add to that children screaming and crying and laughing , babies crawling on the stones , and the open stable where the men tended to the donkeys who carried our loads to sepphoris , and the older boys going in and going out with loads of hay , and a pair of us rubbing the gold into a new banquet couch , one of eight for the same man , and the cooking over the fire in the brazier , and then the mats spread out on the stones for us to eat , and all of us gathered in prayer , trying to make the little ones be quiet for just a little while as we thanked the lord for all our blessings ; add all this , and you have a picture of our lives that first year in nazareth which engraved itself upon my mind and which stayed with me over all the many years i was to live there .