Friday Foto Friends, It's Me again!!

 Hi friends!! It's been a while since I visited with you. Mommie says to tell you it's all her fault! She's been busy with other things or wasn't feeling well, and so I haven't been able to go on very many "adventures" lately.  But since Mommie didn't have anything special to share today for Friday Foto Friends, she said I could do it for her.  So here we go!!

Yesterday morning Mommie baked some yummy delicious blueberry-bran muffins!!

I asked her if we could have a little tea party to celebrate! So Mommie said that would be fun!

She brought out her little Madame Alexander dolls, Miss Ireland and Miss Scotland, and we are all dressed up in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day coming on March 17th!  

My puppy Bailey wanted to join us too!

Oh, and the "fairies" were welcome too!

Oh, lookie! Strawberries!! They are so sweet and juicy and good right now!!

I told Mommie that the fairies needed some little teacups so they could have tea too, so she found this tiny little tea set just for them.

As you can see, we had a lovely tea party and a good time was had by all!!

OH, I wanted to show you these pretty Goldfinches who have been visiting our yard lately:

Mommie said this is a male Goldfinch, and he loves that niger seed that is in that sock!

Isn't he beautiful?

And Mommie thinks these are female Goldfinch. There have been lots and lots of them, but they seem to eat seeds on the ground, so she isn't sure if that is what they are or not, but they are pretty too!

Okay, and here's my last pictures. This is my Daddy! Isn't he handsome?  Well, Mommie sure thinks so. She took this picture of him the other day while they were on a walk. Mommie said she had never seen that shirt before...apparently it was a Christmas gift from his brother and sister in law, but with all the commotion on Christmas Mommie said she never saw it when he opened it!

And Mommie said she liked it so well she wished she had one like it too! But anyway, she said I could share it with you. 

Mommie said, "Life IS good", and we are very thankful for all that God has done for us. We are praying for the people of Ukraine especially right now, because they are under attack  by a fierce enemy, and they really need God's help to survive.  So we are praying for them every day.

Mommie is going to go help my big brother Benton at their store in St. Augustine today...

"Dixie Cottage"

That's my big brother Benton and Auntie Rose now. This was taken last year, almost exactly one year ago, when they opened the doors for their store for the first time!

They stay very very busy and need lots of help, so Mommie says she will go and help out today.

So, that's it for today, friends!

I hope you enjoyed this little "adventure" with me!

Love,

Lily Grace

xoxoxoxox

Friday Foto Friends: Deck The Halls!

Good Morning Everyone!  Happy Friday!  When I woke up this morning Mommie brought me and my sweet sister Baby Elva out into the living room, and guess what we saw?!  There's a big tree in our living room, and it has lights all over it, and now Mommie is adding all kinds of pretty things to the tree to make it so beautiful! She said to tell you it's still a work in progress, but hopefully sometime today it will be done!

But to Baby Elva and me it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!!!

We just want to sit here all day and look at it, and watch the lights sparkle!

Oh! Lookie! If you can see it, up there in right top corner of this picture (below), there is the word 

"Believe"!   Mommie said that was her "One Word" for this year, and it means we need to believe that "With God nothing will be impossible!" (but she said we will talk about that more later)

And guess what? Mommie said we are going to sing some more Christmas Carols as we "open the Advent calendar windows" and learn more about what Christmas is all about.

The song we are singing today is "Deck the Halls", because Mommie said one of the big parts of getting ready for Christmas is decorating our house inside and out, like we decorated the pretty tree. 

So here we go:

Deck the halls the boughs of holly, "fa la la la la, la la la la!"

"Tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la la, la la la la!

Don we now our gay apparel... (see? My friends and I are all dressed up in our pretty Christmas dresses!)

Fa la la la la, la la la la!

(And, we are preparing a cake to celebrate Jesus' birthday!!)

Troll the ancient yuletide carol, Fa La La La La, la la la la!

See the blazing Yule before us, Fa la la la la,  la la la la!

Strike the harp and join the chorus, Fa la la la la, la la la la!

(This is me with the "Martin Sisters", Daisy, Vivian, Nellie, and Dorothy. My Daddy's mother is Vivian, and those are her sisters!!

Follow me in merry measure, fa la la la la, la la la la...

(Let's enjoy some tea from the tea cup Christmas tree! Isn't it beautiful???)

While I tell of Yuletide treasure, Fa la la la la, la la la la!

(We'll read some happy Christmas tea time stories too, while we sip our tea!)

