Mailboxes

It's a huge blessing that it is legal here to put things in mailboxes.  (In the states it is not)  We've been putting our packets (Invitation, John and Romans, Tract) in mailboxes and Patrick has been keeping our progress on the map with a black marker.  It's so exciting to see the map filling up!

Our goal is to fill every mailbox with a packet.  We're running out of materials (a good problem to have, right? :o)  Patrick thinks we'll need about 1500 more.  Then, after that, he wants to do a mass mailout to every PO Box here.  It's been fun doing this together as a family.  It's nice to enjoy the cooler temperatures and breezes as we go up and around our mountains.  Sometimes the stop and go can make our tummies feel a little queasy, or we have to take a break for someone's bloody nose,  but we are enjoying serving God together as a family! Pray that we will see fruit from this ministry God has given to us!

A patch for my boy

My Silas is hard on his clothes.  He's definitely an always-playing type of kid.  He's usually tackling something (or somebody), crawling like a beetle, or on his knees in front of the coffee table playing with his army guys.  I love his activeness!  So, I have plenty of pants with holes in the knees.  One of his favorite (or maybe they're mine :o) had a hole in the knee.  I'm not really a fan of that style, so something had to be done.  I told him I wanted to make him a patch and asked him what kind would he like.  After thinking for a while he said, "I want it to be a Lone Ranger patch."  How do you make one of those?  I told him that was too hard for Momma, let's think of something else.  Then he said he wanted an airplane.  Okay.  I can try that!  

 I found a cute picture online and tried my best to draw it and cut out some pieces.

 Then, I ironed those pieces onto Wonder-Under and cut the airplane out.

 Then, I peeled off the backing, and....

 ironed it to the jeans.  Now it was time for sewing.  That was a little harder than I thought.  I didn't want to sew the pant leg together!

 Finally I finished.  I wasn't so sure about the crazy zig-zagging around the plane, but when my Silas saw it, he loved it!  Works for me!

   I love my little guy and will gladly do more patches for my active little boy!

So Very Glad!

Joshua and Elisabeth arrived back tonight and we were all so very glad!  We've all missed them soooo much!  They came back with suitcases loaded down with goodies.  Aren't grandparents amazing!  So thankful for God's watch-care over them.  It feels so peaceful to have my 6 all under one roof again.  

Didn't have to buy them!

I have good news!

 Our chickens are now laying 2-3 eggs a day!  I didn't even have to buy a dozen this week at the grocery store.  Pretty neat!  We usually eat 2 1/2 dozen in a week.  The eggs are about $3 a dozen, so that's a great saving for us.  Way to go chickens!

You Can't Go Wrong Bag

When I was trying to decide what I wanted to make for my sister Tabitha, I knew I wanted to do something personalized with a picture of her kiddos on it.  You can't go wrong with such beautiful children!  I love those 4!  When I saw this pattern for a Tote Bag, I decided to try it!

 I have to admit.  It was a little difficult for me, and there were many calls to my Mom helping me figure it out.  But, I love how it turned out!

 Brenna and I had fun taking pictures of the bag, can you tell?  And Tab, I almost kept it.  :o)

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for her Finish it Up Friday!

Less Laundry

Minus 2 kiddos in the house means a lot less laundry, that's for sure!  But, they are definitely missed!

Joshua and Elisabeth are having a great time in Florida.  They're enjoying being with family, friends, going to our homechurch and eating lots of junk food!  God is giving them oppurtunities to sing and Josh has  been able to preach a couple of times and teach Sunday School twice too.  Josh was so excited to tell us that after Sunday School yesterday he was able to lead a boy to the Lord.  How wonderful!  Saturday they return home.  This Momma is ready!

God is so good to our family!

2 gift for 2 sweeties

I have a couple of more finished gifts to show you.  These have been given to my sweet family members, so now I can post about them!  

The first is a set of placemats I made for my sister, Taylin.  

To be honest, I had a hard time cutting into this fabric.  :o)  Anybody else have that problem?  But, I was excited to make something for my sis that I thought she would like.  And what kid doesn't like seeing their name?  So,  I thought personalized placemats for the Klinck family would be perfect!

 I had fun with the diagonal quilting on these.  It took a little longer than I thought, but I loved how it turned out!

The second gift was for my sweet Mom.  When I visited in Florida she didn't have any potholders.  I still don't know why.  :o)  She used dishtowels to take things out of the oven.  So, I began thinking then that I wanted to make her some oven mitts.  I also made a matching dishtowel, and an insulated pad for hot stuff.

  I embroidered her favorite verse in the middle (I Peter 5:7)

Two gifts for two really great people.  I love you guys!  And I loved making these with them in mind.

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts again for her Finish it up Friday!

St. Barths Bathtub

 One of the things that I have longed for since moving to St. Barths has been soaking in a nice tub.  Since it's hot here, I don't miss taking baths as much as I thought I would, but since we had breezy days last week with a high of only 82 (and low of 73), it actually felt a little chilly in the air.  Then, the longing-for-a-tub began again.  So, my sweet husband blew up this raft for me, boiled water on the stove (our hot water heater isn't that big, there was about 2 inches in the tub and the hot water ran out) and filled it for me.  I was super-duper excited!!!  I grabbed a glass of Coke, some quilting magazines and some oatmeal cookies and went for a great soak in my St. Barths Bathtub!

Happy Birthday to my Patrick!

Yesterday my wonderful husband turned 38.  38!  Now I'm married to an old man! :o)

 We started off his day with a good (gluten-free) breakfast.  Corn Cakes, Eggs (one was from our chickens) and sausage links (JoJos had them!)  He loves a big breakfast!

