Rubia's New Look



From this . . .

. . . to this!

Last week, Rubia got braces on her teeth! After having an expander and a retainer for several years, it was finally time to get the braces. Rubia’s done great the past week adjusting to the change. We all think she looks older with the braces on!

I joined her in oral pain this week. While she was getting her braces put on, I had my retainer adjusted to pull together a few teeth that were shifting. We both suffered with sensitive teeth for a week, but we’re both doing much better now. Pearly white, straight smiles are on their way! J

Celebrating with Family

Earlier in the month, we had a big family celebration in honor of all the birthdays and anniversaries that take place in May. Roma and Rubia, our Cousins E and J, and my Aunt C celebrated birthdays in May (three of them on the same day!) and my Mom and Dad had their 23^rd wedding anniversary.

My Mom’s parents arrived on Friday and we all had pizza together. We watched a movie my Abuelo made from all the pictures and videos he took on our cruise. It was fun to reminisce together!

Roma and Rubia on Saturday morning during breakfast.

Around lunch time, my Mom’s brother and his family arrived at our house. We all sat down for lunch together, and then Daddy arrived home from his flying club’s annual meeting.

Only he didn’t arrive empty-handed! J He brought a bouquet of flowers for his sweetie, which she appreciated very much!

The kids went to play outside, and it didn’t take them long to ask to jump in the sprinkler. The temperatures had soared into the upper 80’s, so the parents consented. They definitely had a blast! J

Rubia enjoyed doing some art on the porch while the others frolicked in the yard.

Meanwhile, the adults chatted in the shade of the porch.

Two beautiful Grandparents. (And yes, that’s hot coffee they are drinking on an intensely hot day. It’s a Spanish thing! J)

When the kids finally came inside, J appreciated the cool air from the fan. I love his expression!

Throughout the weekend, I enjoyed perusing the cookbook that my Abuela received on our cruise. It was chock-full of good recipes that I can’t wait to try!

On Saturday evening, we had a special dinner in honor of our celebrations.

Going through the buffet line in the kitchen.

Photo Credit: Roma.

Our feast consisted of garlic chicken, green beans, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, shrimp pasta salad, and English muffin bread. We also had homemade tropical punch. It was a satisfying meal!

I love it when our house is full to the brim with guests! We often have to set up extra tables in our hallway to accommodate everyone. Thankfully no one seems to mind!

For dessert we had birthday cake! The twins requested chocolate shortbread filled with ice cream. It was like a big ice cream sandwich/Oreo! One cake had strawberry ice cream, and the other had mint chocolate chip. It was enjoyed by all!

Then it was time for gifts! It looked like Christmas in May. J Above, Rubia opens a bag of peppermint sticks.

Roma with one of her gifts: the movie, “Anne of Green Gables.”

E gets help from Abuela in reading her birthday card.

Aunt C helps J read his birthday card.

Daddy reads an anniversary card made by Roma and Rubia.

Sadly, our guests had to leave on Sunday and Monday. But we really enjoyed our time with them, and we’re so thankful to have so many reasons to celebrate!

Court of Honor

Last week, Ben had his final Boy Scout Court of Honor for the year.

This court of honor was special because Ben advanced from the rank of Star to the rank of Life, which comes right before the final rank of Eagle Scout.

Here, he puts his Life pin on Mom’s scouting ribbon. She’s quite proud of his hard work!

Ben also received a medal for participating in two hikes on the Chief Pontiac Trail. He did a winter hike, and a spring backpacking trek. He will be going on his 3^rd and final trek later to complete his award this summer. This upcoming trek involves canoeing and backpacking.

Daddy also received a medal for participating in the two CPT treks.

After the Court of Honor, all the scouts and their families had an ice cream social. We’re really proud of both Ben and Dad for their accomplishments in Scouts this year!

Memorial Day

“All we have of freedom, all we use or know –

This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.”

Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899

“Remember the former things, those of long ago. . .” Isaiah 46:9a

This Memorial Day, remember those who died to give you freedom!

Free Indeed

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

John 8:36

 ~ posted by Betsy

Recipe--Coffee Cake

A very special treat around our house is coffee cake. After not making it for a very long time, we had it on Easter Sunday. It was just as delicious as I remember! I hope that you like this easy recipe as much as we do! (Thanks to our good friend Miss Jody for giving this recipe to Mom many years ago!)

Coffee Cake

1 ½ cups flour

½ cup brown sugar

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon ginger

½ cup oil

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg, well beaten

½ cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir together flour, sugars, and spices. Blend in oil. Set aside ½ cup of this mixture. To the remaining mixture, add remaining ingredients. Mix well and spread in greased 8x8x2 inch baking pan (we double the recipe and use a 9x13 inch pan). Sprinkle the ½ cup of reserved mixture on the batter. Bake 30 minutes or until done. Enjoy!

Pets: Novella

Last week, I started a Friday Flashbacks series on the pets that have been a part of our family. This week, I wanted to talk about our sweet but feisty calico, Novella.

Mom and Dad were living in northern Ohio for a summer internship. They had already adopted our first cat, Newton and were living in an apartment building. Mom used to throw out Newton’s old food over the deck. One day a little calico kitten showed up and started eating the food. Mom and Dad tried to catch the elusive kitty, but she always got away.

