Weekly Wrap-Up: Babies, Belles, and Blogs

Although things have been a little quiet on our family site lately, we’ve been busy on our blogs (and elsewhere).

Do You Wanna Have a Baby?

For starters, we just produced our first music video. It’s redo of one of our favorite FROZEN songs, but with original lyrics better fitting to our frame of mind. Doug predicts it will (eventually) go viral. Click on the link below if you’d like to watch and help it on its way:

Spoiler warning: No, this is not our way of announcing another pregnancy. 🙁 To our knowledge, we do not have another baby on the way, although this would certainly have been a great way to tell everybody if we did.

Beauty in Bloom

Last weekend marked the opening of the 55th annual Azalea Trails. The recent freeze delayed the blooms, but the Azalea Belles added lots of beauty and color to the ribbon cutting ceremony Friday morning. That’s our Rebekah in the back row on the left, wearing the same red gown her sister Bethany wore as a Belle ten years ago.

If you look closely, you might spot a few more Flanders in the news footage above, including several of our boys and a future Azalea Belle (our little Abby). Give her another ten years, and she will likely be wearing the same red dress her sisters wore. Meanwhile, she must content herself with wearing Disney Princess dresses (such as the pink Sleeping Beauty dress she wore for the ribbon cutting).

Free Family Fun in Tyler

With all the sunshine and rain we’ve gotten this week, the Azaleas are finally beginning to burst forth into beautiful blossoms. They should be in full bloom next weekend and would be worth the drive if you live anywhere near East Texas. Of course, there are lots of other fun things to do in Tyler, many of them free. You may want to check out this list before you come:

Honor the Texas Flag

Last weekend was also the date for our Republican County Convention. Doug and I and some of our older kids have attended our precinct conventions in the past, but this was our first year to serve as delegates to the county convention.

It was a learning experience, beginning with the fact that the State of Texas has it’s own Pledge of Allegiance, which we never knew existed. How did I make it almost 49 years without discovering that fact? All the other, more experienced delegates recited the words by heart while I stood, hand to chest, mumbling incoherently. (Now I know how Doug’s groomsmen felt at our wedding when we neglected to tell them the entire congregation would be singing “Crown Him with Many Crowns” and they should pocket a copy of the program if they didn’t already know all the words.)

To make sure we’re not embarrassed again at the State Convention in June, I’ve printed up the pledge so that our entire family can commit it to memory. Here’s a free printable, if you want to learn it, too:

[click image to download printable PDF]

What’s More Popular than National Health Care?

We are! Doug just told me that, to date, more people have visited our website than have signed up for Obamacare. I guess that says something… although I haven’t quite figured out what! This news has inspired my husband to blog more, in an effort to maintain our more-popular-than-obamacare status. Here’s a link to his latest post (first published on Doug’s blog, All Truth is God’s Truth):

In it, he shares strategies for world-proofing your kids. Those are three of our little ones in the graphic, photographs courtesy of their brother David.

Parents Need Prayer, Too!

Last but not least, after we published guides to be used in praying head-to-toe for husbands, wives, and children, we received a special request from a young lady who wondered if I might have a prayer guide she could use while praying for her parents. Isn’t that precious? Here’s what I came up with (originally published on my blog, Loving Life at Home):

[click image to download free printable PDF]

And that about wraps up our week. We are thoroughly enjoying the fact that Spring seems to have finally sprung, and hope you are doing the same. Blessings from our family to you!