God Made Everything Beautiful

Hello Everyone!! I hope you had a wonderful Saturday. We certainly did.

Mommie showed me this beautiful full moon early in the morning! Did you see it where you live?

Mommie says it is good to get up early enough to still see the full moon. God made the moon and the stars and He put them up there in the sky for us to enjoy.

It sure was beautiful. I am glad that God made the moon and stars and the sun for us to enjoy.

This world would be awfully dark without His special Light shining...

Mommie and Daddy took me for a long ride. We drove a long time through the country and the woods and stuff, and it was all very pretty. I saw lots of neat stuff. But then we came to this BIG BRIDGE:

And it looked like it was going right up into the sky!

I was a little afraid that when we got to the top we were just going to fly out into space!

There were lots of treetops below us when we got to the top!

And then we started back down the other side of the bridge

Whee! I said I thought I was on a roller coaster! 

It was a lot of fun going up up up and then down down down.

After we crossed the bridge we drove for a while longer and then we turned down a little dirt road that Mommie said led to where they used to live. Mommie and Daddy used to walk on this road every day. She said they used to see lots of deer and bears on this road. I was watching for them but didn't see any.

Mommie said these are some old pictures of the deer and one of the many bears that used to roam up and down that road:

I love the baby deer...(Mommie said they are called fawns).  I wish I could see one.

Mommie said this picture is blurry because she was in a hurry to take it and the bear was moving:

(Or else her hands were shaking...)

Mommie said the bears used to love to come in their yard and get a drink of water from a little pool they had there. Mommie said the bears never did anything to try and hurt them and they weren't afraid of them, they were just very respectful and stayed out their way when they came walking through the yard. They also were careful not to leave any food out that might attract them up too close to the house. She said that God protected them and their home all the time they lived there, and they were very thankful.

Next we went to a place called a "Flea Market".  I asked Mommie if they sold fleas there, and she said she hoped not, because if they did she sure didn't want any.  Anyway, it is a place where people bring stuff that they want to sell and they hope people will buy it. If not, they have to take it all back home with them. Mommie and Daddy said they didn't find anything they wanted today so they didn't stay long.

Next we went to a place where there is big lake, and people like to put their boats in the water and go fishing.  This picture tells you how big of fish you can have or how many you can keep.

We walked out on the dock to see the pretty water:

It was smooth as glass.

And you could see the pretty reflections of the sky and trees in the water.

Isn't it wonderful?  Mommie said God sure makes all things beautiful:

Ecclesiastes 3:11 

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end."

This picture is funny. Daddy was trying to take a picture of Mommie and me, but he had the camera set on "selfie" and he took a picture of himself!!

Finally he got it figured out and this is the picture he took of Mommie and me:

And then guess what?  We got back in the car and turned around and went back  over that great big high bridge again! 

Here we go!!

Mommie said we should look at the pretty sky too. There were lots of airplane "contrails" criss-crossing the sky everywhere. Mommie said we could see so many because it was pretty cold and the hot vapors from the plane made a lot of white ice crystals when they hit the cold air. There must have been millions of planes flying way up in the sky...at least it looked like it to me. I don't know how much is a million, but there were sure a lot of those "contrails". (that's my new big word I learned!)

Here we are back up at the top again!! This is fun!

Those are the tip tops of lots of tall  trees, Mommie said.

After our long ride we came home and I was just relaxing in the Adirondack chairs in the back yard, enjoying some sunshine!

Then we sat on the back porch and Mommie had a cup of tea in her owl mug and we shared a cookie.

Mommie got out her camera with the "zoom" lens and she could see these beautiful Wood Ducks swimming on the other side of Still Waters Pond:

They are the prettiest ducks, but they like to stay in a quiet, secluded place, away from the people.

I wish they'd swim over to our side of the pond so I could see them better, but Mommie said they are kind of timid  and prefer to stay where no one will bother them.

I'm glad they stayed there long enough for Mommie to get these good pictures of them! She said most of the time they fly away as soon as she comes outside.  Maybe they wanted you to see how pretty they are too!!