Fast away the old year passes, Fa la la la la, la la la la...

Hail the new, ye  lads and lasses, Fa la la la la, la la la la

Sing we joyous all together, Fa la la la la, la la la la,

Heedless of the wind and weather, Fa la la la la, la la la la!

I hope you enjoyed this little sing along with all my little friends here at our house!

Yes, Christmas IS the most wonderful time of the year! 

I hope you are preparing your hearts for Jesus' Birthday, which is what Christmas is, you know!

Merry Christmas!!!

P.S. Be sure to check out my last ADVENTure "Joy to the World" HERE, and then be sure to come back and check and see what happens next!!

 

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.

 

Friday Foto Friends: Lily Saves The Day!

Good Friday Morning Friends!

It's Friday Foto Friends Day, and Mommie wasn't too sure what new pictures to post on her blog, "Closed Doors, Open Windows",  so I said "Let's take a ride so we'll have something new to talk about!"  Of course, if most of the pictures are about me, then I get to write the post on my blog!

So here we are!

Lily the lifeguard is on duty!

Mommie said you've already seen lots of other pictures from this special place before on this previous post on her blog:

https://pamelasopenwindow.blogspot.com/2020/10/eagles-and-sparrowsa-little-journey.html

We took a little ride yesterday morning back to this special place, "Lake Swan Camp", and right away Mommie saw this beautiful Little Blue Heron down in the water fishing for his breakfast:

He is related to our Great Blue Heron that we see so often in Still Waters Pond, but he is smaller and well, he's blue, and so, he's the "Little Blue Heron".  We've seen one before in our pond, but not very often.

Of course, Mommie likes to  take pictures of birds and flowers and water and stuff like this:

(It was VERY windy, and there will little white caps on the water as it washed into shore)

It's a good thing I was there on life guard duty in case anyone got washed out into the lake too far.

Of course, no one else was in the lake, but just in case, I was there to save the day!

If anyone got into trouble, I would ride out on this big "Jumbo Dog" water floaty thing and rescue them!

Here I come! Lily to the rescue!

It really was a pretty day, but maybe too choppy on the water for me to do much rescuing...

We were standing on a little floating dock, and Mommie said she was getting seasick, so we had to turn around and go back on shore before she lost her balance and fell in the water!

Daddy was waiting up on shore for us so we could play some Putt Putt Golf. You can see the whole golf course here on this other previous post.

So he and Mommie tried a few of the holes on the course, and found them quite challenging:

After that they ran into the man who is the Director for the camp, and it turns out he is someone they knew from many years ago at college, so they had a nice long visit while I waited and waited patiently. And then we went home. It was a fun ride and I hope we will go back again someday!

Meanwhile, a friend at our church gave Mommie this interesting new cookbook, from a lady who has a YouTube program on the internet, and who also shares God's Word while she is cooking.

It's called "The Hillbilly Kitchen".  Well, last night when Mommie went to choir practice, Mommie's  friend asked her how "Lily liked her new book?"  Mommie asked which book is that?  And he, ("Uncle Larry", who is "Auntie Opal's hubby") said "The Hillbilly Cookbook".  Mommie said, "I didn't know that was for Lily! I thought it was for me!"   He said, "No, that's for Lily because she likes to cook too!"

So you see, I have quite a few friends who like me and think about me!  So anyway, Mommie said that "she would be sure to show me the cookbook since it was meant for me and not for her!"

So here it is:

Thank you, Uncle Larry, for thinking of me!  And today Mommie said we are going to try one of the recipes in the book because we are going to make something special for a lady in our church who just had surgery and came home from the hospital this week.

Here is the recipe Mommie said she would help me to make:

Yummy! Chicken Pot Pie!! That's one of my favorites!  I told Mommie we'd better make enough for me too, because I love this!  She said we will make two big pans...one for our friends, and one for us! That sure sounds good to me!  So, maybe later when we make this we will take some pictures, but it's too early this morning to do it now so you will have to be patient and wait! 

However, Mommie said we need to end this post and get it posted so people can see it today and not tonight.

And just like the lady in the Hillbilly cookbook, I like to include Bible verses with my posts too, because that helps me learn the Bible, and it just might help someone else too! Mommie said she thought this verse would go along very well with what we are trying to say today:

Amen!

The End.

Until Next Time, Remember, Jesus Loves YOU!

Bye bye for now,

Love,

Lily Grace

Postscript: To see how the chicken pot pie turned out, check out Mommie's post HERE