Blessings upon blessings

As you may have intuited from Saturday's post, the weekend was not without its drama. I have been consciously working on focusing on what is good rather than visiting over and over the yuckier stuff that happens and my fears and worries associated with it. Because really, if I believe God is in control, and that He is good and has my best interests at heart, then He's got the yucky stuff taken care of. My worrying about it doesn't help, and the worry and obsessing really do steal my joy from all the really good things in my life. I miss out on recognizing all of my blessings, and that is a lot of missing out because my life is full of them. What is one blip when compared to these things? 

K. decided to get into a crafting mode and created these superheros. The orange-guy I'm told is The Thing and the green guy is The Incredible Hulk. I think they are pretty amazing. 

Gretel is doing better. She was back at the vet's this morning to have the drains removed and all the vets agreed she looks as though she is healing nicely. Since we seem to have a standing Monday morning appointment, we'll be back next week to have the stitches removed. Here she is sporting her newest in t-shirt wear. So as not to completely empty K.'s drawer of t-shirts, we're moving down to some smaller sizes we still had in the basement. Consequently, it is a bit tight and the ruff of her neck sticks out oddly around it. I'm not going to miss the clothes-wearing dog.

And God really does provide. At church yesterday, a good friend pressed a check into my hand. It covers her medical treatment. Thank you.

On Saturday afternoon, J. took TM to get his hair cut. TM had decided it was just too long and wanted something new. The result? Approximately 8 inches was chopped off and he can now spike it with gel if he feels like it. (I really love it.)

For a good portion of the weekend, this is what we have seen in our kitchen... our older children all playing Apples to Apples together for long stretches of time. It makes me so happy to see this type of interaction. And they're funny to listen to as well.

And the hallmark of any good weekend is the time for me to do some sewing. (If I've been able to sew, it also means that life is calm enough to allow me to do so.) P. was in desperate need of some new skirts, so I was able to finish one for her. It's difficult to tell in the picture, but it is a nice, navy blue twill. (Fabric, I must add which was given to me by a friend when she was cleaning out her stash.) I was worried that it would be too heavy, but it's good fabric and works well in this pattern. It seemed a little plain to me, so I was able to talk her into some cute dragonfly buttons up by the top of the zipper and some embroidery at the bottom.

Here are some close ups of the embroidery.  The dragonflies...

and the Kanji symbol (this means happiness)...

and both elements together.

I love playing with my embroidery unit for my sewing machine. It is a really great toy. (Toy because it is completely unnecessary and expensive, but fun to have and use.) I'm still so thankful that my parents bought it and the sewing machine for me. (Really, Mom, every time I use it, I want to call you and thank you again.) Plus it allows me to do some fun things for my children. My next embroidery project will be to put panda bears on something (haven't decided what) for G. I suppose that means I really need to find a Superman embroidery for L...

I truly have blessings upon blessings.