And that was our adventure for the day!  It sure was a long ride, but it was fun seeing stuff.

Psalm 8

"O Lord, our Lord,

1.  How excellent is Your name in all the earth,

Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

2.Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have ordained strength,

Because of Your enemies,

That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

3When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

4What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You visit him?

5For You have made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

6You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

7All sheep and oxen—

Even the beasts of the field,

8The birds of the air,

And the fish of the sea

That pass through the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth!"

And now it is Sunday morning, and Mommie and Daddy said we have to get ready for church.

 

I am excited to be able to wear my brand new pink dress and shoes!

So I guess I'll say bye-bye for now!

 

I hope you can see how God has made everything so beautiful where you are!!

 

Small Blessings

Hello to all my special friends!  I hope you are having a happy Saturday! I love Saturdays. It's kind of a "free day", when many big people don't usually have to go to work, unless they have a special job that needs them to work on Saturday, and kids don't have to go to school, and it's a day when sometimes families get together to have parties or just play together.  Mommie says it's a day to catch up on working in the yard or cleaning the house or just doing something you like to do for fun.

Mommie said we should always be thankful for the "small blessings" that come into our lives, as well as the BIG blessings.  She said sometimes the best things come in small packages and that we should never overlook the little ways that God chooses to bring a blessing into our lives. 

 

Mommie says that something (or someone), no matter how big or small, if it makes you smile and brings joy to your heart, it is a blessing and we should thank the Lord for it.

She said that's how she feels about ME!

 

Mommie says that I am one of those "small blessings" that came into her life unexpectedly, and that God used Aunt Debbi and my identical cousin Tracie to send her some special love in a package that was meant to be shared with everyone!

Wow! That's pretty wonderful!

So yesterday afternoon Mommie said that Daddy needed some more cookies!  And she said that every little girl needs to learn how to bake cookies for her family.  (Actually she said little boys can learn to do this too, because she taught my big brother Scott how to bake cookies when he was little and he still likes to do it today to make people happy!)

(Recipe for Coconut Pecan Cookies can be found on this post)

Mommie also said it was okay for me to lick the beater a little bit. She said every child  she ever knew has licked a beater and grew up healthy and happy to tell about it.  Not sure why she said that, but she mumbled something about big people out there saying it was bad to lick the beaters, but they probably just never had the opportunity to do so and so they didn't want anyone else to do it either...

We had so much fun baking these cookies together.  Mommie said I could have this little tiny mixer for my very own. (She said to tell you, No, she didn't go out and buy this mixer to spoil me...it was a gift to her a long time ago and it was just sitting in her cupboard...waiting for me to come along I guess!)

After we finished baking our cookies Mommie said we should have a little tea party to celebrate and sample our cookies!  After a very cold morning, the sun came out and warmed it up enough for us to go out on the porch for our tea party:

We are using a cute little teapot and teacups that a special friend gave Mommie for her birthday! The tea cups are small enough for me to use.  Mommie said again that special blessings come in small packages!

 Mommie says that is kind of like what God did for all of us when He sent His Son Jesus to us in a tiny package...a little baby born in a manger, and that He was sent to the world as a very special gift to bless the whole world with His love and salvation. But she said Jesus didn't stay as a little baby in the manger. No, He grew up to be a man who never did anything wrong, and He taught us all about how to live and love one another, and then people turned against Him and they crucified Him on a cross. But those people were wrong. They didn't understand who He was...the Son of God. And they missed the wonderful gift that could have blessed them and given them eternal life if they had only believed.

Mommie says that we need to always remember that, and never forget that sometimes God wants to get our attention through "small blessings.

Thank you again for being one of my special friends and visiting me here.  I do hope you will come back again.  Mommie says that we may have another special adventure to share later, so be sure to stay tuned.

Oh, and also be sure to look for those "small blessings" that God may be sending to you every day! Sometimes they come in unexpected packages that you don't recognize at first...but when you ask God to show you, He opens your eyes to see the treasure that is right there before your eyes!

Jeremiah 33:3

 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’

Friday Foto Friends: Let Heaven and Nature Sing!

