Saturday, August 6, 2016

Where You'll Find Me...

Dearest readers of Beautiful Girlhood...
Many of you may be wondering where I have been of late...well, I have been writing somewhere else.  {{smiles}}
 
Yes indeed, I began a new journey and would love to share it with you...
I can be found on The Diary of a Country Girl, my new spot in the blogosphere!  {{Smiles}}

I still delight in Pinterest but no longer have a Facebook account...I made the decision to delete my page and personal profile after some thought on the subject...

But...my little shoppe is still open and I have actually just updated it!  You will now find pretty fabric bookmarks and even Christmas reindeer available for sale!  Christmas is drawing nigh and I am working on building up my stock of sweet fabric reindeer! 
I thought I would leave you with a couple pictures of my makes...

 Pretty fabric bookmarks embellished with lace and ribbon...

 A cheerful Christmas reindeer...

Fabric bookmarks made from my favourite fabric...{{smiles}}

 A pink baby taggy ball...

A new beige bunny...

 Red and beige floral mini bunting...I think I should keep this one!

~
Do stop by my country diary, dear friends.  You would be most welcome indeed...my time still seems to be quite limited at present, so I am not keeping up with regular posting, but I always respond to you sweet comments through email!  
What a joy to have so many lovely friends to share the blessings in this life with!

With much love and joy,
Kelly-Anne

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Thursday Pearls...


"Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty...."

~
Join me for Thursday Pearls today, dear friends...

For those of you who don't know, I have begun a fresh adventure and have begun writing on my new little blog, The Diary of a Country Girl...I would love to have you visit me there!  {{smiles}} 

With love in Christ,



Monday, July 4, 2016

A Lovely New Spot...


Dear friends...I am simply delighted to share with you that I have a lovely new spot on the web...{{smiles}}

I would love to have you visit me at The Diary of a Country Girl and I hope you will stay awhile...
It is my new venture and where I will be writing from now on...

For sometime now I have felt my time of sharing on Beautiful Girlhood to have come to an end...I have loved every moment and have formed such beautiful, treasured friendships along the way!

Do stop by for a cup of tea with me, sweet friends!  You would be most welcome...{{Smiles}}

~ Blessings and love always ~

Sunday, June 26, 2016

A Day of Togetherness and Berry Picking

On a beautifully bright and sunny Friday morning, we drove towards Redberry Farm in George for a few hours of  enjoying one another's company and watching the younger girls play and pick strawberries...

This proved to be a fabulous opportunity for capturing some sweet moments with little Caleb and I am delighted to be sharing them with you.  I am sure you would like to see the rest of our family cuddling their baby brother close!

^ Caleb wasn't so keen on this hat, adorable as it may be...but maybe not quite his style...

 Now, you must forgive me, but I simply had to share all these pictures with you...they are the first of Caleb and I and they are very special indeed...I would like to print one out for a frame next to my bed.  Caleb is my little buddy and I adore him.  You see those plump baby cheeks of his?  Well, they are kissed throughout the day and not only by me...all his sisters love him to bits!


 
^ There are almost 19 and a half years between my brother and I...

 Now for the most precious pictures of all...  You can imagine how special it must have been for Mom to cuddle her little boy close and capture the moment in a photograph.  We praise the Lord for His grace and mercy in allowing Mom to recover from such a difficult operation in so little time.  Caleb is now eight weeks old and although my mother is still having to be extremely careful and does experience discomfort yet, God has been gracious and our hearts are truly thankful.

 ^ Kisses for Caleb...


^ Such a wonderful moment...Baby Caleb with his mommy and daddy. 


^ Daddy with his little boy...

 ^ And with his little girl, Sofia.  Sofia is almost five and is smitten with her baby brother - although at first she declared she didn't want a brother but rather a sister, she has absolutely changed her mind since then and thinks Caleb is the ''tootest''.  {{smiles}}

 
^ Nancy and little Caleb...there are sixteen and a half years between them.

~
Even though we do in fact grow our own strawberries, ours have not yet given us fruit this season as they are a different variety to those at the berry farm...  We needed some fresh berries and although they weren't quite so delicious as homegrown, it was a lovely treat for the girls to pick a little bowl for themselves...

^ Gabrielle...

 ^ Rebekah {7} with her harvest of berries...

 
 ^ Gabrielle {9} with her bowl of berries...

^ Beth {11} in the berry fields...I long for a big berry field such as this one!  Just think, my jam making pot would be filled everyday with seasonal goodness!

 
^ Sofia {4} opted for a horse ride instead...she is a natural horsewoman...
She has no fear of horses - how I would love to have a horse and teach her to ride!

~
And so a special morning came to an end.  Now that holidays have arrived and my dad is home for a couple weeks, we will be making more of an effort to go out as a family and make memories together...  {{smiles}}

Wishing each of you a delightful new week!

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

On Caleb and the Busyness of Life...

