April Showers! A Good Day for Bluebirds, Sand Hill Cranes, Geese, and Snickerdoodles!

Hi all my friends in bloggy land!  It seems like I don't get to visit with you as much lately. Mommie says it's all her fault because she hasn't been taking me on as many adventures as before, and she says she apologizes!  But today we tried to make up for it!  It's the 2nd day of April, and it's been raining almost all day!!  Mommie said April is living up to its reputation of "April showers brings May flowers!" 

Well, this picture on the calendar says, "A Good Day for Ducks"

(John Sloane, artist, Country Seasons Calendar)

Mommie said it is a good day for ducks here at our own Still Waters Pond.  We don't have very many ducks...but we do have geese, Sand Hill Cranes, and Bluebirds!

I wanted to go outside and see the raindrops and also see what I could see on or around the pond. So I put on my rain poncho that Mommie's friend "Auntie Pamela" made for me last spring, and we went out on the back porch to see what we could see.

If you look really really closely at the birdhouse, you will see Mama Bluebird sticking her head out to look at me!! I guess she was just as curious about me as I was about her!! She poked her head out for a second or two,  and then...

when I looked again, she was gone!!! She flew away to the nearest tree, even though it was pouring down rain!  I hope I didn't scare her! Mommie said most likely she just needed to go get some more food for her babies, because she and Papa Bluebird have been very busy lately feeding the babies!

Oh lookie! There's Papa Bluebird now! And he's got a juicy bug or something to feed to his hungry little family in the house!!

Mommie said the Bluebirds take really good care of their babies!  She said God created them and gave them "instincts" so they would know just what to do to take care of their babies and each other.

And lookie here! There's another family taking care of its baby!  Mommie said she told you about the new baby Sand Hill Crane "Colt" HERE yesterday.  Well, this morning, before it started raining it got really really dark in the skies and was kind of scary. But when we looked outside we could see the Crane family way over on the little marsh island in the pond, and they had their baby Colt right there with them!

They were all walking around on that marshy little island poking their long beaks in the ground looking for food, and showing the baby how to hunt for his own food too.

Can you see him? Isn't he sweet?  I just love him so much!

Well, then the big thunderstorm broke loose, and there was lightning and thunder and lots and lots of rain! And the sky was really really dark.  I was scared and worried about the baby Colt, but Mommie said that Jesus was taking care of us, and He would also take care of the Colt and his parents out there on that little island.

Mommie said the mother crane was sitting on top of the baby, keeping him safe and dry under her wings.  She said the camera doesn't do a very good job of taking a picture so far away when it is dark and rainy like that, so please don't mind that these pictures are so blurry.

Mommie said this reminds her this Bible verse:

Psalm 91:4

"He (God) shall cover you with His feathers,

And under His wings you shall take refuge;"

Oh, the Sand Hill Cranes and the Bluebirds weren't the only ones out in the rain. Here are some of our Canada Geese swimming around the pond in the rain.  Mommie said it doesn't bother them because they live in the water most of the time anyway, and God created them to be in the water, so they, like ducks, are quite happy in the rain. 

Well, after all that, we came inside and decided to bake some cookies. Mommie says rainy days are good days to do some baking and make the house smell good with yummy things to eat!

Mommie said that today we would bake some "Snickerdoodle cookies!" 

"Snickerdoodles?" I asked.  "What kind of cookies are those?"  Mommie said they are really delicious cinnamon and sugar cookies, and that Daddy and my big brother Scott really love them,  and she thinks I will too.

Here's the recipe in case you are wondering what Snickerdoodles are too!

So here I am helping mix up the Snickerdoodles.  

And then Mommie said we had to roll the dough into little balls like the size of a walnut, and then we have to roll the ball in a dish of cinnamon and sugar:

I tried my best to help. It was a lot of fun!!!

And then I got to lick the beater!!!!!  Mommie said that she always got to lick the beater when she was a little girl, and that it never made her sick. And she said her three sons always got to lick the beater when they were little, and it never made them sick, and so I should also get to lick the beater, and she's quite sure it won't make me sick either!  Yummy! It was good!!!!

After a few minutes the hot cookies came out of the oven!  I had to wait a few minutes before I could taste one because they were too hot.

But when they were cool enough, Mommie let me take a bite, and WOW!! Those Snickerdoodles sure are delicious!!!!!

Oh, and then my big brother Scotty came out of his room (he's off from work today), and he tried one of the snickerdoodles, and he said, "WOW!"

 "These sure are GOOD!!"  I think he had to taste a few more just to be certain. At least that's what he said!

I asked Mommie if my puppy Bailey and I could have a little tea party and have some snickerdoodles.

She said sure, but that Bailey wasn't allowed to eat a cookie because she shouldn't have sugar.

So we got Bailey some of her special doggy cookies for her treat. She was happy about that!

And lookie! Her plate has a picture of Buster Brown and his doggy on it too, having a tea party!

The dishes we used for our tea party were my Grandma Mursch's Buster Brown Tea Set, which actually originally belonged to my mommie's Aunt Margie, who was Grandma's big sister. She said these dishes are very very old and special and we must be very careful not to break them. So we were careful, and we had a very nice little tea party.

Bailey loved her dog cookies, and I loved my snickerdoodle!

Well, it is still raining. And Mommie says it is time for us to quit writing and go cook supper. Maybe I can help?

Thank you for visiting with me on this rainy day. I hope wherever you are that you are safe and happy and warm.

Mommie said that this month we will celebrate Easter! I am very excited about that! And I am so happy that Jesus loved me enough to die on the cross for my sins, and that He rose again from the grave to show us how to find everlasting life!

