House pics!

A little sneak peak at some parts of the inside of our house and some other random photos!

I've been wanting to share this picture of David making Mrs. Morris laugh hysterically and this seems like a good spot!

Working on the Bender Mansion ;)Working hard on Caleb's Castle :D

My breathtakingly handsome husband pondering life! 8D I love pics where you can see his ring... oh yeh, he's taken!
Hanging sheet rock in the Ahlgren Jungle Hut of Adventure (aka Casual Cottage) master bathroom and laundry room.My handsome Man! We love texturing the walls! :D Really, we do! Can anyone guess why I like this picture!? 8D Lilian helping! Lilian being a little too helpful! Laying the tile! When we picked out tile there was some in the colors we needed at a major discount! Praise the Lord!
My Beloved looked and looked for another big bathtub for this new house so that (among other things) if the Lord blessed us with another baby I could have the option of another water birth! The Lord led him to this one for $150!
My Master Tile Cutter. :) Billy let us play with a tile cutter gadget he picked up at the state fair. It worked... sometimes!
I think around 1:00AM my "Make it Happen" Man started on the walls!
Lilian helping again!
With her little top curl we think she'd make a good mascot for David's business, Wave Media Technologies!
And here is the 99% done project! Eventually there will be wood covering the tub plumbing. The washer, dryer, laundry sink, water filter, and dehumidifier are behind some brown curtains to the left in the first picture. Laundry part is to the right and our bedroom is through the door on the right. This was one evening when Caleb and Daniel and Billy were going to spend the night out on their land.
Looks like Caleb almost decided to spend the night on our couch, which he's welcome to anytime!
A summertime party at our house.
This picture is for the Morris's and the Wilsons! The Morris's give nicknames and David they call "The Maverick" or "Mav", I'm "Mavette" and when the Lord blessed us with our pregnancy they named the unborn child "Mavie"! Lots of people still call Lilian "Mavie" including our dear friends the Wilsons! As a baby gift before she was born (and we didn't find out the gender) they had these adorable little pajamas made for her! We've been planning to put them on her one night over at the Morris's to show/surprise them but she's growing out of them quickly (in length) so you'll probably just get to see it here! And thank you Wilsons for such a cute and perfect gift... you guys always give "perfect" gifts! :)

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one for another."
John 13:35

A Land Update!

Warning: This is long and has lots of pictures, including two non-vegetarian photos.

Welcome to
Merrick (the non-existent town) Valley Farm

I will do a separate post regarding the interior of the Ahlgren Jungle Hut of Adventure (aka Casual Cottage) at a later date. So for now here are some pictures of a wee litl' bit of the land we have been so bountifully blessed with!
We have a mailbox! :) And it gets mail! Across from our place is big cattle operation. Lilian and I love going up to get the mail and she talks to the cows and makes them stampede and it's so incredible to be still and listen to the thunder of their hooves and yes I know this is a run-on sentence. Sunsets are so pretty from here! This is the view of our driveway from the road. It's a circle drive once you get down in there. This spring we will be planting "something" to block the view of pretty much anything from the road. We want the drive to be thick trees etc. and then once you get down in the land, BOOM, it's opens up to the valley! Lili Bug literally just hanging out!Further down the drive. Shop on the left, house on the right. Annnnnnnd... our favorite view! Our partially cleared valley! This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice! This was right around the most beautiful time when the sun inflames the tops of the cottonwoods and the trees on the hill! It is SO beautiful! Oh how we praise God for blessing us with the beauty of His creation all around us! This was taken from the front porch, and like I said, it doesn't begin to communicate how lovely it can be! And this is what it looks like now.This pic, from a few months ago, is the same area where the hammocks are in the picture above!
And this is across the burm into the valley looking south.
And this is looking southeast.
Clearing, burning, clearing, burning...

God has enabled us to make so much progress! It's amazing to look at old pictures and see what He has done! My wonderful Man is such a hard worker and he LOVES working outside! There is so much potential! We can't wait til this spring!
Here is Lilian's first time to swing (thank you neighbors for the swing!) and a view of the south end of the porch.

Here's a view from the north end to the south.
Burning a BIG pile of brush. David thought it was getting out of hand and tried to call the fire department and couldn't get a signal! But with much prayer we beat the spreading flames to death. Here's the big kid mentioned previously. The building is our goat shed. It was originally built in the 1930's on the state capitol grounds (for oil rig tools). The previous owner got the building in the 60's or 70's and my amazing skilled-in-practically-every-area-of-life husband welded the pieces up for a little shelter! Here you can see the goat shed in the valley, the house on the right, clothesline in the middle.
We let a friend hunt and he got a doe. David and I helped him track it for 572-3 yards! It was a lot of challenging fun and the meat was tasty(thank you Micah!)!
David had a run in with a hog while deer hunting a month or so ago. He won.David discing an area in the valley in front of the house for some some wheat. The front of our home! Don't worry, it's not a blue roof! The porch doesn't have the (green) metal on it yet. The house isn't sided here either.Hope you enjoyed this little virtual "tour" of a wee bit of our new land! Praise the Lord for His good gifts and His enabling power to take dominion for His glory!

Happy and Dirty Little Farm Girl

*Anniversary pictures have now been added to that post.

