Making Me Feel Spoiled

My church family is so good to me.  They really are.  It started one morning at 10 am  when one of my sweet friends came and gave me a birthday gift and visited with me for a bit....then another came at 11, then another at 12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4:30, 5, 6 and 7. Each friend gave me sweet gifts and sat and visited and talked for 20-30 minutes and tried to be gone before the next friend arrived. The gifts were each so thoughtful with things I love. But what was so wonderful was visiting with my ladies. I have missed them soooo much! We got caught up, chatted and giggled tons. My sweet daughter in law, Tabitha, set this all up for me.  Feeling so blessed and spoiled.  So thankful for the friends that God has given to me!

How's School?

Lot's of happenings on the school front in the Gimenez Household!  I thought I would start with the most exciting!!!...

My Beth has earned her Associates in Church Business!  yay!!  She is so excited!  She is our church secretary and was so thankful to receive an education that would help her in that.  She does an excellent job!

Now that she doesn't have extra classes we asked what she is going to do with time she would normally be working on school?  She said she wants to write more.  She has several books rolling around in that pretty head of hers and has many notebooks of her writing.  She's looking forward to a little extra time to just breathe.  So proud of our girl!  Graduation party is on the way!!

 ...Our Brenna on the other hand is still in midst of plenty of classes. She is now a senior in college!!  She took part-time studies her sophomore year and is now feeling the pinch of it.  She wants to graduate with the rest of her classmates she met her freshman year, so she is trying her hardest to catch up.  That means summer classes.  And summer classes slightly overlapped with final exams from the spring semester.  To say her brain is slightly fried is an understatement.  She's being diligent though and working hard.

 We are thankful for an online college that offers a great education and let's her stay home and be a hard worker at our church.  It's an all around win for all of us!
So hopefully by this time next year she will have her Bachelors in Elementary Education!

Silas, Callie and Micah, on the other hand, are still working hard to finish school for the year.  We have about 20 lessons left so we should finish mid June.  They are doing great!!  They've introduced some geometry into 5th grade math.  Silas is doing good, but needing a little extra help from Dad.

 It's been a good school year, but this Momma is ready for summer!!

Callie's Day

My Callie Grace is growing up.  She just had her 10th birthday!

She is in that stage where she is still a kid, yet quickly becoming a young lady.  She has such a fun sense of humor and a diligence for school.  She loves, loves, loves to read! 

 She also loves flowers and picks them whenever she finds them.  She loves our little farm and all the animals on it.  She is very creative and has the best hand writing in the whole family.  It's beautiful!

We had fun celebrating her special day with her.  Of course we started with presents!

One of the games we bought her is called Virus.  We figured it was perfect for right now!  It has been a really fun game that we can all play.  It takes 10 minutes or so and is really fun.  I recommend it!

She also wanted to have a picnic of McDonalds outside.  Patrick just put in this beach volleyball court in the backyard for us.  We love it!!  So we had a picnic at the beach...well, more like on the sand, in our backyard!

 She spent some of the day painting.

And then we ended with cake.  She asked for Strawberry Shortcake.  It was yummy!

We love you baby girl!  And are so proud of the godly young lady you are becoming!

Meet Ferdinand

Call us crazy, but we are having fun adding to our little farm, Storybook Farms.  This little guy is actually Patrick and Josh's project.  They bought a little bottle baby calf. 

He is 3 weeks old and after a family vote have named him Ferdinand.

The farmer we bought him from said that the first 5 weeks in a calf's life are crucial.  He said he has a 50/50 chance of survival.

So we are following instructions and trying our best with Ferdinand.  He's a cutie and everybody likes him.

After he's been fed he jumps around so cutely!  And his moo is absolutely adorable!

Welcome to the farm Ferdinand!

Coming out of a pandemic

I read a quote the other day, 

"In our effort to not die, we are choosing to not live."  

Facing a pandemic, and then coming out of it, is uncharted territory for all of us.  There were many decisions to be made on what social distancing and quarantine would look like for our family, our church and our community.  

The days were different, but in a busy sort of way for our family.  For the first month my Patrick wanted to me try and stay home and not come in contact with people for the sake of my health.  I did my best.  My girls or my husband did our grocery shopping and errands.  They are amazing.  But, after 5-6 weeks, we were ready to ease back into life.

Our church is in Alachua county.  Our nearest grocery store is also in Alachua county.  The county has a face mask ordinance where face masks must be worn in public.  So we comply.  Quite cutely, I might add! ;o)

It has been nice meeting in person at church again...with many new precautions.  It's been nice to get out and go to the store and see people.  Are there risks?  Sure.  But, for our family, we have chosen to get to a new normal in our life.  We realize that things will never be the same for our family like they were in February.  We are embarking on a new normal.  And that's okay.   We are ready and looking forward to the days ahead!

Look what we woke up to ..

3 goat babies!!!

 Early this morning I heard a strange sound. I asked Patrick, "Is that Ferdinand?" ( I will have to post on him soon!)

When I went outside to check, it was actually 3 tiny babies that had just been born that I was hearing. Trixie finally had her babies!

This cutie pie is a buckling. We love his coloring!!

 This is a doeling

. She looks a lot like Trixie!

 And the third is a doeling as well. So adorable!!

We've fallen in love already!
We don't have any names yet, but are still wanting to use the names of classic storybook characters.
Even more good news is that Jenna is definitely expecting babies as well!! Hopefully she will deliver soon!
So much fun on our little farm!

Whipped Coffee

My sweet Tabitha introduced me to a new love.  Whipped Coffee!  Anyone else ever tried it?  It's amazing!

Easter from Mom and Dad

My parents have always been so sweet to send my kiddos something special for Easter.  My Mom usually calls Beth and tells her the plan.  There's usually plastic eggs with lots of goodies inside.  Beth hides them, we find them, and we all have treasures.

Well, this year had to be a little different.  But, my parents made it so special anyways!  They decided this year they would send a check for us to all get takeout together.  After talking it over, we decided instead of takeout we should do a crawfish boil!  How fun!  Although my Bethy got herself a steak since she isn't really a crawfish fan.

It was so yummy!!

Even Liberty loved the crawfish!

Thanks Mom and Dad!  That was fun!!

Lessons from the grandbabies

So thankful for these cheery faces!  No matter what is going on outside of these walls, a visit from these 2 brightens every day.  Every single time!

There is just something about hearing your granddaughter excitedly say they want to go to Lollipops house!  Just melts our hearts!

These smiles are a reminder to me to trust in our heavenly Father.  Don't look at the storm.  Look at those in the room with you.  Don't focus on the difficulties, focus on the lives and blessings that God has given.  When they look right into your eyes with a genuine, trusting smile, it encourages me to be just like them.