Friday Foto Friends: Story Time with Lily Grace

Good Morning to all our friends in Bloggy Land!  Mommie said today is "Friday Foto Friends" day, and since she didn't have anything particular to share, she said I could share some special pictures and a story today!

The other day when I was telling you about our Autumn decorations, there was one special "person" I really really loved:

Mr. Scarecrow!!

Mommie said that she had a book that tells a story about a scarecrow and some other special people. I asked her if we could read it together, and she said we could. Here is the book below. Perhaps you have heard of this story:

Yes! The Wizard of Oz!  Mommie said there was a movie made about this story many years ago when she was a little girl, and they used to show it on TV at least once a year.  Mommie said she was very young, and some parts of the story were very scary to her, and so she really wasn't too sure she liked it, but she watched it anyway because it had a happy ending.  Do you have some stories like that that you like?

Anyway, Mommie has this book because a friend gave it to her when Mommie and Daddy were moving away to Kansas for a little while.  This story takes place in Kansas, and Mommie's friend thought this book would be a good one to read if they were going to live in Kansas!

This is a picture from inside the book. Mommie said that the little girl Dorothy looks a lot like me!

And do you see, she has some interesting friends with her...a Tin Man, a Lion, and a SCARECROW!  Oh, and we mustn't leave out her little doggie, "Toto".

I think most of you already know the story of how a big tornado came and picked up Dorothy's house where she lived with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry and her doggy Toto.  Dorothy and Toto were swirling around inside the house on top of the tornado, and it landed in the Land of Oz.

Along the way she met three wonderful new friends, The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion.

Of course we all know that she also met some evil people like witches and other creatures who tried to stop them from getting to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz. 

I won't retell the whole story here, but you know how the Scarecrow wanted some brains so he could be smart and think, and the Tin Woodman wanted a heart, and the Lion wanted courage.  And of course Dorothy just wanted to go back home to Kansas.

In the book (which was written in 1900, by the way!), the famous Ruby Slippers from the movie were actually silver shoes, and the Good Witch Glinda from the south sat on a throne of rubies.  And the Good Witch Glinda tells Dorothy that if she had known the power of her Silver Shoes she could have gone back to her Auntie Em the very first day she came to this country.

But the Scarecrow said if Dorothy had not come and they had not gone on that journey together he would never have had his wonderful brains.

And the Tin Woodman said that he would not have his lovely heart.

And the Lion said he would have lived a coward forever.

And then the Good Witch Glinda told Dorothy to just knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry her wherever she wanted to go....

And so she bid farewell to her dear beloved friends, and then clapped the heels of her shoes together three times and the next thing she knew she was back home in Kansas with her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.

We all remember Dorothy saying in the movie:

"There's no place like home, There's no place like home, There's no place like home..."

Wow! What an amazing  story!

Well, Mommie had a little surprise for me after we finished reading the story.  Look at these beautiful little Ruby Slippers and the story that came along with them!  Mommie said that same special friend gave this to her when she moved to Kansas, with a prayer also that someday she would come back home, which she did, but that's another long story for another time:

"The Red Shoes are leading me home...to heaven, for these shoes symbolize my walk with Jesus. They are red because I've been cleansed by His blood. Jesus wants to walk with you too!"

"Red for the blood of Jesus my sins are washed away,

so every step I now take God will lead the way."

I love these little Ruby Slippers, and the beautiful story about Jesus taking me home to heaven someday. I asked Mommie if I could wear them for a while, and she said I could as long as I told this story to you and also as long as I took good care of them.  

I hope you enjoyed this little story time today. I don't have a real Tin Woodman, or a Lion, or even a little doggy like Toto, but these are some of my friends, and we all enjoyed this story very much.

I hope you have a happy and blessed day, wherever you are!!

And I hope you have these special red shoes to take you home to heaven too.

 

Lily Grace Celebrates Autumn and a Special Party!

Hello my special Blogland Friends!  I was SO happy to wake up this morning and see so many pretty new decorations in our house!! I asked Mommie what it could all mean?  She said we are celebrating the season of Autumn, or "Fall", when the air starts getting cooler and the leaves turn pretty colors begin to "fall" from the trees outside!  She said we will be watching for those changes when we take our walks in the coming days and weeks, because here in Florida, where we live, it takes a bit longer to really feel and look like Autumn.  We don't have as many pretty trees that get colored leaves like they do up north, and the weather tends to stay pretty warm until later next month.

