Fresh Strawberries

There are so many neat things to do in north GA, and we have just really been able to start enjoying them with the kids' ages.  One of the things we heard about was a strawberry farm where you are given a bucket to pick your own.  I thought that this would be a great place to take photographs of the children.  However, it was not the ideal place or situation because they would squish the strawberries as they picked them!  It was mostly on accident, at least I think, but their clothes and hands were covered in red!  So it was not quite the photo op that I had hoped it to be, but the children really did have a good time.  David was able to go with us, and he did most of the photographing.  Samuel and Emma walked up separate aisles, but then eventually shared one aisle together.  After we picked the strawberries and paid for them, they sat down to enjoy some of their spoils.  We stopped by the grocery store on the way home to buy vanilla ice cream so that David could make strawberry milkshakes (due to juicy, squashed strawberries it was the perfect combination!).  They were delicious!  We even made them for my family in Irwinton when we to visited them the following day.  David and I are enjoying watching our kids learn and explore new things.  Picking strawberries was so simple and cheap, but I think that the experience was well worth anything that money could buy!  The pictures below are the kids picking strawberries and our stop at the grocery store.

Continuing the process, but excited to be here!

 

This is a collage of David's graduation and commissioning. I wish that I had more photographs from his commissioning service held on June 16, but I was having some camera difficulties. I am so proud of his accomplishments! He finished school within 3 years, and was certified as a provisional member in the United Methodist Church. Now he must complete a 3 year period of many more interviews, meetings, and book readings before he can be certified as an Elder in Full Connection. We are excited to be in this part of the process! We have endured many difficult, as well as joyful times to arrive at this moment, and with God's help we look forward to the journey ahead. I am thrilled to be able to share this with you!

What have we been up too?

Well I did manage to get a couple of collages up over the past several months, but I haven't felt very motivated to write much. I would often think of things that I would like to blog about, but that is when it seems that I was never around a computer. So hopefully this will be a refreshing start. Just to catch up to speed (mostly so that I can have it for my own records), these are a few of the many changes that our family has been making:

>I found out the Monday before Christmas that I was expecting. This would have been around the same time that I would have found out the gender of the baby I miscarried. In late April, I found out that we are expecting another girl. This would have been around my due date. We are scheduled for a c-section August 27, a day before my miscarriage. I am writing this information to not dwell on the miscarriage, but to show the grace and mercy that God so kindly gave me. This whole pregnancy has been bittersweet; the timing has been impeccable! The pregnancy is going well and we are excited that the time is drawing near for the birth of our daughter. Samuel is so excited. He is constantly wanting to feel her kick or move. Just today he drew a picture that he wanted to show her. Emma on the other hand has made my growing belly feel like a play thing. She likes to rub it roughly or punch it...which neither feel great. I think that though it will be an adjustment, they will make great siblings to our new addition.

>Samuel is growing constantly. He has hit so many growth spurts lately, we can barely keep him full! He is very intuitive and seems to ask a million questions. Patience is the key with him. I usually do not mind answering him, and have grown fond of the way he pushes and stretches me to grow as a mother. The easy answer to most of his questions is "because I said so." However, that does not satisfy him nor myself. I want to teach him why, and I want him to know why I am saying "so". We are teaching him about God and how He works in our lives. This is not always easy to teach a 3 1/2 year old. Especially whenever our cat, Bella, died from a traffic accident. He tries to understand Heaven, and I believe that his perceptions of it right now are good enough. Samuel is so loving and compassionate. He is creative and has the most interesting conversations with his toys. His perception is often mind blowing because he is picking up on things that we had no clue he was even paying attention to. He is also very ordered and does not like change! I think that Emma is helping him to learn to cope with part of that. ;) Oh, and he loves Spider Man, and wants to talk in Spanish.

>Emma, wow! She is a spitfire! Emma has passion and zeal. She is so different from Samuel and it has been a privilege to watch them both grow. Emma loves life; she is her own comedian. She is silly, and loves to make people laugh. She is very expressive and often it is through her body language. She is crazy about Samuel and copies him often. Her language is developing well and she can talk in full sentences, but still will babble off into her own little world. She loves babies right now...feeding, changing, rocking, and strolling them all around the house. Emma will say her prayers at night and usually wants you to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "Twinkle Little Star". Emma is learning to count and learning her colors. Her birthday is coming up soon, so I will post more then.

>David graduated from Asbury Theological Seminary!! Yay!! He did an excellent job the past three years in working hard for all of his classes. He graduated with excellent grades. It was a hard three years on all of us, but well worth it. We are so grateful to everyone who helped us through this time, whether financially, prayerfully, emotionally, or more! God provided in so many ways and we are thrilled to have walked through this part of our lives. I am so proud of David, and believe that God has many exciting journeys ahead for him.

>We have moved. We are now living in Dalton, where David is serving a full time Methodist church as a provisional member. We are so excited to see what God has in store for us here. The church is vibrant and very active in service, so we are looking forward to partnering that with solid discipleship. The church has been very warm and welcoming.

