focused on Glory...Unexpected Winter Beauty

I know that God didn't give us beautiful weather last weekend just for my birthday, but it was a welcome gift regardless!  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were beautiful, with mild temperatures (we even hit the low 70s for a while!), gorgeous sunshine, and a touch of wind.  It felt more like spring than New Year's weekend!


We took advantage of the beautiful weather to spend some time outside...both during my birthday outing on Friday, and at home in our yard throughout the weekend.  The beautiful weather...and the creatures enjoying it with us...were wonderful reminders of God's creativity, goodness, and definitely His glory!

Our yard was full of young mourning doves this weekend...they fascinate me!  

They are beginning to lose that look of "armor" in their feathers, but there is still a touch of that.

There were four doves clustered in this tree.

Loved these two in the tree together...

Squirrel on the roof.

Beautiful sunshine!

Horrid picture, but the way these guys balance in the trees amazes me!  He looks like he should be toppling forward out of f this branch, but he's perfectly balanced, munching away. :)

Be sure to see Tauna's focused on Glory post here.  What a precious story! 

Addendum to last week's foG post:

Somehow between the spacing/formatting/photo issues I was having with Blogger last week and the two girls who were bouncing around waiting to watch a movie with me, I completely lost a {very important} paragraph of last week's foG post.  I'm going to try to recompose it here. :)

From last night's post...

"Mrs. Shirley was the mother-in-law/mother/grandmother of dear friends.  She was a very special lady to our children, and she and I had a bit of a special relationship as well...we were choir buddies for a few years when she first joined our church and sang in choir until she was no longer able, and then I stayed with her once a week or so during her last year.  God used her in a big way in my life. "

What was supposed to follow that was this...(or something close :))...

"Not only did God use  my relationship with Mrs. Shirley in a big way in my life, but He also used my front row seat in watching my friend Jodie take care of her mother-in-law.  I'm no stranger to the world of caring for aging family at home.  I lived with my grandmother for several years to enable her to stay independent as long as possible, and then my parents cared for her for several years both before and after her stroke(s).  But caring for Mrs. Shirley came with its own set of challenges, and watching the way that God sustained and enabled my friend to meet those challenges made a huge impact on my life."