A Loving Heart

Claire is mixing up a cake to take to our nephew, Nathan's, house.  Nathan is going through chemotherapy.  We are taking dinner to their family tomorrow night.  I was telling Claire about Nathan and that is why we were baking the cake and dinner.  She told me three different times today how sad she was for Nathan.  I asked her if she wanted to pray for him and she dropped her spoon and folded her tiny hands and prayed, "Dear God, please help Nathan and make him feel better.  Amen."  She wanted to know if he had to have shots and if they hurt him.  She thought for sure that they would like the dinner and cake we were going to take them and that it would make him feel happy.  She added the sprinkles to the frosting on the cake (her idea, I'd never done that on chocolate frosting), thinking that Nathan would really like sprinkles.  She is so little, and yet already has such a loving heart.  I think she will not forget making a cake for someone that is sick so that they would feel better.

Our 2013 Vacation to Siesta Key

I love hunting for shells, for us and for the grandkids.  Each beach we go to has different types of shells.  We hunted this year at Siesta Key Beach (the #1 beach in America), and at Turtle Beach, Florida.  Jeff's shadow is taking this photo of me shelling.

We got dressed up to go to Siesta Key Village.  Our studio is behind me.  It was tiny, but perfect, with a Murphy bed!  Our weather was great, but we were so glad that our studio had heat and air conditioning! 

The sand on our beach was truly amazing, so white and so fine.  It was hard to see when you first walked out to the beach, it was so bright. 

My favorite parts of a vacation on the water are hunting for shells, walking on the beach, and going out into the water to jump the waves.  There are also great shells waiting for you in the deeper water.

Jeff is soaking up some rays.  We slathered on the sunscreen every day, right up until the last day.  What is it about the last day?? 
You can see our resort in the background, the yellow buildings.

Every evening, everyone trekked down to the beach to watch the sunset.  We didn't know that until we got there!  Quite a ritual.  Jeff took lots of pictures of that, but I'll just post a couple.  It was quiet and peaceful to watch.

We also spent quite a bit of time in the shade.  It was so nice to be able to enjoy the warmth and the surf without overdoing the sun.  There was a light breeze most days. 

We had a private beach, only 75 units in our resort, and usually only about 5-10 people sharing our stretch of beach.  We walked down to the public beach (maybe a mile from us), and there were hundreds of people and umbrellas and chairs and blankets and the strong smell of coconut sunscreen.  At sunset, though, lots of folks gathered. 

On our last day we overdid the sun (didn't know it until later that night).    We got dressed up and went out to dinner at Turtles on Turtle Beach, ate yummy shrimp and Key lime pie.  Pardon the self-portrait, but at least we

are both together in this photo!  We ate almost all our meals in our studio.  We solved a lot of world issues during our daily walks and talks,

you're welcome!

Adios Siesta Key!  We enjoyed you!

Brody's 3rd Birthday Bash

We celebrated Brody's 3rd birthday on February 1 during a daycare day.

Aunt Bonnie brought pin the tail on the donkey game.  They loved it!

They got it in the right spot almost every time - blindfolded.

We also had yellow cupcakes with homemade chocolate frosting and sprinkles and a pizza party lunch.  Aunt Sue, Auntie Heather, Uncle Sean, Papa and Omi were here to celebrate, as well as Claire, Max, Maverick and Mara.  Happy birthday, Brody!  We sure do love you!

What we're up to...

Here we are on a farm day, having a pretend indoor picnic.  They go all out in their preparation of the pretend food!

Brody likes blankets.  He always wants to be snuggled under one.  Here he is trying to get situated before an episode of Sesaminnie Street comes on.

Claire found a quiet moment alone to read some books to herself.

 Brody has been doing some writing on the white and blackboards.

In this creation, Auntie Heather drew the scene and he colored it in.          

Brody was given the honor of feeding Abby.  Abby gets fed a lot each day!