HAPPY EASTER

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday of the kids playing in the yard and one of Tommy after he collected the eggs(he loves to "check the eggs"). We got the garden plowed today(hooray!) Will has been having fun riding his dirt bike in all the mud. This year we are having a separate potato patch over by the barn. The man that did the plowing said the soil looks great!!I wish everyone a happy, joy-filled Easter!!!

"IT IS FINISHED"

May God bless you and fill you with the peace of Christ on this special day.

OUR HOLY THURSDAY SUPPER

Well, I guess we have a new tradition at the Smithdeal house(Thank you, Carrie). It was great fun(despite being quite chaotic) and the kids thought it was really neat. Ben was disappointed we didn't make our own unleavened bread(maybe next year) , but the bread we did have was very good. It was so simple- maybe we ought to do this once a month!

MOMMAS AND HIPPOS

Ben: Do Hippos eat fish?

Mom: (thinking) I don't know....

Ben: Well you should know that, you're a Mom.

Mom:Why should I know that because I'm a mom?

Ben: (laughing) Because you treat us like hippos(whatever that's supposed to mean..)

Ben, on the computer, punches in: "What do hippos eat?" That's one more point for the computer in the answers dept. Oh well. I'm thankful for the internet :)

Hymn To The Night (H. W. Longfellow)

I heard the garments of the Night

Sweep through her marble halls!

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light

From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,

Stoop o'er me from above;

The calm, majestic presence of the Night,

As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,

The manifold, soft chimes,

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,

Like some old poet's rhymes.

From The Cool cisterns of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,-

From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear

What man has borne before!

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,

And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!

Descend with broad-winged flight,

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair

The best-beloved Night!