Harvest season is here!

Yes, it does take quite a bit of time to freeze, can, and deyhrate all of this food, but we are so grateful for the abundant harvest God has blessed us with this year! Ever with our small yard, we have so much stored up for the winter already (and lots more to go!).

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."
Genesis 8:22

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
Hebrews 13:8

Best Friends

Andi and me

Elaina, Seth, Ian and I making cupcakes.... :D

Seth and Ian frosting the cupcakes

Seth and Elaina playing in the water

Andrea and Ian gardening in the rain

Elaina, Seth, Andrea, Ian and I decorating Easter eggs.

Wow, I am so blessed to have the siblings I do. They are so amazing! We always have tons of fun together and would much rather be together than apart.

We haven't always gotten along as well as we do now, though. God has taught us many lessons and helped us to love each other in a way that we never could have without Him. We've learned that God has placed us together for a reason. He wants each of us to be there for the others. I can truly say now that my brothers and sisters are my very, very best friends.

A great book that we have read is called Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends by Sarah, Stephen and Grace Mally. I would really encourage all families to read this book.
Have a great day!
~Marissa

Ian-God's Gracious Gift

Ian is a huge blessing and gift to our family. After Elaina, I wanted another sibling SO much and I prayed for him for about four years (and the rest of our family did too :D) Then finally, God blessed our family with Ian (whose name means God's gracious gift).

Last year Ian got diagnosed with acid reflux. He got put on medication but has not been getting better. This morning he had a scope all the way down to his small intestine at the University of Michigan. They were hoping to find out if something else is wrong and what can be done, but all they found out was that he still has reflux. He's going to have to just stay on his medicine for a while. Oh well.... God really blessed today though and Ian was in a very good mood!!! Last time he had a scope he was very upset before and after. This time he had to wake up early and was still happy, plus he wasn't even very bad when he came out of the anesthesia. And now he is great (as you can see from the picture)!!! We love Ian!!! :D

Psalm 100:5
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.

God blessed us with a beautiful day today! It was really nice out all day and then we were blessed with this awesome sunset!

Seth's Birthday

Seth turned 3 today!

Andi made this cake... isn't is cool? You can see that Seth kind of messed up the frosting, though.... ☺

Ian playing cowboy

Seth loved all his presents. He gets SO excited every time he opens one!

We are SO blessed to have Seth in our family! I am so thankful that God gave him to us! Life would be much less exciting without him ☺.... and loud... haha

Yesterday morning we woke up and our power was out. Fortunately, the church still had power, so we were able to go, then we came home and took down the Christmas tree and tried to find something to do that didn't include light or electricity. We had Bible study last night so we were able to get out of the house for a while, at least. :D When we got home we got a lot of clothes on and blankets and were going to go to bed and hope not to freeze, but at about 10:00 our neighbor came over and hooked up his generator to our house so we were able to have heat! It was a huge blessing because we would have been COLD! But we were nice and warm last night with the heat on! yay! Today we went to Howell to get our cousin (she is staying at our house for a couple of days) and when we got home the power was back on. We are all very happy! It's funny that you really don't notice how much you use it until you don't have it! Fortunately, it wasn't off very long. Also, it's not very cold outside so that was good while we didn't have heat. Anyway, I suppose in a way not having power for a while is nice because it makes you realize what you have!

X-ray Results

We got the results for Andrea's x-ray. Her wrist is not broken, just sprained. She will be able to play her cello soon and is at soccer camp right now.

God is good!

2 Chronicles 7:3

"He (the Lord) is good;

his love endures forever."