I hope you are excited about that Good News too!!

Bye bye for now.

Love,

Lily Grace and Bailey

xoxoxoxoxo

Baby Bluebirds and Roses

Wow! It sure has been an exciting couple of days here on Still Waters Pond!  

I've been spending most of my time sitting in front of our window that looks out toward the Bluebird House, watching the comings and goings of Mr. and Mrs. Bluebird, as they have been coaxing their baby birds to get out of the nest and fly!  There's one now! He was getting pretty brave and almost out of the house...

This has been my perch, on the table inside the window, where I had a front row seat to watch for the baby birdies to come out.

I was getting dizzy watching them so much as the babies would take turns sticking their heads out of the house and Mama and Daddy would come by with interesting looking berries and bugs, teasing them with them so they would want to come out and fly on their own.

Hey! You come back here with that! I'm starving!!

We weren't too sure how many birdies were inside the house, but we knew there were at least two, as you can see another little beak sticking up in the window here below:

Hey! Who are YOU looking at?  I'm stuck in there with my siblings, and it is very HOT in here!! Somebody please come and get us out of here!!

Wow, he's getting braver and coming out further and further, but this went on all day yesterday and into the early evening last night:

Then suddenly the first brave birdie flew out of the nest and onto our porch, right in front of me!!!!

He sat there looking around and chirping, as if to say, "Now what do I do? It's getting dark, and I don't know where to go or what to do!"

I was getting kind of scared for him, because it was getting darker and we hadn't seen Mama or Daddy fly by in a little while. Could they have already flown away and not known that the baby had come out of the nest?

Would they come and get him, or would he have to sit there all night by himself, wishing he was safe back inside the birdhouse with his siblings, who were still poking their heads out and calling to him?

Mommie said we should say a little prayer for him to be able to fly to safety with his parents before it got any darker.

And so we did.  Mommie said that God watches over the birdies and we shouldn't worry. He will take care of this little one.

He just kept hopping around and looking lost and alone.

He even looked back toward me, and I was telling him to "Fly, fly, be free! Your Mama and Daddy are up there waiting for you! You'll be safe with them!"

He seemed so uncertain of what to do that we were all getting a bit concerned for him.

But then, before we could blink our eyes, he took off and flew up to the nearest tree, and we could hear his Mama and Daddy chattering away at him to help him find them before it got dark.  But the other babies were still in the nest, and it was too dark for them to come out last night.  

This morning when we woke up we kept watching the bird house to see what would happen to the other babies.  One by one they kept peeking outside and looking around, and Mama and Daddy came to encourage them to come on out and join the rest of the family.

And, praise God! We were excited to see not one, not two, but three more birdies fly out of the nest, one by one, and off and up into the trees with the rest of the family!!

Mommie did get a few more pictures of the last one leaving the nest, but she discovered that she had forgotten to put the memory card back inside the camera, and so those pictures are trapped inside the internal memory of her camera and she does not have a cord to attach that will transfer them to the computer...(it's an older camera). She has ordered one from Amazon...that big place that seems to have everything somewhere out there in cyberspace, and it will get here sometime next week, so we will have to wait to see those other pictures then.  Bummer! 

But it was a very exciting morning, and we got to see all of them leave the nest before Mommie and Daddy had to leave home to go to church this morning! Yay!!!

Daddy said it reminded him of how it will be one day when we leave this earth for heaven. All of our loved ones and Jesus will be waiting for us up there, calling to us and welcoming us home from our earthly journey.  We will finally be free of this old earth and all of the darkness and worries and fears, and we will be safe on the other side!

What a glorious day that will be!

Speaking of loved ones, yesterday Mommie and I found this rose blooming in the Secret Memorial Garden. Mommie said this is the rosebush that was planted in memory of my big brother Matthew, who is up in heaven waiting for us someday.  

Mommie said this rosebush always seems to bloom on or around special days.

It started to bloom on Friday, July 23rd, which was our Nanny Steiner's birthday. Nanny is in heaven too, and she would have been 98 years old on that day.  

So we picked the rose yesterday and brought it inside and put it in a special vase so we could watch it open up even prettier and enjoy it in memory of Nanny.

Mommie said you probably already read all about Nanny Steiner's birthday over on Mommie's other blog: Closed Doors, Open Windows.  I wish I could have met her. Mommie said she is sure she would have loved me because I have pretty green eyes just like hers.

Well, I guess that's about it.  Oh, I helped Mommie fold the laundry yesterday too.

Here I am sitting in the laundry basket after I got to take a ride in it from the dryer to the living room! Whee! That was so much fun! Have YOU ever ridden in a laundry basket full of clothes before? Maybe when you were really really little?

Mommie told me the story about the Baby Moses in the Bible, who was put in a special basket in the river, to save him from the mean king. But the mean king's daughter found him and kept him for her own baby and the mean king couldn't do anything to hurt him then. Moses grew up to be a very strong leader, and he led the people of Israel out of Egypt across the Red Sea, and a lot of other amazing stuff. Mommie said you can read more about Moses in the book of Exodus in the Bible. He was one of God's special people that God used to do many wonderful things that changed the world! 

I wonder what kind of things I could do to help change the world? What about you?

God's Word says to 

"Commit your actions to the Lord,

and your plans will succeed."

Proverbs 16:3

That sounds like a good plan to me!!

Meanwhile, let's stop and smell the roses and enjoy the beautiful things God has given us:

Bye bye for now dear friends!

Love,

Lily Grace

xoxoxoxo