Today was a beautiful day here in Floyd. I am not sure what the temperature was but I am sure it was close to 60 degrees. Dave came over to help me with some garden work.

We got the entire perimeter of the garden burned off.

Including the upper fence where all the blackberries are. Those things are so invasive and they have HUGE thorns!

It looks so much better but it was a full days work!

We found some carrots that had been left in one of the raised beds. I don’t know if they will still be good but they sure were pretty.

While Dave and I were outside working, Grace cleaned the house and then painted the corner wall in her art room. The piano was here when we painted the room. We couldn’t move it so we just painted down as far as we could reach. When we gave the piano away, it definitely had to be painted.

It looks so much better now!

All in all, a good day. We got lots of stuff accomplished and I got to work outside. I hope your day was good also. God bless.

Merry Christmas everyone! I pray your day is blessed!

I finished Daniel’s cape this weekend. I think it looks really nice. He loves it! He told me he wore it all day yesterday.

I started working on Grace’s rainbow shawl yesterday. It is going to be so pretty.

I am sitting here this morning on my enclosed front porch, listening to the rain hit on the tin roof, enjoying my morning coffee. I have my propane heater on so it is nice and toasty warm. As soon as I finish this post, I am going to sit out here and work on Grace’s shawl. Such a good way to start my day.

God bless.

The Bates crew went to get their Christmas tree yesterday. They always go to one of the many tree farms here in Floyd and cut down a live tree. It is a BIG DAY for them and they all look forward to it every year.

This year Jessica decided to crochet everyone Christmas hats to wear. She did such a great job!

Grace and I didn’t stay for the tree cutting. But we showed up long enough to get this group picture. John Luke was asleep in the van and Donna was sitting with him. Seeing us all dressed in our Santa hats makes me think of my mom. She loved Santa hats and would start wearing hers the first of December. She loved Christmas.

I love the fact that we live close enough to be able to do things like this together

This is their tree decorated and ready to go. I love how they decorated the school chalkboard as well.

Making wonderful memories! God bless.

Dave started the Christmas tree project for his work.He had lots of great helpers.They had so much fun helping him.Each big triangle is filled with smaller triangles. Each small triangle will have different color lights inside it.It is going to look beautiful! He will be putting the lights inside this week and then setting it up. As soon as it is up, he will send me a picture. I will then update this post so everyone can see it.Updated picture. I think it looks wonderful.God bless.

Daniel and I had such a good afternoon yesterday.

When he saw his mom’s shawl I made her, he said he wanted me to make him one. We went in search of the yarn he wanted to use. It took us a while to find it. We went to Michael’s first but they didn’t have what we were looking for. We then went to Hobby Lobby only to remember they are closed on Sundays. Last stop was Joanns. We found the colors he wanted there and it is very soft yarn.

This is the brand and the color.

I started working on it last night. I think it will be so pretty. What makes it so special to me though is all the fun we had looking for it.

When I finish his project, I want the other grandkids to pick out something for me to make them and go together to pick out the colors. It was such a blessed afternoon.

God bless.

The other birthday we celebrated was Grace’s.

Madison did a great job on the cake!

She had an awesome birthday!

God bless.

We have been celebrating birthdays here!

This sweet girl turned 8 on Saturday. For her birthday, we went to a tea house in Salem. Katie loves tea houses!

The food was DELICIOUS!

Her other favorite thing to do is go to Build A Bear.

I love this picture of her and Jess.

It was a good birthday!

I love fall!

I thought I would share a few fall colors with you all.

I love this picture of Dave and Jess!

We had a Halloween party at Jess’s on Sunday. It was a lot of fun. They had all been sick so we hadn’t been able to get together for weeks. Jess always makes parties fun.

God bless.

Good morning everyone! I hope you are all having a good Monday.

I have something I want to share with you all. I’m sure some of you may have realized that the Jekyll trip was another huge “first ” for us. Our first trip there without Julie. It was hard without her but many new, happy memories were made!

Many years ago, I saw a picture of a plague on Facebook. I have remembered it many times since then. The plaque said something like this-“on my darkest days I remember whose daughter I am and I straighten my crown”.

The Lord brought this quote to my mind just a few days before we left on our trip. I had definitely prayed a lot about this trip.

As soon as we got there and unloaded the car, our first place to go was Driftwood beach. While we were walking, something shiny in the sand caught my eye.

Now I know to many this is just a necklace but to me it was hope. A visual reminder to help me in this hard time. I walked the beach every morning watching Him raise the sun. I talked, He listened. He talked, I listened.

On that first morning when I stepped onto the beach and saw the sun peeking over the water, I thought, ok Lord, this is me attempting to straighten my crown.

I realize the death of a child is something a person never gets through. It is a place I will walk in the rest of my days here on this earth. I will try though with God’s help, the help of my family and friends to walk in this place with my crown straight.

I plan on hanging the necklace on the wall beside my bed to help me remember that God is with me in this. That I am His and He is mine.

I realize this post is not a normal post for me but I wanted to share this. I am not good with expressing my feelings in words but I wanted to try.

Enjoy your day and God bless.