Fellow blogger, farmhouse lover and mama of many, Sherry, has lost so much, including her husband of thirty years. Please pray for this family. You can see Sherry's beautiful home and happenings pre tornado here: A Baker's Dozen Barnhouse and see her eldest talking about the tornado and showing the after affects here:

More on their story here.Please keep all these families affected by the tornadoes in your prayers and give generously as you are able.

Fathers

Deuteronomy 1:29-31
Then I said to you, "Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place." (NIV)

Reading

I'm reading some fantastic books lately, little snippets from my stash as moments allow and thought I'd share. Here's what I've been delving into as of late.

Equipped to Love by Norm Wakefield. I joined this book study on FB and what a marvelous idea (the study, not my joining). It really is a good meaty book to sit and I find myslef reading short portions and mulling them over all day. The first three chapters are available to read online at the link.

31 Days to Clean by Sara Mae. I'll be posting a review of this one soon. Perfect for spring cleaning time!

90 Days of God's Goodness by Randy Alcorn, bringing clarity to the questions of God's goodness. I am loving this and a review will be posted shortly.

For Instruction in Righteousness from www.doorposts.com. One thing we try to be mindful to do with our children when disciplining them or dealing with a heart issue is to encourage their hearts with scripture. I'll be posting a review of this book soon.

One Thousand Gifts. I really enjoyed this book, perhaps because the author and I seem to think alike on a lot of things and process things the same way.

Gluten Free shopping

Another bonus to having a refugee population influx in our nearby city is the ethnic groceries. We found lots of gluten-free goodies at a great price on our shopping trip downtown recently and the kids were bug-eyed at the selection of whole fish lying on ice and fruits we had never seen.

Chase, a gushing over my littlest boy post

He'll be three in ten days.

He's cute and he knows it.

He loves to cuddle,

be tickled,

read stories

and at night he takes my hand and puts it on his forehead and quietly asks,

"Bess me, Mama..."

looking up with those blue eyes.

Any sort of mischief to find - he finds it. Wholeheartedly.

I look at him and tell him, "Chase - you have your Grandpa's nose!"

That little hook at the end of his nose - it is all my dad's.

So is his hairline.

I must tell him this an awful lot because last week he turned and looked at me and said,

" Nope! Grandpa has MY nose!"

Tilling

We borrowed a tiller from the organic farmer up the road and rough plowed earth turned into neat loose soil to plant in. Up next - fertilizer!

If you sew, or craft, or just like pretty feminine things, you won't want to miss this giveaway for $100 of merchandise from Marie Madeline's shop! I would LOVE to win, such beautiful fabrics they have to daydream over!

Plowing

We bought (with cash, no debt!) a used Kabota this past winter to add to our little homestead. Sean borrowed a pair of discs from the organic farmers up the road a bit and turned up three big patches for me to plant.

One thing I love about where we live is how it quickly became a neighborhood affair.

One neighbor brought his grandboys over to watch and another climbed on the front of the tractor to try to put some weight on it while it cut through the sod.



Other than lots of rocks and worms, we found one broken piece off an old plow.

Our clay soil is nothing to get excited about, so I'll share next what we did to help the soil along.
Very, very excited about the expanded planting this year. I've always said that my goal is to have less and less to mow each year!

Boys and Laundry

Just as girls do everything with a special feminine touch, so, I'm learning, do boys do things with their own unique twist. A few days ago we were scurrying to get out of the house by a certain time, so I handed Andrew (8) and Aiden (6) the basket of wet laundry to hang on the line, reminding them that because of the wind we get off the back hill, they'd need to take care to hang the clothes securely so they wouldn't blow away. It rained before I could grab them off the line that evening, which was fine. I actually find the clothes softer with a fresh water rinse. In the morning, I headed out to pull them in and found my boys had done a pretty good job of hanging the clothes securely. Not by any normal means. Oh no. Legs of baby tights were tied around the line in a knot and the diapers, with their velcro tabs, were velcroed to each other, making one looong continuous line of diapers from the line down to the grass. Love my boys.

Kitchen Helper

He tagged along with me one Saturday morning to the health food co-op, shelves in the tiny old church lined with bags of nuts, flours and dried fruits along with plenty of pre-packaged organic goods. One row held tiny baking and cooking utensils. Just. His. Size. He picked out the whisk, .99, and has been my ever present happy helper in the kitchen ever since.

Thank you, everyone, for praying for Danielle. She came out of surgery sometime around 2am this morning and her mama says the surgery went well. Please continue to pray for a swift recovery and that Danielle can begin eating again soon without pain.

In other news, I'm sharing a bit about how I've found to accomplish hospitality with six small children over at Raising Homemakers. Check it out and chime in!

