Why my school books and papers are kept in a case that little hands can not open...

...Imagine if that school had not been contained when she carried all of it across the house to use it as a stool ;)! Sweet baby girl turns two tomorrow... birthday post WILL be coming! I love her so much :)...

Coming up!

These are a few posts that I have been planning for at least two weeks, some more, some of which are already written out, some of which are actually done aside for proof-reading them, some of which I haven't started... and some of which I still have to get the pictures for. But,  I'd still like to get them all up. Here's what to look forward to (I am mostly telling so that I quit procrastinating, haha...)-

~A post about the outing Tori and I went on with our Aunts  to go to the Artisphere on the 12 of last month...

~A piano post...

 ~A stationary post...

~A knitting post....

~And possibly a post about filling some stuffed animals...

~And, of course, every "Thankful Thursday" that should have happened in between...

~And I really want to post more pictures, we have so many cute ones from the past few weeks!

Now I've told you, so I really need to get them up ;). Hopefully I'll get them up soon, but you never know. Until then, God bless! I do hope to be back later today with one picture....

Thankful Thursday, week seven

This week, I'm thankful for...
~A fun outing with family.
~Beautiful art.
~Laughter... I know I used this one last week... but we had a whole lot of laughter last Saturday, it was great! A certain one of us four girls who were at the Artisphere in Greenville (my Aunts, Tori, and I) couldn't stop laughing ;). We would "all" "calm down" (haha, ya... you can see us walking along calm and quiet, right?), only to realize two minutes later that one of us hadn't stopped laughing, they had just gone silent (no, really it happens a lot!). Tori would get a kick out of that... and Tori has an infectious laugh... so we could seriously laugh about something that wasn't too terribly funny to begin with for ten minutes!
~The sound of a brook.
~Beautiful gems and rocks.
~The gift of Mothers :)!
~The sound of rain on the roof.
~Quiet, rainy days...
~And not-so-quiet, rainy days ;) (which is a good thing right now!).
~Mixers.
~A fresh supply of soft white wheat.
~Honey.
~Fresh strawberries.
~Fresh fruit.
~Plenty to eat (even with what looks like a bare fridge- it's amazing!)
~Clean clothes.
~Our clothesline, which holds our
~Clean diapers (or, "white flags of surrender", our old neighbor used to call them :)!).
~Chubby fingers
~Giving you beautiful flowers.
~And washcloths for messy faces ;)!

This post was written through out the week, some of this stuff is a week old, lol, but it is still true ;)!

 Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

~Psalm 136:3

More pictures...

"Peter-boy" (Andrew has taken to calling him that, I think he has to remind himself that it is a boy ;)) pictures... because he is too sweet not to share :)!!! These are from a couple weeks ago... big surprise, right?... but I'll share them  anyway, and hopefully I'll get back to regular, recent blogging soon. I do have a feeling that the kangaroos that I am making for Emmi's birthday will be worthy of a blog post (hopefully you'll get it before June!). After all, I have to learn FOUR techniques and make two kangaroos using those same new "skills" in two and a half weeks. On the other hand, with that in mind, you still might not see me until June... I will try to stop by the next couple Thursdays anyway. Or, with past experience, I should rephrase that. I'll try to stop by and do my Thankful Thursday post once a week the next couple of weeks ;). Anyways... enjoy the baby sweetness :)!

Peter Daniel Lee, sweet, hug-able, newborn brother :)...

Andrew loves hats, always wears one. He gave Peter his bear's hat :)!

Little Brother :)!...

Love him!

Precious baby boy :)...

 Daddy loves this one, haha. I think he called it "I have a 

bear and I'm not afraid to use it" ;).

Happy Mother's Day!...

To Mommy :)!
Our favorite Mom in the whole wide world has been caring for us for fifteen years. I know that it has not always been easy, and I'm sure that there were times when it could have been more pleasant, but that just makes us more thankful for all that she has done! For years she has been cleaning, cooking, teaching, loving, and training us with Daddy, and we are so thankful :)!
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOMMY!!!
Thank you for following the Lord's will in your life!

Thankful Thursday, week six (late... again...)