But Mommie said we don't have to wait for the leaves to change and the air to get cooler outside to get ready for autumn inside!  And so, when I must have been sleeping, Mommie asked my big brother Scotty to bring in the boxes of fall decorations from the shed so she could start decorating. I was so excited to see all these pretty things! You see, I wasn't living here last year when autumn came here, so I never saw any of this before! It really is quite exciting!  

I asked Mommie what all those things meant on that sign:

"Hay Rides, Apple Picking, Bonfires, Raking Leaves, Corn Maze, and Pumpkin Patch".

She said those are kinds of fun things that people love to do during the fall season. Sadly, we don't have any apple orchards here in Florida, so we can't do that. But if we look hard enough, we might be able to find some of the other places to do those things.  We can make a bonfire right here in our own back yard too. And we will have some leaves to rake eventually!

Mommie said that autumn is also the season when we have Thanksgiving, and we will have a big gathering of family and friends to celebrate and eat turkey and give thanks to God for all our many blessings.  Of course, we give thanks to God everyday for all our blessings. We don't have to wait for Thanksgiving to do that! But Thanksgiving is very very special. I can't wait to eat my first Thanksgiving dinner with all our family!

Mommie said most all we want to be "grateful" for all that God has done for us.

I noticed something else.  This pretty teacup as pretty purple flowers on it, and inside the cup it says "September".  

Mommie really likes that cup because September is her birth month! She said later this month we will celebrate her birthday! Oh goodie! I can't wait!!! I love birthday parties...as you will see in a few minutes...

But first, we had to visit the "Scarecrow Crossing".  I asked Mommie, "what's a scarecrow?"  And she said it was a funny man made of straw and old clothes on a post in the garden to scare away the crows from the garden!  She said the crows would think it was a real person standing there, so they wouldn't want to come near that garden.  

I think he's cute, don't you?  He wouldn't scare me!  I would just like to make friends with him!

I found a funny owl! Mommie said this owl is really like a little candle, to add some light to our darker nights in the fall. The sun goes down earlier in the autumn, so Mommie likes to burn candles and lanterns and stuff to make pretty lights. Maybe we will have to take some more pictures later when the candles are lit.

And I jumped when I saw  this thing!  What is this, Mommie?  She said this is called a "Jack-o-Lantern", and even though this pumpkin is made out of ceramic, usually in the fall Mommie likes to get a real pumpkin and take all the seeds and stuff out of the inside, and cut a funny face in it like this, and put a candle inside and put it outside on a special day called "Halloween".  Mommie said we will talk more about that later, but that Halloween comes in October, and it is also lots of fun. She said some people try to make it really scary, but we just like to have fun on Halloween. But she said we'll talk about that more next month!

But NOW to the SPECIAL PARTY!  Last night we celebrated my big brother Benton's 50th birthday!! Can you imagine  that????  

He must be OLD!

Oops, when I said that, he did this to me!  Mommie said that wasn't nice. Even my sweet big sister "Auntie Rose" didn't think that was nice, can you tell?  

Anyway, we had a really special meal of lasagne and salad and garlic toast and the birthday cake for dessert!  Wow! I was sure stuffed after that meal!

Here's the rest of the family enjoying that dinner!!!

And then we celebrated Benton's birthday with cake and ice cream!

Here we are all singing Happy Birthday to him!  It was such a happy time.

Especially happy because my big brother Benton and my sweet Sister Auntie Rose were both SO sick on his real birthday a few weeks ago, and so we had to postpone his party.  We are SO happy that they are all better now. Mommie said Jesus really worked a miracle to help them get well, and we are very very thankful.

So when we get to that special Thanksgiving day later in the fall, we will definitely add THAT blessing to the list of things to be thankful for!

So, that's all my latest news! How about YOU?

Do you decorate your house for autumn too?  Do you celebrate birthdays and do special things with your family when you can?  Mommie said that life is short and we need to celebrate whenever we can!

Okay, friends, I have to go now.

So bye bye and remember, Jesus Loves You, and I do too!

Love,

Lily Grace

xoxoxoxxo