Finally they tried using a live trap to catch her. Once they finally caught her, she was NOT happy about it. She was quite wild and threw herself all over the cage, to the point where she injured her eye.

As Mom retells the story, the next morning Dad went into the room where they had kept her overnight. As he opened the door, Mom heard a loud “Hiss!” followed by a soft “Meow!” Daddy the cat-tamer had calmed this feisty kitten and found that she was a very sweet cat at heart.

When they took her to the vet, they found out that she was older than they had originally thought. She just looked younger because she was so undernourished. They decided to name her “Novella” since my Mom was studying literature at the time. The name also went quite well with our other cat’s name, Newton.

Novella when Mom and Dad first found her. Isn’t she tiny?

When we kids were younger, we didn’t really know Novella that well because she was a very timid and shy cat. The only times I remember seeing her were at night when we kids were getting ready to go to bed. She would come upstairs from the basement (where she spent most of the day) and she would “visit” with Mom and Dad once the house was quiet.

Novella with our cat, Panther. You’ll hear his story next week!

Novella moved with our family many times and was still alive when we moved into our current home. She was the only remaining pet we had of our “original” bunch.

As we kids grew older, and after all the other pets were gone, Novella became much more social. She absolutely adored the twins and could often be found snoozing on their bed.

We found out that Novella was terminally ill about 3 months before her death. She hadn’t been acting like herself for awhile, and when we took her to the vet they said that she had cancer in her jaw. We were very saddened to hear that she would soon be gone, but were so thankful to have a bit of warning. We made her as comfortable as possible and watched her closely. We wanted to make sure that she wasn’t in any pain; and when she was, it would be time to put her down.

She lived on for 3 more months with lots of loving. Eventually her mouth swelled up from the tumors and her tongue started hanging out. When she wasn’t able to eat, we knew it was time. Novella lived a long life; she was about 16 years old when she died. We loved our sweet kitty very much!

It was rather strange having no pets in the house for awhile. But it didn’t remain that way for very long! We eventually added more pets to the family, but that’s a blog post for another time.

Next week I’ll share the story of Mom and Dad’s 3^rd pet, Panther, the cat-who-thought-he-was-a-dog.

May Nature Pictures

I believe it’s safe to say that spring is here to stay. (Watch, I’ll say that and we’ll have a frost tonight.) After having temperatures in March soar into the 80’s, having multiple hard freezes in April, and a massive rain storm that brought a record amount of rain-fall to our area, it’s needless to say that the plants around here have had an interesting growing season. Everything seems to finally be recovering, with the exception of our lilac bush. Earlier this week I went outside and took a little walk around our property to survey what’s growing right now.

The view has changed since I took a similar picture back in January. I love it when the trees green out because then we don’t have to look at the back of our neighbors’ houses on the next street.

Our peonies are going to bloom in the next week or two. The plant is loaded with buds!

One of our rose bushes is beginning to bloom as well. If you look closely, you can see that the delicate buds are covered with little spines. God gave these flowers lots of protection!

*We interrupt this tour of beautiful pictures to bring you . . . well . . . an ugly picture.* Do you think I should get started on clearing out my garden? Yeah, I think so too.

From all signs, it appears that we will have a bumper crop of wild black raspberries this year. The canes are loaded with blossoms and there are lots of bees going to work pollinating them.

“And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”

A robin made a nest in one of our fire-bushes next to the porch. We had to watch carefully to make sure that neither of our cats bothered the babies, and they finally “flew the coop” the day after this photo was taken.

Until next month!

The First Action Heroes

Recently Josiah and Ben participated in the children’s musical at our church. Josiah was thrilled to get a speaking part in the play, and had been working on his lines for several months. Although Ben is not elementary-aged, he was asked to play one of the leading roles about a month ago, when someone dropped out of the part. They both worked hard and the play went wonderfully!

The musical was called “The First Action Heroes.” The theme had to do with the heroes of the Bible. Several members of our church worked hard at painting big, comic-book-looking posters with each “Action Hero” on one. They looked really good!

The show starts out with a group of kids going on a campout. They are settling down for the night when two bullies come by and try to run them off. The kids debate whether or not they should move since they’re afraid of the bullies, but they don’t want their leader (who went to collect firewood) to lose them.

As they settle down to sleep, Captain Super and Bible Boy Wonder arrive on the scene. They’re here to teach the kids what the Bible says about bullies and having trust, courage, forgiveness, and obedience.

Ben played the part of Joshua. During the dream the kids are having, each of these characters comes to life and shares their story and how God helped them. David taught Trust, Esther taught Courage, Joseph taught Forgiveness, and Joshua (Ben) taught Obedience to God.

They also talked about Jesus and the power of love.

The kids eventually forgive the bullies and even help one of them when he gets hurt. They all joined in at the end for a medley of the songs they sang throughout the musical.

At the end, our music pastor shared the gospel with those attending and thanked those who helped out with the play behind-the-scenes.

Ben and Josiah in front of the Joshua poster after the play. They both did a great job in their respective parts!

After the show, there was a cast party at a local pizza restaurant. There was lots of talking, joking, and general having fun! Everyone did a great job on the musical and we all enjoyed an evening of fellowship together!