My girl Danielle

Here's my girl, Danielle. Love her. She's not really mine but I stake a claim on her. She's babysat our kiddos many, many, many times, knows what a lousy housekeeper I am and how I feed my kids boxed mac and cheese just about every time we go out... and she still likes me. Here's her cute photo I stole off her facebook. :O

Danielle has Crohn's disease and its miserableness has had her (and her mama) living in Boston Children's Hospital for a looong month. Danielle has amazing faith and has been an amazing testimony to all who have been around her. Tomorrow, my sweet girl has a very long operation to help her feel better and come home.

I know I have some very special amazing pray-ers who read here (Hi Gail!!!) so could you please pray for my girl tomorrow and for her surgeons and for Danielle's mama, who I love much, Laurie? For peace and wisdom and all those good things.

Thanks,

Hannah

Morning

"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."

This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16

Weekly Menu

Sunday am - cereal, oatmeal, fruit

lunch - ham sandwiches on homemade GF bread, dried fruit snacks, cheese slices, juice

dinner - lemon pepper haddock

Monday am - kefir smoothies, oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon, brown sugar

lunch - chicken fried rice, peanuts to shell

dinner - beef stroganoff, spinach salad

Tuesday am - omelets with spinach, cheddar, and red pepper

lunch- grilled cheese, applesauce

dinner - bean quesadillas, lemon cheesecake

Wed am - buckwheat crepes with egg and bacon (bacon)

lunch - Paige's rice salad (red pepper)

dinner - Caribbean pumpkin and black bean soup (cilantro, black bean, lime)

Thursday am -oatmeal surprise muffins

lunch -soup or rice salad, hard boiled eggs

dinner - Indian spiced rice and lentils (cinnamon sticks)

Friday am- cereal with bananas

lunch- Indian rice

dinner -pizza with fresh mozz, soft goat cheese, artichoke hearts and roasted red pepper

Sat am - buckwheat waffles with maple syrup

lunch - green bean casserole, biscuits, spiced pears

dinner - hamburger heaven

Grace and Holiness

We walked again last evening, quickly casting aside the pavement in preference for long strides in the woods and then the fields, summer barbs and weeds matted down from our long, heavy winter.

Some days, for brief moments at least, I waver under the enormity of raising six children, of continually having shoulder to plow, nudging their hearts toward grace and their own faith in Christ.

I want to protect them, keep them one step ahead of the doubters who chew apart faith in Christ, spit out what they don't like and cud it into something unrecognizable.

And so we talk a lot about faith and doubts and how we can know the Bible is true and different beliefs about God. Home should be a safe place for big questions and nurturing ground for real faith

Our kids are great people.

Each of them has big personality in their own unique way and I love that. God works wonders in the genetic code of a man and woman, producing such variety and beauty.

Every morning, before my feet slide out from beneath the covers, my heart cries for God wrought wisdom for the day because the enormity of raising even just one child is huge. What I feel is real - I can't be the perfect mother or have all the perfect answers. None of us can. There is a lot that the Holy Spirit will mend where I mistake, wisdom our children will need to learn through the pages of life, and, ultimately - I am not the best resource for all their questions. The Bible is.

God gave us his words because he knew the whims of humanity, I think. When you have 2-3 billion people who identify themselves as Christians praying and saying what they think God is saying or who God is or what God thinks about a social issue and blogging about it all or preaching it from a platform or handing it out in book form, well, I think it was pretty brilliant of God to make a reference book so we can see if those things all line up with Him. With who He is, His character, His words of life.

We were talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls yesterday with the kiddos and the wonder that an object found in recent times but yet so ancient could so perfectly match the Bible we read today, how the scribes who spent their lives transcribing the words of God would burn an entire parchment for a single, seemingly inconsequential error in order to keep an unquestionable record.

I want our children to know too, that God is not flat. He's not just grace and pat us on the back, no consequences for shooting while holding up the white grace flag, and how we live does matter because God's is just. I want to convey to them the multi-faceted face of God. We want our children to know the beauty of grace but not at the expense of a life poured out without purpose for pleasure with grace as a coverall. Neither is He all judgement or law. There is more freedom and freeness to *do* and to *be* in Christ than there is thou shalt nots.

Teaching good things to our children, pursing goodness in life, holiness even, striving to be like Him, teach Him, know Him - is not a reprehensible attempt at self-righteousness. Let us encourage you. Providing your children with a Christ centered education is a good thing. Contemplating adding to your family is a beautiful thing. Children are a blessing. They refine you as a mama and give you opportunity to understand grace and complete reliance on Christ. Adoption is a beautiful thing. Fostering is a beautiful (and hard) thing. We need not fear good things or wonder if they will be swept away in a pile of attempts at self-righteousness. When love is the motivation and you are extending the love of God, whether in your own family or to others, this is good! The balance is never all grace or all holiness but an acceptance of the two. It's late and my battery is running low so here is a linky to an expository on grace and holiness, a beautiful life combination for Christians to seek.

Worth thinking on...

"When our children rise to the call, or maybe even when they're struggling but you see them doing something praise your children. The person who praises your children will have their heart. You need to be speaking life and praise and encouragement into your children because they need that edification and encouragement from you, the one that they long for that from."

Michele Duggar