One of my new favorite songs!

It was a blessing to hear Emily sing at the Conference we attended in Prince Albert! The words continue speaking to my soul as we listen to them throughout the week.  Praying they will be a blessing to others!

Music That Feeds The Soul

https://youtu.be/azv-UX0nFBM

Who will take the challenge?

I was challenged by this young man's burden to reach Canada with the Gospel.  Imagine what God can do if we all accept the challenge to match Jack's gift!  We can reach every house in Canada in our lifetime!

Two Blogs

I guess I will need to use this blog for any posts that require pictures from the new camera. I guess that means I will keep both blogs open for the time being... Here are the pictures from Mother's Day weekend.

The January Birthday Boy!

Somebody is turning 4 tomorrow...

Our favourite little cowboy is turning 4 tomorrow. Today I gave all of the boys(including Scott) a haircut. Scott is currently out to lunch with the little man and I'm sure they are enjoying "people watching" while they eat their special meal. Last year I enjoyed taking Samuel out for him special Birthday lunch. I think it took him about 45 minutes to finish his food because he was full of questions and interested in everyone around us. I will be sure to take lots of pictures tomorrow as we celebrate and thank the Lord for sharing this lively little man with us!

His current interests are still The Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers. He loves to chase and arrest the "bad guys".

He can count to 30 and enjoys drawing.

He is the regular usher at church, with Caleb occasionally filling in for him.

He prays for the firemen and the mounties on a regular basis and believes that God wants him to be a Mountie when he grows up...

His favourite thing to do is "wrestle" with Scott.

He is in the running for being our tallest 4 year old. We'll find out who gets that title when we measure him tomorrow. It's going to be a close one between him and Addy.

He makes sure that people don't mess with his little sister, Lillian, but makes sure that she gets her fair share of teasing... We are not concerned about him hurting her because when we hear him crying we often find her "sitting on him". This gives us a good chuckle because she is half his height and weight. Good to know that he can be the gentle giant sometimes.

He loves "reading" books and still enjoys snuggling up with us.

Trying to remember to cherish these years when they are little. The days are not always full of fun and the whiny attitudes can be a challenge, but we wouldn't trade our little people for anything!

Well, I'd better be off! Kiersten and I are going to decorate the cake while the little man is away...

Warming up...

The temperatures have been close to -30 or colder off and on since the week of Christmas break. We are thankful for the Lord's leading us to cut back on our farming ambitions, which means far less time needed to feed the remaining animals. The chickens faired quite well and still laid a decent amount of eggs. So thankful for Elyssia and Garrison taking care of those outside chores and allowing the rest of us to stay warm inside! We are also thankful that Scott has had inside work for most of those really cold days. We have been enjoying his schedule for the new year, which includes him taking the days off on Monday. Saturday and Sunday are usually full of preparation and delivery of sermons, making visits, etc... To see him get the opportunity to slow down a bit and have extra time to spend with the kids is a blessing!

We don't want to forget our family and friends that still have to be outside and the livestock who have no choice about staying inside to escape the cold. Thankful that it looks like things are going to be warmer for awhile and thankful for the faithfulness of those who go out to take care of their animals every... single... day.

The Lord's Provision

Last week amidst the prayers for Cameryn, our computer crashed. We were thankful for phones to be able to stay in contact with family and friends! We were also thankful that they were able to save all the data on the computer. We had a lot of it backed up on a separate "computer brain", but it was nice not to lose all the pictures or have to reload it all ourselves. God is good!

On Thursday night we went in for prayer meeting. We walked into a "freezing cold" church! This is not normal... Although it seems to happen every couple of years. We thought it might just be the breaker, but that was not the case. We bundled up all the kids in quilts that we had in the church and vehicle and waited for the repair man. Thankfully he found that it was a small part that needed to be replaced, rather than the whole furnace! The part came in the next day and we were thankful that we hadn't waited until Sunday morning to make this discovery. That HAS happened before...

On Sunday the church was toasty warm, as usual, even though it was fairly cold outside. Thankful for modern conveniences that we often take for granted.

Praising the Lord!

This past week has been one filled with a lot of prayers and texting with other prayer warriors around the world. My niece, Cameryn, started having headaches about 2 weeks ago. on Sunday she told her mom that her vision was starting to blur. They took her to the hospital and she was taken in for emergency surgery for a hematoma in her brain! All of this was very unexpected, but we praise the Lord for allowing this to happen when she was home from college instead of her being several hours away from family. The surgery was a success, but she said that her head still felt heavy. The Drs. realized that she probably had another condition that had developed called hydrocephalus. They gave it a day to see if she would drain the fluids on her own. They had to unclamp ahead of time because the fluid was not draining on it's own. They performed another surgery to put a shunt in and by Saturday, Cameryn was able to go home. We are so thankful for God giving the dr.s the wisdom to deal with each of these emergencies as they came up. Her body seems to be accepting it's shunt well and she will be able to return to college pretty soon. There will be precautions taken and observation for awhile, just in case. Thank you Lord, for sparing Cameryn's life. The Dr. said that if they had waited one more day to come in, she would have gone into a coma. There are always unexpected twists in life, but also unexpected blessings! Thank you to all the friends and family who prayed Cameryn and her family through all of these procedures. Please keep baby Levi in your prayers, as he has the same conditions Cameryn went through, but has dealt with them as a premature baby. We are thanking the Lord for watching over him as well! Looking forward to getting the news that Levi is able to go home too!

Back Online!

We have a computer again. The computer hard drive decided to crash shortly after the New Year. Thankfully they were able to recover all the files on the computer and put them on the new hard drive. Makes a person realize how much they have come to depend on the computer for contact with other people. Thank the Lord for telephones!

Happy New Year!

We have officially entered a new year. 2018 seemed so far away when we were growing up. It's exciting to think of all that may happen in the days to come.