Packing & Reminiscing

August is always a busy month around here - Daniel and Blake both celebrate birthdays this month, plus school prep, putting up hay, and trying to contain our wandering cows.

Daniel is 12 today and Blake will celebrate his 18th birthday while we are in China. Daniel has been begging for a Casio keyboard and we went ahead and got it for him last week-end. He's been having a great time learning various songs, and we've even caught Matthew playing a little too!

Brooke came down and celebrated with us and helped Daniel get started. It wasn't so long ago that Brooke lived here on the farm and filled the house with piano music. LOL. She now confesses that sometimes she played "extra loud" when she was frustrated with us. Daniel's keyboard has a set of headphones, so he won't be able to do that!

We will celebrate Blake's birthday when we return. It's hard to believe that he will be 18. He's grown up so much in the past couple of years. In my heart he will always be about four, on a backyard adventure with Brian and sporting a big bruise on his forehead from his latest mishap. We once had to postpone family pictures for almost a year because Blake always had an injury in some stage of healing. Looking back I wish I would have taken the pictures anyway! Oh well, you live and you learn I guess.

What a blessing the kids are. I am so lucky that God blessed me with such wonderful children. And soon we will bring Emma home and He will have blessed us with another.

We have been racing frantically for the last week, trying to get a hundred things done before we leave. I think I may need to accept that there will be a project or two waiting for us when we get back from China! We were moving along so well until the cows escaped...