I was going through pictures tonight and found this from the end of August. She got this dirty because she did a face plant out of her bouncer into some sandy soil. She wasn't happy then but she was later and I think she's so cute with dirt all over her face! This is from the beginning of October. Dad's lil' helper!We got five goats at the end of September! They escaped and were lost for about a week and then a neighbor two miles away called and had them! Praise the Lord that we didn't loose that investment! This goat is a LaMancha (no ears) that we named Coconut and she had a Boer cross kid a little over a week ago! Praise God our farm is being fruitful! :D
This doeling is a Kiko, the hardy and resilient breed we hope to pursue. Her name is "Liko" for "Lilian's Kiko". Guess who she belongs to!?!?!
All of our pictures were on my Beloved's computer (that I do not touch), but through a string of events I now have the pictures! Woohoo! Hopefully I'll soon be sharing newer pictures of our house and land!

Since I now have all of the pictures... I'm overwhelmed with thousands of adorable pictures of our precious little Blessing! The first twelve months of life go by WAY TOO FAST and WAY TOO MUCH changes at once! Oh how I treasure every little detail of her! Anyways... here's some pics of her first encounter with sand at the end of June!
This stuff is sure different...
But I think I kind of like it...
Hmm, what to do with a whole fist full...
I know! I'll taste it!

Whoa! I'm not sure about this.


Guess I'll have to try it again!Ya know, it's really not that bad...

And it was with that mindset that she set the stage for the photo at the top! :) We love being parents! Thank you Lord!




And even if she can't be out helping she always like to watch her handsome Dad (wonder where she gets that?)! July1st.

2 YEARS!!

Would you go with me if we rolled down streets of fire

Would you hold on to me tighter as the summer sun got higher

If we roll from town to town and never shut it down

Would you go with me if we were lost in fields of clover

Would we walk even closer until the trip was over

And would it be okay if I didn't know the way

If I gave you my hand would you take it

And make me the happiest man in the world

If I told you my heart couldn't beat one more minute without you, girl

Would you accompany me to the edge of the sea

Let me know if you're really a dream

I love you so, so would you go with me

Would you go with me if we rode the clouds together

Could you not look down forever

If you were lighter than a feather

Oh, and if I set you free, would you go with me

If I gave you my hand would you take it

And make me the happiest man in the world

If I told you my heart couldn't beat one more minute without you, girl

Would you accompany me to the edge of the sea

Help me tie up the ends of a dream

I gotta know, would you go with me

I love you so, so would you go with me

"Would You Go With Me" by Josh Turner

We've now been blissfully married 2 whole years!

It doesn't seem possible that it's been that long! But in light of eternity, two years isn't really that long!

We are so thankful to be together! Praise be to God for bringing and keeping us together and making us one! And thank you to our precious family and friends who have loved us, shared wisdom with us, supported us, admonished and encouraged us! :)

We've laughed a lot lately, just in general but also because we've been thinking about our adventures together over the past two years and what a blessing it all is and how thankful we are to be together! The lyrics above are from a song we enjoy and the title is similar in thought to what my Beloved said when he proposed. The lyrics show the man asking the woman if she'd go with him on an adventurous sounding life, and our life has certainly had some adventures! I started to write an overview of each year of marriage, but I'd want edit the list a thousand times and it would never truly be complete so we'll just say,

"The LORD has done great things for us;

whereof we are glad!" Psalm 126:3

I tell ya, it's nearly imposable to get a picture with David's eyes open! That's why kissing pictures are the BEST, well, just one of the reasons why, in those it's perfectly fine to close your eyes!


Somewhere there's a picture that one of Micah Morris's deer cameras got of us taking a lovely anniversary hike, I need to find that...

Family picture the next day. "I'm in love! I'm in love! I'm in love with a WONDERFUL guy!"

Food for thought...

I recently read this blog post called "Fashion Slave" and thought it was thought provoking! Fashions are eternally changing and can often be impractical. (I recognize that practical is a relevant term and the application varies from person to person based on the dictates of their chosen lifestyle and calling.)

I am NOT saying "trendy" is inherently bad or evil (Obviously there's nothing intrinsically wrong with wearing dog tags or lime green tennis shoes!). But, constantly striving to keep up with the way the world(or Hollywood or the fashion designer...) looks wastes time and effort and can possibly feed our own vanity and self focus; at least that my imperfect opinion. :)

There is wisdom in the blogger's suggestion that we should aim for a look that doesn't age out so quickly, that is good for our body type, is modest, good colors for our skin... practical! I'm NOT against cute and pretty etc., but may I suggest practical pretty?!

The point is just to not be consumed by (anything other than loving the Lord and our neighbors) the fickle fashions and trends. Defy our current culture; don't be like everyone else; "if everybody does it we don't"; don't be a lemming! Be who God made you to be, not who everyone else is! Take our freedom in Christ and properly apply it to be free from the dictates and traditions of men! And that is definitely an area of life that I can always use the Lord's work in!

We should use some common sense and "good" taste in our clothing, but just let's not allow ourselves to be consumed and enslaved to the latest and greatest fashions and trends! Hope you enjoy and are encouraged by the blog.

Romans 12:1-3

I beseech you therefore, brethren by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world:

but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you,

not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly,

according as God that dealt to every man the measure of faith.

Pray for Jaynee Lockwood and Family

http://www.lockwoodfamilytomexico.com/

If you happen to read this and haven't already read this somewhere else, please pray for Jaynee Lockwood. The Lockwoods are missionaries in Mexico, they have 12 wonderful children and recently had a miscarriage. Yesterday, Jaynee and her husband went to a hospital 3 hours from their home for a D&C and there were major complications and she not doing well. Please pray for them!

http://www.lockwoodfamilytomexico.com/

Act for Eternity

"Whatever be your condition

and calling in life,

keep in view

the whole of your existence.

Act not for the little span of time alloted you in this world,

but act for eternity."

Unknown Wise Man