"You are Loved"

This is a post about a few things I love.

I love my sister Kaitlin.

I love art.

And I love my daughter Poppy.

A couple of months ago, some very nice friends of ours gave Bry and I a Groupon to attend a local art class. (thank you Morgan and Kyra!) And as much as I would have enjoyed using this for a date night with Bry (whom I also love), he didn't seem overly enthusiastic about exploring his inner artistic self. 

So I came up with a new plan...with this girl here.

Our cute little work table at the art studio.

Kaitlin named this one "Death by Paintbrush."

 And I love how the background behind us here shows the chaos from which art emerges.

 Our finished masterpieces.

I decided to make something for Poppy and our future little ones to remind them of how much they are loved, by the people placed in their life and by God. And it has been a good reminder for me too. You can't read it very well in photos, but the letters are cut from pages in an old book and spell out the phrase "you are loved."

It was so much fun putting together paint, yarn, tissue paper, fabric and metal hardware. And of course it's always fun to spend an evening with one of my very best friends.

The painting in its new home on the nursery wall.

A Trip to the Orchard

I've decided that picking apples is a very good way to celebrate fall. And eating the applesauce and apple butter that comes from your hard work is even better! 

It was my first time attempting anything of that sort since helping my mom as a little girl. And really, it wasn't difficult at all. Especially after discovering that you can make apple butter in the crock pot and you don't even have to stir it!

Heather, Beckham, Kyra, and Emerson joined us for the day, and it was lots of fun with friends. We may have to make it a tradition. At least for the cute-little-kids-in-the-orchard pictures if nothing else.

Eli, Eli

I heard a beautiful song the other day and after looking it up, found a very interesting story.

The words to the song are from a poem written by Hannah Szenes, a young Jewish woman who joined the British army during WWII and was trained as a paratrooper. She then volunteered to parachute into Yugoslavia to help Jews about to be deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

On a mission, she was captured, imprisoned, tortured (though she wouldn't tell them anything), and refused a blindfold when she was executed by a firing squad at twenty-three years old. She is known as a national hero in Israel.


Eli, Eli

English Translation:

My God, My God

May these things never end:

The sand and the sea

The rush of the water

The lighting of the heavens

The prayer of the heart

Another poem found in her death cell after her execution:

One - two - three... eight feet long
Two strides across, the rest is dark...
Life is a fleeting question mark
One - two - three... maybe another week.
Or the next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel is very near.
I could have been 23 next July
I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. 
I lost.