~A good, Godly (!!!) sign language curriculum DVD.
~The book to go with this DVD- we got this DVD free, but didn't have the book. Mommy and ~Daddy bought us the book for our "first day of spring" celebration.
~Sisters to learn sign language with :).
~Babies who try to sign.... you know, it is amazing how three words can be used for a whole sentence in "baby sign language" ;)!
~Watching two brothers bonding (it is truly precious!!! It is hard to explain, but it really seems to me that even Peter knows that they are going to become best buddies.)
~Watching little ones with babies,
~And hearing them cooing to that baby-
~Cooing such things as "I just can't wait to hold that chubby hand every day while we pray!" (said by Andrew, age 5, while stroking Peter's little hand.)
~Watching Tori make beautiful items with clay.
~Learning how to do new things,
~Especially when it is done as a family group project!
~Laughter...
~...Shared with family (I love it when we just sit around talking and laughing).
~...And friends (do any of you know how loud and hilarious it can get when 15 people, ages 2-adult, laugh together uproariously and they don't even know what the joke is???! That happened during a Bible study with our friends once. We never did find out what was so funny!!!).
~A good bread knife (this makes a huge difference in how easy it is to cut homemade bread neatly, especially warm bread!).
~And a huge cooling rack (we have one that can hold four loaves at once, so we don't have to use two- four!)
~Old hymns.
~Quilts.
~Candles.
~Beautiful weather.
~And a wonderful Savior :)!

Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

~Psalm 136:2

Thankful Thursday, week four and five... haha

I know, it's not Thursday... But, I also know that I have also missed two Thursdays, so... Lately I've been thankful for...

 ~Getting to love on this little blessing :)...

~Sweet baby cheeks.
~Watching little ones loving on newborns :)..
~Visits with family.
~Drawing.
~Enjoying some time outside.
~Cool weather.
~Lots of free pecans now shelled!
~Visits with friends.
~Getting to craft with others.
~Family and friends who have blessed us with meals.
~Dishwashers.
~Audio Bibles- these are great for listening to while cleaning, crafting, and more :)!
~Audio books (we're listening to "Little Women" right now.)

~Getting to see that smile all day long. She loves Peter... and she enjoys having her picture taken ;).

~Being able to get pictures of butterflies.

~Opened AND closed! Daddy helped me photograph this 

Hackberry Emperor butterfly a couple days ago :). 

~Finding this bundle of sweetness on the floor...

~And watching this...

~And this adorable head :)! He has sooo much hair!!!

~And- would you believe it? Blogger's upgrade. Well, at least one of the features that it brought. It can be a nuisance to not know how to get to what I want on blogger... but it does have some new features that are a blessing, like the fact that you can search for photos that you have put on your blog in the past- and they even share the ones that you put on your post, but decided not to use. I found one picture that I had put on a post, realized I hadn't flipped it, and tried to edit. I lost the photo while editing :(. But, I found it while looking through old pictures on my blog!!! Now, I just have to find out how to flip it...
~Oh, and finding out how to do pictures again ;).
~Letters from friends and family.
~Clean paper drawers... now I have to go use them to write letters, haha. They should make it... this time... until I make another set of cards. Then I'll have to clean them again, it happens every time ;)...
~Crafting supplies.
~Free patterns for cute things. (I plan on making this for Emmi's birthday on June first. Or maybe this. I can't decide. The kangaroo looks simpler to make than the horse, but I'd have to learn several new things for the kangaroo, so it would probably be about the same.)
~Fun with little people.

 ~Which includes getting to watch this :)!

 ~Staying up late talking with Tori. We don't do this quite as much as we used to since we have four more people in the room, but it is still fun when we do. We had a great time last night :).
~Jesus forgiveness.
~Books written by strong, godly men and women to help us on our journey (I'm reading Mr. J. C. Ryle's "Practical Religion".)
~Time with Mommy and the babies (Abbi down) last night (Daddy, Tori, Bethi, and Andrew were at church.)
~Popcorn.
~An oven.
~A good bread recipe.
~Lots of cheap bananas, which we have/will use for
~Nilla banana pudding,
~Chocolate banana pudding,
~Banana bread,
~Dried bananas,
~And smoothies.
~And my last thankful thought for this post is... lots to be thankful for :)!!!

 "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever."

 ~Psalm 136:1

Happy late Birthday to Bethi!

I've been awful at blogging the past two weeks... Peter is to sweet to spend free time on the computer ;)!!!
But, Bethi-boo enjoyed turning seven on the first of May. She didn't even know it was her birthday, although she knew that her birthday was coming "soon", haha :)! She was excited to wake up to a lot of "Happy Birthdays" ;).
She is such a sweet girl, such a wonderful blessing in our lives :)! She loves babies, loves playing, loves reading, and loves cleaning- no, really! She finds it a joy to clean bathrooms and wash windows for us. She is a great help :).
Bethi will probably write a post on the Family Bulletin sometime next week telling about her day, so check up in a few days if you are interested :)!
HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY BETHI!!!

Updated January 13, 2013 to add: I ran across this post today, and realized that this birthday post was first posted on Bethi's due date (Bethi was one of the few babies born before their due date!) :). I thought that was neat :).