We love the Christmas season. It comes to us each year as a reminder of God's redeeming love for His people. The birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ - the greatest gift.

Looking back at this year, we have so many blessings to thank God for.

2011

This year

God has showed us

His loving kindness again.

We had sufficient food to eat,

Clothes to wear, shelter overhead,

and family to love and support each other.

We saw prayers answered, sickness turn to health,

bitterness transform to forgiveness, sadness melt into joy.

Needs kept us our our knees - needing Him. May we be a needy people in the coming year so that our needs draw us closer to Him each day.

Yikes! It is 2012 beginning tomorrow!

photo by Allison Clawson

Been a while...

I am feeling a blog post coming on...now just waiting to slow my life down to ponder.

Gracie...a big sister?

While talking to my little, amazing Grace we were discussing what she would "like to be" when she grows up.



"When I be a big sister I want to be a doctor like the one that helped Merica with her baby and work at McDonald's... work at the library and I am going to be a piano teacher..."

"Um...Gracie?"

"Yes Mother?"

"You'll be an auntie before you'll be a big sister. ok?"

"oh, ok."

: )

Proper Order for our Life

Col 3:2

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.

The mind under the command of Christ makes the decision -

the mind tells the will what to do -

and the emotion follows.

Rom 8:6

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.

One Life ... One Love

You only need one Love in your one Life.

Dad's Memorial Service

Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for praying for my dad and our family. We felt the prayers and God's grace all last week. An incredible feeling of peace was always present in Mom and Dad's home.

He went to heaven on Tues morning June 1 at 12:05 am. The funeral was June 3 at 10:30am in Bloomington, Mn. Mom requested no embalming and Dad was buried at Ft Snelling on their time schedule so we needed to have the funeral in a short amount of time. I am sorry that I was not able to contact all of you with the funeral info. but totally felt your prayers with the presence of God all over our plans in his last few days and the funeral.

I consider it a privilege to have helped take care of my father in his home with my mother and siblings in his final days on earth. It is the way he requested and he was ready to meet the Lord.

Please visit this site for more details on his final journey with his family - and sign the guest book. My mom will greatly appreciate the notes written in the days ahead.

I know some of you did not know him well but the people's comments are so moving and compassionate that a person can get a picture of who he is just reading them.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/dickbrink/journal

I will post more pics of the service soon - he had a unique cadillac style even in his memorial.
Thanks and God bless you,
Bridget

Tribute to My Wonderful Father

Please feel free to my dad's web site at Caring Bridge to see the updates on his condition. He is comfortable and sleeping now and receiving care in his home with my wonderful mother.
Visit http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/dickbrink/mystory to sign his guest book.

In Christ Alone

In Christ Alone

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

http://www.semicolonblog.com/?p=5232

Garden idea

http://blog.oregonlive.com/pethealth/2008/07/gardening.jpg
Now that Spring is here- gardening fun has begun. Here is an idea we found for adding nutrients to your garden soil. Add eggshells to your soil!

Using Egg Shells in the Garden: Crushed Shells Boost Garden Soil’s Calcium Content, Deter Pests

Snow Candles

Sticky snow is good for more than building a snowman or having a snowball fight. Check this out. Who would have thought of making candles in a snowbank?







We discovered a Nature craft book at the local thrift store and decided to try a perfect craft for this time of Winter.
(We all know God created "Mother Nature")







We read about Wilson Bentley, "The Snowflake Man" who was the first to take microphotographs of snowflakes(** our Creator's beautiful handiwork **Psa 148:7-8)




It was about 40 degrees outside the afternoon we did this. (The important thing to remember first is to try not to tackle baking chocolate chip cookies at the same time as learning this new candle making skill. The cookies turn out a little too
dark.)




what you'll need:
-Snow
-pan with about 2 in. water and a couple tin cans of various sizes(creates a double boiler)
-old candles of assorted colors-paraffin wax - from the grocery store -
-wicks- We melted old white candles, also from a thrift store, to get some wicks and extra wax. Walmart did not carry them.
-Assorted color crayons for vibrant color
-a stick or chopstick
-potholders





















When your melted wax is ready to pour, just go outside and poke a hole into the snow about the length of your finger.


Slowly pour the melted wax while holding the wick in the center. It will cool quickly. Let it sit in the snow to harden about an hour(if you can wait that long. We were excited to see ours.)














It was so much fun, we spent all afternoon creating and forgot to make supper!

















This was a lot of fun working with the different colors from the crayons and experimenting with melting wax!

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Being of Swedish descent, Bridget's paternal grandpa's side, we also enjoyed this little idea from a site I found when searching for more snow candling ideas on the web.

"When I grew up in Sweden a common thing to do with the children (that would be me back then) was to build snow lights. As you have a lot of snow, it gets dark at 3pm and you want the children to play outside you would hand them a bunch of candles and send them out to build snow lights all around the house. Later on you would light them up and stand in the kitchen window to look at them.
Well, back then, being a child and everything, it was the coolest thing to see as a well build one that can burn all through the night and still be lit in the morning.

Now I have kids on my own and of course this was something I just had to do with them. But - no one here (I moved to the Netherlands a couple of years ago) ever heard of these and they were all amazed of my innovative little product when I lit it in the evening. So if people here haven’t heard of them then surely there are more people in the world missing out on some winter time fun with the children.You can do this as long as the snow can be compressed into snow balls, so between +1 c / 33 f down to -7 c / 19 f or so." By Chris Järnåker

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