Lydia, My life

Hi!
Lets see...I will relate what has been going on in my life the past weeks. Well we had a choir concert, it went pretty well, I had a great time singing the fun "Psalmo 150" and the gorgeous "The Lord Bless you and Keep you." I really enjoy choir and am pondering over trying out for the audition choir "Bel Canto" at the end of the school year. Any thoughts and opinions are welcome. Today my dad and sister are in Oklahoma-where the wind comes sweeping down the plain ;)-looking at some vehicles to possibly get. So they might come home with a new car! Going to Oklahoma sounds far, but actually it is only around two hours away from our house. I have been enjoying the beautiful spring weather. I am going to plant my flower garden soon. I will plant these lovely "painted daisies", some wildflowers, purple cone flowers, and others. I though I would post this poem I made up a year ago.

Spring

The bright blue sky smiles down,

to the grassy field carpeting the ground.

The puffy white clouds sail a loft,

over the hills and the chimney tops.

The sun warms the soft dirt,

The rain waters the brown earth,

allowing the flowers to open up and bloom

they will reveal their full splendor soon

The whole world sparkles in flowers galore,

in pinks, purples, and colors ever more.

The daffodils and roses smell so sweet,

the bee’s who love the nectar’s special treat.

All make me think of beautiful spring,

so many colorful, glorious things.

It just makes my heart want to sing,

with the beauty that the sweet spring air brings.

Love you all!

~Lydia Joy

Grace- That's a Lot o' Rocks

My family is doing some season landscaping projects to spiffy up our property a bit. We own about 3 acres in a country subdivision, and we are on the nicer side of the neighborhood. To be honest, we are not the nicest house, we have a lot of stuff and a lot of outdoor stuff, and considering that all of our neighbor's are older people that have immaculate lawns and gardening, you can imagine how we stick out.

My daddy and mama have come up with a plan for how to make our place look nicer using materials that we already have. One of the plans involves a rock bed in front of our house. This particular rock bed has been a pain in the backside for quite sometime. The man who built our house didn't put down any landscaping fabric, so underneath the rocks is a layer of dirt. In this dirt weeds find a foothold and then grow into nasty and unattractive monsters that make our house look neglected.

Their plan involves removing the rocks bit by bit and putting plastic underneath them, thus eliminating the dirt factor. After that we will clear a space to put flower boxes, and then fill in the open places with the rocks.

One problem with all of this, the rocks themselves are mingled and mangled in with the dirt. Solution, just wash them! Ho, not that easy.

This morning my daddy tried just spraying them off on the walkway, but that didn't work. It sent a lot of rocks into the yard and onto the lawn mower path(dangerous idea) and everywhere else. Plus the dirt was just kind of piling up at the bottom and becoming dried mud that was plastered to the cement.

Remembering some old wisdom and experiences from his grandfather, my daddy made a wooden frame with netting stretched taut across the top and nailed firmly down on the side. BEAUTIFUL! Now all you have to do is take a few shovel fulls of rocks, spray them off, let the dirt run down through the netting, and then toss them back into the bed. Sounds easy, and as far as brain involvement goes, it is. But laborwise?

Me and my middle sister were out there for almost an hour shoveling, scraping, spraying, shifting, and dumping (this was the second time this happened, the first time it was when we actually had to shovel the rocks out of the bed and onto the pathway) . If you are wondering where my three strong and manly brothers were, they had retreated inside behind walls when they saw that we were ready to begin work. Though later my middle brother came out to help, but that was all.

After over an hour of that, my back ached, and I was STARVING! In we came for lunch and a change of clothing. I was covered in rock bits, mud, and water. Nothing could have felt better than stripping off my wet socks and jeans, and then slipping into some clean shorts and a shirt. Ah, sit down on the couch with a book and a back pillow, sigh... that's a lot o' rocks.

Celina, My daily life

Yesterday I didn't feel very well, Stomach junk. Not fun! I am feeling better today, PRAISE THE LORD!!! Today Mom and Dad are going Christmas Shopping today, Mom says they will not be back until they are done. That gives us a full day of fun! Preston can drive and Dad gave us a fifteen dollar Wal-mart gift card that he got at work. So with that we are going to get some fun stuff and a movie. Fun! I was worried that I would still be sick, but no such luck. Right now I am sitting at the table writing on daddy's laptop Daddy is singing a song about Mom putting on her makeup. Preston is sitting across from me on his laptop studding for his science test. Jonathan is still in bed. Oh I think we will start over with the administrator thing so Jess you're on! Have fun!

Lydia, Happenings

Well, I think I will do what Jessica did and tell you all what I am going to do recently...
I have a research project I have to do on Rahab by Wednesday...and I have not started on it yet...so maybe you could pray for me about that :). I get to go on a trail ride with one of my friends and my sister, that should be fun, but I am a little nervous. I think there is a bible study I am going to with my mom and sister. This week at Orchestra I find out what chair I get, I am really anxious about that. We might get to go camping soon. Lets see...Oh yes Celina and I just finished our play we have been working on... Hooray! It is going to be so fun. I think that is about it. Well hope you all are having a good fall!
Lydia Joy~