 Then we skyped with Joshua and Elisabeth.  They were able to watch him open his gifts, so that was pretty neat!

 (Oh I miss those kiddos!)

We had a relaxing day of Andy Griffith, checking on chickens, talking, resting, eating, and just being together...exactly what he wanted!
Happy Birthday my sweetheart. You're the best!  And by the way, I find the graying sideburns very attractive! ;o)  Seriously!

Off They Go and Off They Come!

This morning I dropped off Patrick, Joshua and Elisabeth to take the boat to St. Martin.  From there Josh and Beth will be flying to Fort Lauderdale.  Beth is getting her braces off!  Our orthodontist has been so great about letting us be so flexible with her visits and he even had us send pictures of her mouth so he could judge when she'd be ready to get her braces off.  He said "Now is the time!"  So my girl is quite excited!  (We've visited the orthodontist here twice, but the last time he told us he would need $1500 dollars up front in order to see her again, and that would cover her next 4 appts.  That was quite expensive, so we realized it was cheaper to fly her back to Florida for her few remaining visits and see the orthodontist that is already paid in full)
When we looked for tickets we found Spirit had tickets way cheaper than American or JetBlue.  It was actually cheaper (Wow!) to buy 2 tickets instead of 1 with the other airlines.  The only catch is that with Spirit you can't fly alone when you're 14 (internationally)  So, she had to have a chaperone.  And 16 is considered old enough.  Hhhhmmm. I wonder who is 16 and would love a trip to Florida? :o)  So, Joshua was nominated to accompany Elisabeth.  He was excited, too!
  I was talking to my Bethy last night and she said she's never flown with Josh and she hopes he will want to play a card game on the plane and look at the gift shops at the airport. :o)  One thing is for sure, these two will have a great time traveling together, and a great time being spoiled in Florida.  I miss them already!

Happy 9 Months Micah Reuben!

 Today my Micah turned 9 months old.  He is really growing and is starting to try and talk more.  He says "Da Da" and "Na Na"  (especially after Brenna says, "Say Brenna!)  He can also pretend to sing. (He just started that today and it's adorable!) and he can imitate the sounds of our chickens.

 He had a checkup yesterday and he is a very healthy baby, but has a slight ear infection in his right ear.  He also received his immunizations yesterday, so today he's been running a fever.  poor baby.

He's very busy and loves to crawl super fast.  He also holds onto stuff (while standing) with only one hand.  He's ready to take off!  He's so content and just happy.  And such squeezable cute cheeks!  I love this little man!

Happy 9 months my Micah Roo!

A Quilt for my Belle-Mere

I was so excited to finally make a quilt for my wonderful Mother-in-law.  She really is so great to me and loves her Grandchildren so much! (I guess she thinks Patrick is okay too :o) We are so blessed.  I wanted this one to be special.  I decided to go with a pinwheel pattern.  I loved cutting up the tiny squares into half triangles.  Then, as I laid it out, it just didn't look the way I had it in my head.   Ever have that happen to you? 

 So, I did some rearranging and decided to do more of a color-gradient quilt. Then, I embroidered a Bible verse on it.  I like how it turned out!  And when she opened it on Christmas (I could watch using Skype.  Yipee!)  she seemed to really like it.

I love you Denise!  You're the best Mom in law!!

I can finally show some of the Christmas gifts that I made and sent to Florida.  So, for the next few Fridays I'm going to be linking up with Crazy Mom quilts for her Finish it Up Friday.  Love the quilting inspiration from that blog!

Love it!

 I love it when my kiddos match.  This year for Christmas Silas and Micah received several sets of matching jammies.  Love it!

A Home for the girls

Since my last post about our chickens, so much has happened!   First we had a chicken coop given to us, and the excitement began!

 Then, a trap was loned to us.  Our chickens easily came and ate all the good food and Josh or Patrick pulled the trap.

Poor Josh, he's gotten a few scratches along the way.

   We caught (or should I say rescued? :o)  Pink, Big Mama, Jingle and our newest one:  Dipper

Pink even laid an egg!  But, then Big Mama stepped on it.  I think we have lots to learn!

By today I was getting tired of all of this chicken talk!  Cages, coops, traps, nets, rope, feed, leftovers, escaping, scratches, and thousands of looks out the window to check on "the girls."  I'm sort of over this chicken business!
 Then, I saw this:

Yup!  They just had to check on them one more time! :o)

Celebrating with Silas

Silas had a great birthday yesterday.  He woke me up a little extra early asking if he could open his presents.  He was smiley and excited!

And thankful for his gifts.  Especially edible ones! :o)

 Then, Mariane brought a Galette des Rois  (King Cake)  It was so delicious!  Silas liked the middle.

 That night we celebrated with his Strawberry Cake.

Don't you love the ketchup on his cutie pie face?  He had a great day for his 4th birthday!

My Almost 4 Year Old

I love to take pictures of my kiddos right around their birthday.  Tomorrow is Silas Boone's Birthday!  :o)  He's going to be 4.  So, it was off to Toiny to take some pics of my cutie pie.  But, I have 4 powerful words for you:

Four

Year 

Old

Boy

That makes for some interesting photo shooting!

 You get a lot of strange smiles.

 And funny faces.

 A lot of distractions.

 And conversations about everything (like "Can I please open my presents when I get home?)

 Time for wiping faces and eyes.

 And climbing trees.

 And completely running out of the photo, just so Mom will have to chase you down.

But, then you get some really great ones of a boy full of life, energy, personality, and absolute cuteness...

 I'm still so in love with this guy!  Happy Birthday my Silas Boone!