>And me? You will have to check back within a few days to see what I have been up too!

 

WInter Wonderings

 

Nana Fun (15 photos), by jessica blackwood

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
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Christmas Mug (37 photos), by jessica blackwood

I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
Click here to view photos

The Winner Is...

 

Well this year's pumpkin contest proved to be a little difficult for the Gale family. The Blackwoods were the only ones to grow any pumpkins this year! They were just larger than a soft ball. It seems that the bees were not pollinating well this year in our yard, or anyone else's yard in our family. Unfortunately we did not discover what the problem was until it was too late to grow anything of any real size. Josh did not plant any pumpkin seeds, Daniel was able to grow a small upright vine with a few leaves, and Bobby and Nancy were able to grow a small vine with a female flower. Matt proved to be the most competition in the beginning because he had good strong vines with large leaves. However, he could not get his flowers to pollinate and his plant began to die in early October. Our vines got up to 20 feet long and produced many female flowers. We were able to grow the two pumpkins that you see in the pictures. However, the jack-o-lantern was grown by a gardener that attends our church. He graciously gave Samuel and Emma that pumpkin to carve for Halloween. It was a neat process to watch the pumpkins grow over the past 4 months. We are already talking about what we will do different next year. So the first place ribbon this year goes to the Blackwood family! Thanks to everyone who voted!

Life

 

This month has been passing by so quickly. It has been a while since I last blogged. I guess we have been adjusting to the changes in our lives, and trying to not dwell on the empty arms that we will have in April. With that said, our lives are continueing to be enriched by the children that we do have. Samuel turned 3 this month, and yes I will put up pictures in the next post, and Emma will turn 15 months at the end of the month. Samuel has already had his 3 year check up and everything looked great. He is 33lbs, which I cannot believe because he is so skinny, and 38 1/2in tall. He is a motor mouth! I have never seen a child talk so much! I am afraid to say that it must be genetic. He is in preschool three days a week to help him get some children interaction. He loves it. He asks to go see Ms. Tina, his teacher, and his friends. He is crazy about Emma, but loves to aggravate her! He is a very protective big brother, but I have noticed that he smiles now when I get onto Emma! He also has decided that he can tell her "no ma'am" as well. Emma is all girl and definitely packing an attitude. I love it! She is fiesty and does not mind telling you "no" as well as pointing her finger while doing it. I believe she has seen someone do that before. She has a sweet disposition and will smile at anyone. She is my snuggler of the two. Samuel will lay with me in the evenings to watch television, but she will snuggle up to me any time of the day. Emma is walking and running everywhere. She is a little different than Samuel in that she will roam around the house on her own, and play by herself. Both children are growing so fast! The pictures above are mostly of the kids or Emma playing with baby dolls. Emma will play with a doll for the longest time, wrapping it up in a blanket and then snuggling with it. One night they each had one and Samuel informed me that they were Alex and Ava, his new twin cousins. They were so cute playing together. I know that one day Samuel will not find this too funny, so I that is why I need to post it now! Oh, and Samuel can say three Bible verses right now, as well as sing a blessing for the food. Emma babbles through a round of "Twinkle Little Star", which is the cutest thing. I am hoping to post some videos soon. Thankfully, all is well in the Blackwood home. We are pursuing God with all that we have, for in Him is our hope and trust.

Apple Pickin' Time

We had a fun filled weekend with lots of different things going on. The children got to stay up late to see their daddy Wednesday night because they really had been missing him now that he is gone weekly to seminary. Samuel especially enjoyed that. Once we finally got them to bed, we caught up on the week and enjoyed our time together. Thursday and Friday we did a variety of things around the house. When I write that the kids missed their father, it is to no exaggeration. They wanted him all weekend long. I was able to get my haircut on Friday and have a girl's night out at Starbucks. David and I watched "The Proposal" that evening. The most enjoyable thing we did was take the kids to Ellijay to an apple orchard. Samuel was so excited to be able to pick apples straight from the tree. As my father likes to say, it made for a great science project. I believe that it is good for children to be able to see where things come from and how they grow. After he picked apples, we enjoyed many of the amusements that they had at the orchard. We took advantage of the photography opportunity and snapped many photos! We rode on a wagon, Samuel rode some tricycles, milked a cow, walked a nursery rhyme themed nature walk, played on a playground, and had fun with a huge slide. It was a very cold day, but the kids did great. It was some of the best time we have had together as a family. Now that Emma is getting older, we are able to do more things, which has been very nice. We ended our time there with apple cider and a funnel cake! That evening ended with fried green tomatoes! On Sunday we had a nice meal and Samuel and I made cookies with Reese's pb cups. They were delicious! Unfortunately our weekend is now over, and David is back off to school, but we are already planning next weekend. It is nice to be able to enjoy some of the festivals that are going on with family. My little family is growing up so fast, almost too fast!