We’re moving our blog to Blogspot. Our new address is joyfulheartchildren.blogspot.com. Come on over and check it out!

I’m still deciding whether to transfer all our posts over or to just leave them.

In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works: in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, Sound speech, that cannot be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you.

Hello, everyone! I am taking a bit of a break from the blog for now. The children aren’t doing school and don’t have as much to post, and I’m busy with other things. Hopefully we’ll get back to this in a couple weeks. I’ll try to still post once in a while.

By the way, I’m hosting a giveaway at my blog. It’s not too late to enter.

“Oh, cousin Will, do tell us a story! There’s just time before the school-bell rings.” And Harry, Kate, Bob, and little Peace crowded about their older cousin until he declared himself ready to do anything they wished.

“Very well,” said Cousin Will. “I will tell you about some dangerous doors I have seen.”

“Oh, that’s good!” exclaimed Bob. “Were they all iron and heavy bars? And if one passed in, did they shut and keep them there forever?”

“No; the doors I mean are pink or scarlet, and when they open you can see a row of little servants standing all in white, and behind them is a little lady dressed in crimson.”

“What? That’s splendid!” cried Kate. “I should like to go in myself.”

“Ah! it is what comes out of these doors that makes them so dangerous. They need a strong guard on each side, or else there is great trouble.”

“Why, what comes out?” said little Peace, with wondering eyes.

“When the guards are away,” said Cousin Will, “I have known some things to come out sharper than arrows, and they make terrible wounds. Quite lately I saw two pretty little doors, and one opened and the little lady began to talk like this: ‘What a stuck-up thing Lucy Waters is! And did you see that horrid dress made out of her sister’s old one?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the other little crimson lady from the other door, ‘and what a turned-up nose she has!’ Then poor Lucy, who was around the corner, ran home and cried all evening.”

“I know what you mean,” cried Kate, coloring.

“Were you listening?”

“Oh, you mean our mouths are doors!” exclaimed Harry, “and the crimson lady is Miss Tongue; but who are the guards, and where do they come from?”

“You may ask the Great King. This is what you must say: ‘Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth: keep the door of my lips.’ Then He will send Patience to stand on one side and Love on the other, and no unkind word will dare come out.”

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

“What made you stop right in the middle of your sentence, and then start talking about something entirely different?” The questioner laughed, and her friend joined as she replied to the puzzled query.

“If I think in time, I make it a rule never to say to-day the mean thing that can be put off until to-morrow,” she explained. “So to-morrow it is out of date, and does not get said at all.”

At pike-lake

A picture that Charity took of a squirrel.

At pike-lake (6)

Daddy keeping score for mini-golf.

At pike-lake (8)

Isaac playing mini-golf.

At pike-lake (11)

Adelle and the picnic at the beach.

At pike-lake (13)

The sand castle everybody helped make.

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