The Wee Photographer

The other day, Z asked if he could take a picture with my camera. I showed him how to do it and how to look at the picture after he took it. He went around the house taking pictures for a half hour and looking at each one after he took it. Many were blurry, some had fingers in front of the lens, but here's a few that turned out well, I thought.

This one he experimented with setting the camera down on the couch (which he'd previously stripped of it's cushions) and just pushing the button.

and my favorite:

Well done, Buddy!!! You're already a better photographer than Mommy!

Where milk comes from

Today we visited a dairy farm. I met several amazing women at a mother-daughter retreat that Juju and I went to a few weeks ago. Two of the amazing women have dairy farms, the other a chinchilla farm! Today we visited one of the dairy farms.

Z and I let the baby calves suck on our fingers. It was so cute!

Then I had to let the saliva dry before I could put my gloves back on.

It was really cold. It was a huge farm with hundreds of cows.

Z accidentally got squirted in the face with cow milk!

Ben and I love exposing our kids to real life! Below are the real professionals, Elijah and Moriah live at the farm and are showing us how it's done.

We also checked out their chicken coop for our own purposes. Their farm cats and their chickens drank out of the same milk bowl. Yup, you heard right, we're in the planning stage of building our own chicken coop! After seeing this farm, it feels like small potatoes, but it's big for us!

Lent starts Wednesday! Anyone want to join us? My sister-in-law, Debbi (the one in Uganda) has always invited me to join her in observing Lent. Every year I'm so glad I did. You can fast from something like sugar or something that is tempting for you or you can take on something that you'd like to do, like pray or read your Bible...or go to church! The Wigtons are giving up TV, in the middle of our third snow storm in a week and a half. No videos, just a couple hours on Saturday morning allowed. It'll be hard especially without warm weather, we'll keep you posted on all that we learn from it. It's always a good reminder of God's grace and how much we need it. Happy Fat Tuesday!

Happy Valentine's Day

Morning update

In the quiet beauty

Yesterday Ben said the ground had thawed so much it smelled like Spring. The grass was green this morning and now this is what we see outside our house. I have a million things I should be doing, but I can't stop watching the snow flakes as they fall down. They're coming down almost ferociously now. I can't get over how many snowflakes there are...and those are just the ones I can see over our house in this little town in Ohio.
I was pressed all week to be patient with three and a half year old Z and I realized that to be patient with him is really to forgive little inconveniences...over and over and over. I suppose one could say that about kindness, love and peace and all the other fruit of the spirit. That constant forgiving each other, letting go of wrongs and moving on because the relationship is so much more important, or because that's what someone else did for us.

When I look outside and up up into the falling snow and in between the big flakes nearby I see millions upon millions of tiny flakes on their way down. Snowflakes are ice crystals that form around floating bits of dirt. In the quiet falling of these beautiful crystals, I am reminded of God's quiet patience with me as if every flake represents a sin I've committed...or am going to commit. Bits of dirt in my life that He's covered, made beautiful somehow, and blankets the Earth, so all you see is beauty.

...it's after dinner now, it's dark out and it's still snowing. It's supposed to snow tomorrow too. Thank you, God, for the snow and for Your forgiveness, Your patience with me. Thank you for Your future forgiveness too, for tomorrow's snow, that I know I'll need.