WELCOME HOME, MOM!

This past Friday and Saturday, I was able to attend a Ladies Retreat in Sugar Creek, Ohio.  So many aspects made it a wonderful, memorable trip -- attending with friends, beautiful weather, singing with my mom, nice facility, God working in me through the speakers.  The theme was "A Measure Of Faith."

You know you're in Amish Country when . . .

But before I left, I set out a couple things for the kids to enjoy while I was gone.  Lucky Charms (something I don't by often and when I do it is usually Aldi brand) and these . . . (Do you know how hard it is to find chocolate coins when all there is everywhere is Easter candy??)  Wish I had time to line up the colors, but they probably didn't care or wouldn't have even noticed.

We also did a little shopping in Amish Country -- bulk food stores, antique stores and thrift stores.  Found these adorable mini animal crackers (about the size of a dime) and alphabet pretzels that I plan to use to review letters with Isaiah.

It was dark when I returned home, but this chalk drawing was on the drive way . . .

and they had all made notes for me enclosed in this envelope drawn on by Isaiah.  He wrote "MOM" and drew me an octopus on a tractor. This seems to be his newest thing.  He's drawn it three times recently.  Cracks. Me. Up.

From Makenna (with a pop-up heart)

Madi's included a little side note! =)

And Isaiah stapled an extra piece of paper on the back of his card, so I could draw something if I wanted.  He stamped stars and butterflys in the sky, drew a house and a tractor -- sans octopus this time.

I was also greeted with new growth and flowers around the yard . . .

While shopping, I found a washer/dryer/ironing board play set for $4.00!  Wasn't sure if I could even fit it in the girls' room, but I had to grab it for that price!  We ended up taking down a twin bed in a spare room in the basement and set up all their baby and kitchen stuff.  It will be a nice place to play in the summer since it's cool down there.  I'm thrilled it opens up space in the girls' room!  Hopefully that will be one of my next projects.

Coming home to a sweet welcome was the icing on the cake to a refreshing weekend.  The Lord knows I needed it.  There were many things that jumped out and convicted me or encouraged me this weekend.  But the most special part was that someone from the hosting church was assigned to pray for me ever since I signed up to attend the retreat.  This is the dear lady that prayer for me.  I am confident that the Lord was able to speak to me in such a great way because of her prayers.

I'd encourage you to read and reread Romans 12.  We are reading it together as a family a few verses at a time and studying it.  There are quite a few verses in that passage that are very familiar to a lot of us, but their meaning is becoming more real to me the more I study them.

 Romans 12: 3 "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith"