Making Your Mark

I loved to watching you play!~ I am honored to have been there for your monumental moments!
You have made your mark at Morningside College....in the classroom and the field.



I love to watch you with your nephews!
That smile of yours lights up the world!
You have made your mark with those little boys who yell excitedly, "TY TY! Touchdown Uncle Ty!"



I love what a leader you have become!
You have made your mark among your teammates and coaches.

Well, today it is #2 son, Tyler, I am dwelling on.
You haven't heard about him since football!!!!
He has been moving and shaking the business world at Morningside college and getting ready to graduate in May! Now I will say, wasn't it just yesterday he was going to school for the first time? Time really does fly when it involves your children! He is in Puerto Rico!!!!




He sent me a text at 12:45 to say he had arrived. The plane safely landed at his destination. He left at 3 A.M. Now I googled Puerto Rico and found it to be 1000 miles southeast of Miami, Florida. It is located between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean... The territory is very mountaineous (cover 60%), except in the regional coasts, but Puerto Rico offers astonishing variety: rain forests, deserts, beaches, caves, oceans and rivers. Puerto Rico has three main physiographic regions: the mountainous interior, the coastal lowlands, and the karst area. Karst is a special type of landscape that is formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks, including limestone and dolomite.
He was chosen, one of eleven college students in the state of Ia., a couple of weeks ago to go to Cedar Rapids, Ia to compete in a business proposal competition. He was not the big winner, but did place and earn a prize. I think he is a winner, has made a mark in this world, and is a prize himself, but he likes anything that earns him the bucks!!!!

This trip, he was again chosen, having made his mark in the business department, and it is supposed to be an educational business trip, but I am hoping there will be some fun involved! I am so proud of you, Tyler. You are making such a mark in this world.....in business, in life and in hearts.
I love you forever!

Dear Daughter

I love to watch you play....



I love how much you love to draw.





I love to watch you with your nephews.



I loved all those little girl soccer games.



I love taking your school pictures, and I really love that you want me to!



I am so blessed that I was there for your Kindergarten Rodeo (wasn't that just yesterday?)


I love all the photos I got to take of you and your friends and your faces!!!!


That's a good one!



Nice!



I love that I get to be at school to watch you participate!



I love it that you are becoming such a great painter,and that you even enjoyed reproducing "Color Study-Squares with Concentric Rings" by Wassily Kandinsky.



I love that you poured your heart out in this one!

She Walks With Me

From the first breath of her life, she flew straight into my arms.
I used to catch her from the swing when she was five...
And now she dances on the wind in a world as hard as stone.
She's so anxious to begin and ready to fly....

And she walks with me and she talks with me
And I hold her hand in mine.
I know she'll find her way
Like the light of day 'cause it's love that makes her strong.

Though I cannot stop the rain and I cannot turn the tide
And I am sure there will be things that break her heart,
I can only let her know I am always on her side.
And even when I let her go, I'll never be far.

And she walks with me
And she talks with me
In her eyes I see her truth
Born of her fire and grace
as she finds her place
'cause it's love that makes her strong.

I love it that your always hug me goodnight!!!!
Love you forever, Riss!!!

Lord, bring back the springtime

I just wanted to share a few more pieces of spring at my house...


I change my entryway every season. I was tired of the Valentines and I am not much of a St. Patricks girl!


I picked up some new silks at Michaels this week!



I just painted these topiaries today for our spring play for a garden scene!



My newest watercolor- I wet the paper and splattered the paint. After it dried, I saw flowers....added some stems and leaves and ink outlines and this is the result!

I am thinking of a song I used to sing....."Lord to my heart bring back the springtime". Our hearts tend to get old and dirty and dull, but we can ask God to refresh us, to revive us and bring back the spring to our hearts! I have been humming it all day, but couldn't find it to post here for you. Come on over and I will sing it to you!!!! Have a great day!

When in the spring the flowers are blooming bright and fair
After the gray of winter's gone
Once again my heart begins it's tuning
Back in the meadows of my home.

Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime
Take away the cold and dark of sin
Oh, renew me now sweet Holy Sprit,
May I warm and tender be again.

Spring (Summer) Fever

"That beautiful season the Summer! Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light;

and the landscape Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood." -

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Backyard bubbles!

Mud puddles

Lyon County Fair just hanging around with the pigs!

Been farming long?

Seeing double

Fun times at the lake

So, when will we have our nice weather back? We have really been teased and taunted here in the midwest. Blizzard one day, heat wave the next. Snow one day, complete soupy mud the next. I guess I can't complain. God could have just kept the snow and ice going all the time with no glimpses of the sun, but "God is good, all the time". I thank God for Stephanie's good medical report following her surgery. I thank God for my family and my health. I have so many great pictures of the twins from last summer. I enjoy looking at them and remembering the fun times at the Lake. I thank God for rest and renewal and I thank God for the beauty that is summer.

Enjoy these memories with me and remember, summer is not that far away. We can make it!

"Toward the Light"

My newest painting,"Toward the light". I have had a few extra minutes in my day thanks to my student teacher,Kelly, taking over most of the classes. She calls it some "Carol time". I think I like it a bit too much. She will be leaving me in a couple of weeks. I will miss her and that "Carol time" I have been enjoying. Hope you enjoy the beauty I have within me, given to me my the "Artist of my Soul". Can anyone help me find the sheet music, accompanyment tape or CD for that song, "Artist of my Soul" by Sandi Patty? I heard her sing it live at Women of Faith. I purchased her CD, but I really, really need to sing that song, so any kind of accompanyment or sheet music would be GREAT!!! I have checked everywhere I know and can not find it.
It is my PERFECT song!!! Thank you, Diane, for finding the words:

"Oh Lord of light, of form and hue, Who has created all things new,
Create in me, from shapeless clay, an instrument on which you play.
God of the dance that planets tread, Who walks beside and soars ahead,
O let me move to worship Thee; come, Holy Spirit dance with me.
God of the Living Word, Poet of Time,
teach me Your words in Your cadence and rhyme.
O Lord of beauty, Lord of art, Who gives a song for every heart,
carve out my life, reshape and mold, and be the artist of my soul.
Teach me Your words in Your cadence and rhyme.
O Lord of beauty, Lord of art, Who gives a song for every heart,
carve out my life, reshape and mold;and be the artist of my soul."

Aren't they just me????