Good Morning to all our special Friends in "Blogland", as Mommie calls it! And especially to my dear Aunt Debbi and Indentical Cousin Tracie way up in Charleston!  I hope you are all having a wonderful Friday.  My Mommie said that normally on Fridays she posts a lot of pictures for something called "Friday Foto Friends".  She said that since this week she has been showing most of her pictures here on my blog instead of her blog, "Closed Doors, Open Windows", she thought she might as well do her Friday Fotos here too, because she said they mostly have to do with me! So we've been having a little adventure already this morning, and Mommie wanted to share it with you.

Mommie said that many of you will remember this sign from her previous home and now from her "Room with a View" in this house. It is a special sign that my big brother Benton made for her many years ago to put above her kitchen windows in their old house, and now it is perfect for over this window here.  Well, she said that today is the day to "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" for us!

Our morning started out early with running out to the back porch to hear the owl hoot again, and also to see the last few minutes of the full moon before it went out of sight until tonight.

I can just barely see it between those trees over there...and the owl never hooted again either, so we hurried back inside because

it was really really cold outside, and I was still in my jammies!

So while I warmed up by the fire:

Mommie was busy making blueberry pancakes, sausage and fried eggs!!! Wow! Daddy said that was a lumberjack's breakfast!  I'm not sure what a "lumberjack" is, but Daddy said it is a person who works really really hard chopping lots of wood so people can have fires in their fireplaces and can build things with the lumber! And so they like a big hearty breakfast before they go out in the cold and start cutting down trees and chopping wood all day long!

Mommie was using her special mug today that says "Let Heaven and Nature Sing", and that's what got us thinking about the birdies singing outside and stuff...

So after we ate our pancakes we went outside again and watched the geese in Still Waters Pond

They were so pretty!

Mommie said that you can't hear all the birdies singing in the trees that we can hear, so she took a video. I hope you can open it and listen to the birdies singing.  

Mommie said to never mind the traffic noise in the background because there is a highway on the other side of the pond and people were on their way to work and their cars and trucks make lots of noise.

But if you listen to the birdies you will enjoy hearing them. In this one the geese are swimming away from the shore, and Mommie said to forgive her for moving the camera around so much, but they were moving and she was trying to get the best angle to see them, and she kind of wiggled the camera too much and it might make you sick to watch the motion. I hope not! That would be awful!

I hope you enjoyed our little movies! We'll try to do better next time!

After this we got dressed to go take our morning walk in the woods.

I was happy to have my new jeans to wear to keep my legs warm, and Mommie made me a little hoodie sweater out of an old fluffy sock of hers so I would be nice and warm:

Isn't it neat?

Then we looked at the wild plum tree again and it is getting more blossoms every day, just like Mommie said it would:

On our walk something scary happened, but Mommie didn't have time to take any pictures. There was a truck coming down the road and a big dog was chasing the truck all the way down the road. Mommie was concerned that the doggie would see us and want to chase us as we were walking out in the open. Daddy was a bit ahead of us and couldn't get back to us very quickly if the doggie came after us.  But Mommie prayed the big doggie would turn away and keep following the truck, and guess what! That is exactly what he did! It's as if he didn't even see us walking there, and we were so relieved because he was a very big doggie and he could have knocked us both down!  Mommie said that Jesus was watching over us and sent His angels to protect us and keep us safe. I am very glad that Jesus takes good care of us. 

Psalm 91:11-12 says:

11."For He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you in all your ways.

12.  In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone."

After our walk Mommie and Daddy went to the grocery store.  I got to ride in the buggy!

 Well, after that exciting morning we are back home again and Mommie is going to fix us some lunch. She says we need to go ahead and get this posted so people will be able to read it before it gets too late, so I will say good bye for now, but we might still have some more adventures to share again tomorrow!!

Thank you all for making my first week here very very special.  I look forward to many more adventures with you!  Now, why don't you go out and listen to the birdies sing?  Mommie said the words "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" isn't just for a Christmas song! It's for all the time!!

"Joy to the World; the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King!

Let ev'ry heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Saviour reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love."

Bye Bye for now!

Love,

Lily Grace