Joshua & Cassidy's Engagement Brunch

Celebrating God's goodness to our families
with a lovely brunch!

Any kind of great conversation is possible when we gather this group!

Menu: beautiful breakfast casserole, homemade cinnamon rolls, yogurt & toppings served with fresh mint tea!

Got to have this little gem with us for the morning!

We all apparently miss having a BABY in the house! Ha!

Bike jumping. The fellas new favorite!

Just keep stackin' those boards! :) 

Happy visiting and spectating from the porch.

Checking things out. :)

"I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore." Psalm 86:12

Praise the Lord for so many sweet answers to prayer in the lives 
of Joshua and Cassidy. God's goodness abounds once again...

Trip to Michigan

We had the opportunity to head up to Michigan to sing for several events.

We love it when we get to take happy family walks along the way. 

It seems an otherwise dignified brother climbed a particularly brittle tree. :)

One of our favorite places is The Shack, which had some unique little people for our little people. :)

Dutch Blitz....that wild Amish game again!! Everyone yells numbers and fires cards across the table. Very Bowers. 

A dear widow prays for us daily and when we come to town, 
she also makes this beyond delicious coffee cake!

We had a wonderful time reading and resting.

Boys and water. They need each other?!

God is so good to let us sing together. He is also so faithful to give Daddy the right words for every audience.

Campbell power walking. Or bug hunting. Or taking soil samples. :)

Our favorite bodyguard. Looks like he needs protein. :)

Rip roaring game of Occupation. 

And OH! We love each other SO much more when we're eating banana splits. :)

Sugar and spice. Guess who's who. :)

Seems we took a lot of path pictures. We like paths. :)

Carolina's well stocked kitchen. Ha!

Lake Michigan! FREEZING, so we dashed, smiled at the phone and headed back down the road!

One of our favorite songs is "Like a River Glorious". 
The chorus says:
"Stayed upon Jehovah, Hearts are fully blessed.
 Finding, as He promised, Perfect peace and rest." 

Praise the Lord for this happy little landing spot and a wonderful weekend. :)

Catching Up Again: Feathers, Food and Fellowship

To every thing there is a season. Yes. But our BLOG. 
Our blog is NOT supposed to be seasonal!

The Lord has put us in a beautiful spot with blossoming friendships and a little touch of farm life mixed with wedding plans (times TWO), setting up households (times TWO), honeymoon thoughts (times TWO) along with schoolwork, dishes, out of town guests, singing, and hospitality. It kind of feels like a snow globe that got shaken and here we are! Just waiting for the flakes to land. Ha. :) 

SO. We are attempting to post odds & ends until we get somewhat caught up. If you notice the lovely May lilacs blooming in this our almost July post, well...we're delighted to have lilacs! We still do not have internet, but praise the Lord! We have growing things! :) And if you told us last year we would be living in IOWA with two precious new sons joining our family on one joyous September day? Only the Lord!!

 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above". 

We PRAISE the LORD for His good and perfect gifts.  

A mens' hearty breakfast place is a must. 
Every small town has one, and the menu does NOT usually include kale smoothies!  

Crockett duck sitting one of Campbell's ducks in the kitchen. 
For about two minutes. :)

Celebrating Lina's Birthday with a double date. How fun is THIS?! :)

One of Cassidy's 25 children. :)  Charlie adopted Kate for the moment. 

NEVER a dull moment with Bowers at large in Menards. 

Still beholding the wonders of lawn mowing and its energy burning effect on boys. 
Especially this one. :)

Date and visit with Charlie for his birthday. 

We find that steak is a most effective fellowship tool.:)

Our neighbor stopped by to see if anyone felt like bottle feeding lambs for a month or so. Approximately 8 of us hollered YES at once! What a time we had. SOOOO adorable!

Crockett added love and wrestling to the bottles.

Always love the chance to fellowship with friends that have sweet little people!

Like these two. What a hoot. 

While the gals fly through coffee on Sunday morning, 
the men are quite faithful to provide abundant breakfast options.

Father daughter pow-wow.

It's been awhile since anyone around here actually had stitches, but Chap got 5.
 He was amazingly brave and we celebrated with ice cream. :)

All fixed. The Ben and Jerry's helped. :)

There's a lot of love in the air around here and we cannot forget: parent dates are a must, too!

Maybe Crockett will be a vet someday. Creatures great and small end up in his path faster than anyone in the family! 

 The youngest six, who hopefully will be with us a LONG time!! 
We are retiring from weddings for awhile in September. :)

Charlie's little investments who jumped the fence and ran away about 10 minutes after arriving at our barn. We got to meet our sweet older neighbor when he rounded them up a day later and brought them back.

Practicing photography skills and studying depth of field on Mama's silo.
 It is still our landmark for finding home!

It is such a blessing to be in a quiet, beautiful place for this season. The Lord has always kept us praying and trusting about each new project and location, but we have to say.... this is one of our favorites. God is so good!