11th Blogiversary!

This blog is 11 years old!

Hard to believe I've been at it that long. Life has certainly been full during this decade+, and it's been anything but static.

When I began writing in late 2004, we had seven children at home from age 1 to 14, plus two at Purdue in their first and second years. Now, we're down to just three children still at home, with three more in college (one at Purdue; two at IU), and three fully launched. Very happily, our family has grown with the addition of one wonderful son-in-law and four lovely grandgirls!

In my first year of blogging, I posted over 100 times! This past year, it's been a bit less than half that number. Often these days I wonder if I still have anything to say, but somehow I eventually find myself sitting down at my computer.


To celebrate 11 years of blogging, I decided to repost a few highlights from that first year. So here goes!

Young! 

Jan. 2005

Dressed for a Mock Boston Tea Party
 (Rafts were launched on the pond)

Happy

Spring Mill Nov. 2004

 Funny

(From Feb. 25, 2005)

Earlier this week some of the children visited the dentist and brought home some brightly dyed carnations. Yesterday they felt the flowers were fading and decided to add red food coloring to restore the vivid color. Amanda explained how it worked to a younger sibling. “It’s like Daddy’s hair. He’s losing his color and it is turning gray. But someday when grandchildren come to visit he will feel young again for a while and the color will come back.”

Pr 20:29 ¶ The glory of young men is their strength, And the honor of old men is their gray hair.

Now that grandchildren DO actually come to visit, you might be wondering how Amanda's prognostication has worked out.

Well...

Who cares about his own hair color
when he has a beautiful redhead in his arms?

Practical 

Also in Feb. 2005 I wrote about how we sometimes take a Scrubbing Vacation a la Pippi Longstocking when the house needs more attention than the school books. Funny, we don't seem to need those so often these days.

Faith, a.k.a. Pippi, dries the floor with sponges she tied on her feet.

Messy

Benjamin's math class, April 2005

Figuring out how to homeschool a crowd with a couple of toddlers in tow occupied much of my creative energies.

Pretty

From a family vacation to western Canada - Aug. 2005

Consolation Lake, Banff, Canada

Serious

I wrote about the life of Anne Steele, author of a favorite hymn of mine called "Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul. Eleven years later this hymn continues to give my comfort and strength.

Broughton church 

So many things have changed since I first began blogging, and many more alterations will come in the next few years. But some things remain unalterably the same; the foundation of my life has not moved one micron:

He only is my rock and my salvation;

He is my defense;

I shall not be moved.  (Psalm 62:6)