Have you ever felt as if the days are simply a blur...as if the week goes by without you even realising that Monday has come and gone and the weekend is upon you once again?
That is how it has been in the Gray household of late; while we are in this delightful season of having a wee baby in the house, the normality of life has taken on a different flavour.
I find myself looking at Caleb who is just shy of eight weeks, wondering where time has gone...surely he isn't almost two months??

In between caring for this precious baby boy I am blessed to call my brother and enjoying the gorgeous smiles he gives, I have been fighting off colds every few weeks and trying to keep up with sewing for Heartmade...  The Lord has had His hand upon our little business and blessed us with orders and sales even though it is winter and our quiet time of year...thus, my sewing machine has been whirring daily!

I hope to show you what I have been making in a post very soon, but in the meantime how about stopping by our new shoppe Facebook page?  We decided to create a page for us to share our recent projects, updates on our Etsy shoppe and more and we hope that it will be a lovely growing opportunity for us!  Visit us by clicking here...

It is my hope to return to regular writing and visiting soon as oh!  I have missed you all very much and don't enjoy feeling like such a stranger around the blogging world...  While I am putting together a wonderful post of photographs from a recent family outing, I will share Caleb's seven week pictures with you...I am sure you aren't tiring of seeing this adorable boy yet!

 

Until next time, dear friends...may the Lord bless each of you with a joyful, annointed day!

In Christ,

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Thursday Pearls

 
 "We have ample evidence that the Lord is able to guide. The promises cover every imaginable situation. All we need to do is to take the hand he stretches out."
 
~ Elisabeth Elliot

~ Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  Proverbs 3.5 ~

~
Blessings on this beautiful Thursday, dear friends!
 

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Caleb at One Month...

Good morning dear friends...oh, I have missed writing and visiting with each of you, but as you can well imagine, I have been far too occupied with this little boy at present ~ I am cherishing each moment and treasuring them in my heart...  {{smiles}}  

I know you are all very eager to see how sweet Master Caleb has grown since my last post...on Sunday he celebrated his one month milestone...how time does fly!

Unlike most novelties, this one has yet to wear off...Caleb is even more adorable and cuddly than before and what a joy it is to have him start interacting with us...
His first smiles have been met with joy and delight from us all and he has been praised for holding up his head and ''talking'' to us in his precious baby way...

~
Yesterday little Caleb was the centre of attention yet again and my camera shutter went clickety-click for a good twenty minutes or so while I attempted to capture him and his gorgeous blue eyes before he wanted something more to fill his tummy...



 



It is so wonderfully special seeing Caleb's little personality unfold...he is so gentle and calm and quite unlike the other girls when they were babies.  He seldom cries and fusses only occasionally when he is in genuine discomfort.  Being such a big baby, Caleb spends more than half his day filling his not-so-little tummy and the rest of the time he is content to lie sleeping in our arms.  He is not too partial to his cot, beautifully decorated as it may be - he prefers the arms of his mom and sisters and daddy in the evenings - we have discovered he relaxes and often falls alseep when we sway gently to soft music, preferably instrumental.  This suits us very well for we love music dearly and it would appear sweet Caleb has a love for it as well...


^ "I call this my roar!"


 ^ My, what big eyes you have...


 It is incredible to see such a small baby boy lift himself up and look about as if he were already two months old...  He had not one ounce of fat on him at birth and has only now developed a double-chin and some gorgeous fat rolls around his thighs.  Oh, but he is growing and getting heavier every day - our arms are a testament to that!  {{smiles}}
 
Caleb is quite advanced and strong and moved past the newborn stage by the end of those first ten days!  Now the fun really starts...there is not a moment that he is not wanted by any one of us and I would be lying if I said we weren't fighting over whose turn it is for a cuddle...
He is the sweetest gift and a beautiful miracle...not a day goes by that I don't look upon his precious, perfectly formed face and praise Jesus for the gift of life...my little brother whom I love so dearly  I feel as if my heart might burst.



I would also like to extend sincerest thanks on behalf of our family for the wonderful blessings of prayers, cards, gifts, words of encouragement and concern that showered us before, during and after baby Caleb's entrance to the world...even now you all continue to be a precious blessing to us!

My dear mother made very slow progress after her difficult C-section, but praise the Lord, she is beginning to heal properly at last!  It has been an extremely frightening, painful road for us as a family and it is such a relief to see her making steady progress now and starting to feel a little bit more back to normal...  

She carried Caleb just over 40 weeks and only when he was weighed a few hours after birth did we realise what a big boy our small mother was carrying...where she put him all that time no one can tell!  Oh, I admire her so much and pray that someday should the Lord see fit, I might display as much strength and courage as she has through the births of each of her children...

I am hoping that in the next few weeks we will have some family photographs taken...{{smiles}}



Enjoy this last beautiful day of the month of May, dear readers...I hope to resume regular writing and visiting very soon, but in the meanwhile, please know that I think of each of you every day - how special to have so many dear friends to share with and be inspired by!

With much love and blessings,
Kelly-Anne