Birthday Party Time

Our morning was a bit hectic. Mark went out early before 6:00 am and came right back to tell me that 2 babies were out. While I was walking up to the paddock I see that Evan's waterer has been kicked off the cement pad and flipped into Sunny's paddock with the water pouring out. Mark went to rescue that while I went to grab the mares of the loose foals. Once the 2 foals were back in with their mom's Mark is walking over to water the garden and notices that Eliza's waterer is empty. Sure enough there was a missing screw and the cover had moved just enough to stop the float from falling to let the water come in. Eliza is a nursing mother so this was a critical fix. She was thirsty but not desperate so we think it happened some time during the night. While Mark was fixing that I fed the horses then went in to make breakfast for us humans.
We had such a wonderful day in Peoria. Craig Stickling had the morning service and he didn't preach on Proverbs 31. Thank Goodness. We can never live up to that lady. Instead he brought out what Mary did when she went to visit Elizabeth. She didn't speak her own words, she spoke words right out of scripture. The young group served lunch today and all of the ladies sat at the first sitting down to bountiful beautifully arrayed tables bursting with food in a room filled with the sound of  hundreds of happy voices.  Truly it must be like being at the banquet table at the Marriage supper of the Lamb. The trays were loaded with all kinds of wonderful baked goods, gourmet sandwiches,  fruits, chocolate and sweets, but the fellowship is the sweetest of all.
After church we had only about an hour before we needed to head to Ben and Taunya's new house in Bloomington to celebrate the birthdays of their son Jack along with David and Stephanie's son Israel. The dinner wasn't quite ready so everyone pitched in to help move the swing set from the neighbors yard into Ben and Taunya's yard.  The neighbors wanted it gone and Ben's kids wanted it so that worked out just perfect.

Ben showed us how to make sparks with the trikes while Rhoda gave Israel a ride on one.

After dinner the cakes were brought out. Three year old Jack got a Ninja Turtle cake

 While 1 year old Israel got his very own cupcake. This was the first time that child has eaten sugar.

The pinata was next.  

The kids couldn't seem to break it so Ben finally helped

That did the trick

The kids all wrote very nice Mother's Day cards which I will treasure. They were read on the way home and we just had to laugh at Rhoda's card. Now for the record we don't play favorites but I think I understand her reasoning. She wrote: I wasn't sure if I was your favorite until I realized that we have 40 horses and I'm the only child that likes horses!