peace, my mind must be stayed on Jesus.

Where is my mind staying these days? What am I meditating on, what am I considering, where do my thoughts “live”? My worries should cause me to run to Jesus in prayer. My desires should be submitted to Him in trusting contentment. My fears should be allowed to dissolve in the warmth of his omnipotent love. How often I allow my mind to stay on these other things, instead of on Jesus with His goodness, love and power.

Here are some of the words to a song that has been going through my head. It’s called “Looking Up”.

If I look out upon the world, I’ll loose my vision,
If I look in at my own strength, I’ll loose my might,
If I look down the road ahead, I’ll loose my courage,
So I’ll look to Christ, and my faith becomes sight!

I’m lookin’ up for the things that really matter,
I will not look to the things that pass away.
My hope is fixed upon eternal treasures,
So I’ll just keep on lookin’ up each day!

With God’s help, I’m lookin’ up. Jesus provides a great place for the mind to stay! - GJ

Egging on the Cousins

On Good Friday we got all the cousins together and decoupaged Easter eggs. It was great fun to do with the younger ones - it's really easy and you can't go wrong! Well, you mostly can't go wrong. Someone (name omitted to protect the humiliated) did get some comments about one of her eggs looking like it was done by a five year old. But the rest of my-oops!- her eggs were very nice!



Kelly, Elli and Matthew. I think Elli is working on her "tea cup" egg. Aunt Kay had some tissue paper with tea cup designs that was very popular. ;-)






Aunt Kay and Kelly. Our artistic Auntie Kay came over to help, and supplied all sorts of marvelous patterned tissue paper. She even had zebra and leopard paper for the little boys! She always finds and knows the neatest stuff.





Ta da! The master artist presents two of her creations. Kelly was so careful with her cutting and designs. She used a lot of fun and different designs and colors. I think she did four whole eggs!

Below are best buddies Nate and Tim, who each made an egg, like the good sports they are. Nate's egg has old fashioned clocks, Tim's has . . . lilies and roses?

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love? Hmmm!

Yolked together in love? (Things did get a little pun-y.)
L-R Elli, Becca, Nate, Haley, Me, Matthew, Kelly, Uncle TD and Grant.


The "little cousins" - Kelli, Matthew, Grant, Jack and Aunt Karilyn.
We like that zebra egg Jack, and just take a look at Matthew's tiger stripes! Thanks to the cousins and aunts for making it such a fun time! - GJ

Fishing

Ken, Nate and Matthew had the privilege of joining a great
group of men on an Arkansas fishing trip last weekend.

Thanks to the Wendricks family the guys had fishing equipment
& waders. I don't think they lost a single pole!

Boat buddies.


Ahh. Fresh air, sunshine and quiet.

This picture was taken by Matthew from his vantage point.
He wanted to say to everyone who reads this:
"This is what you see when you are in the front of the boat and everyone else is behind you. It was kind of quiet as we hoped that the boat wouldn't turn over because of the strong wind and current. It was so strong that both of our anchors were dragging. "
Matthew 11 years old. :-)

Nate spent 5 hours standing in the stream fishing.
He said it wasn't so bad once your feet and legs went numb.
The Sun was strong enough though to keep him warm
even standing in cold water.


There were awards for everyone. Nate's was for locating the
"honey hole" where the fish were biting.

Ken learning the Happy Trout Hand Shake! Yes, he did catch 3 fish.
One was a carp and he threw that one back.


Chris Miller leading the men together in devotions.

"And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon
who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net
into the sea; for they were fishermen. And He said to them,
'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.'"
Matthew 4:18 & 19

Here's the whole crew of men, many fathers with sons!

Simple Pleasures

A couple days ago, I noticed that we have a few violets blooming in our back yard. I love violets. They are early flowers, they're prolific and . . . they're purple. ;-)
Did you know that violets are edible? When I was little, our friend Mrs. Barton used to sugar them. I think she brushed them with water or egg white to make the sugar stick. She would top each of her cupcakes with a tiny sugared violet, which always looked so beautiful and special!
Here's my tip for a little free elegance. Wash your violets in cold water, then fill an ice tray half full with water (the square for each cube should be half way full, or maybe a little less that half). Pick off the stems and place a violet or two in each cube. Stick the tray in the freezer. When it's frozen, take it out and fill it the rest of the way. The already frozen part will keep the violets from floating to the top, and you'll end up with some lovely looking violet ice cubes! Especially if served in a contrasting yellow lemonade. :-)

P.S. Yes, I know. The picture has apple blossoms, not violets. However, I have not yet been trained by Nate which pictures I can use from the internet and how to get them, and I don't have the gumption to try it uninstructed. Also, as lovely as dew washed petals may be, I am not interested in running out in the middle of a thunder storm to take a picture of them! - GJ

Egg-streme Fun!

For many years we have decorated eggs around Easter time.
Here we are decoupaging goose eggs. It was easy and fun to do.
After doing chicken eggs in the past, these eggs felt HUGE.

Haley's egg was covered in cut up pieces of tissue paper.

Gretchen used pictures of Beatrice Potter's characters
xeroxed from an old book.
I used vintage paper scraps from England.

TA DA!!

Here are the results. . . . . . three totally different looking eggs.
Later this week we hope make our favorite
style of egg: Ukrainian Pysanky eggs.