thankful for this sweet girl

sometimes the relationship of mother-daughter can be a tough one.  mar and i butt heads often...she has opinions and so do i.  lately, though, i have been so thankful for this dear daughter God has given us and all her busy, wild, silly, joyful, dramatic ways.  she makes me laugh...on our last creeking adventure, she requested help with her net: "can you help me mommy?  i know it's not women's business, but please?"  what?  where did that come from?  narnia probably.  she makes me cry when she tells me with rapture about her beautiful dream of church in heaven where she saw our baby. 

warming up for her spring violin concert

she has worked hard to learn several songs this year and will often say dramatic things like "i want to play every instrument in the world!"  ok, sweets, let's work on this one for now:)

loves her fair share of creeking adventure...this is right before the crawldad pinched her

this is the spectrum of her day yesterday...holding alligator in the morning

fancy princess party in the afternoon

thank you Jesus for this good gift...give me wisdom and love above all to be her mommy...cover all my inadequacies with your grace.  love you precious girl!

froggies

sweet nature-loving graham has had an unfulfilled longing to catch frogs. he is adept at catching lizards, salamanders, tadpoles, dragonflies, but frogs eluded him...until yesterday on a daddy adventure when they caught TEN. adam says he was practically dancing with joy.

bma and papa visit

my sweet parents came over the weekend and loved on us and the kiddos. we took a swamp adventure while they were here and they even sent adam and i away for an evening. we traveled to the town where we fell in love and went to a concert of one of our favorite bands. truly a treat!

miles insisted on graham sitting in his lap

bma loves with crafts...making paper dolls

peach blossoms from my daddy's orchard

papa loves by home projects...replacing the faucet with his trusty helper.  we also just finally painted this bathroom to a less startling color!

she said "oh, how beautiful!  i see such wonderful things!"

blurry self-portrait

over the rhine...i love the song below..."gonna learn to laugh through my tears...gonna learn to love without fear"

thank you mom and dad!

it's spring

it's been an emotional couple of weeks around here with our miscarriage and subsequent d&c and i feel like, though there will always be sadness and twinges of "what if?" when i think about our fourth babe, i'm finally a little more stable and can talk about it without crying.  i can look at pregnant bellies and newborns without tearing up.  it's a good thing because i have about 20 pregnant friends and a bunch of showers this month.  i want to fully celebrate with friends and family as our sadness does not diminish the joy of new life all around.  our prayer is that God would keep our hearts tender and use a little loss and grief in our lives to make us more compassionate to others experiencing the heartache of this broken world. we know so many who have struggled with infertility, miscarriage , and even loss of children, but these are new feelings for us and we are still processing.  i am struck with thankfulness for my three precious little people and the miracle that anyone is born healthy and without complications.  it's all grace really that things go right sometimes.  another miracle i've been thinking through is the maternal love and bond for a baby i never held or saw and who lived a short 2.5 months.  God's design is truly miraculous in the gift of motherhood.  we have experienced God's love for us through His people who have cared for us so generously.

meanwhile, life keeps on moving.
spring has sprung and we did a little planting, the kids started soccer, and we spent some time with adam's family around Easter.

 

these two are a talkative pair.  marit had her first sleepover with lorelai last week and she has left lots of room for improvement!

cousin micah is a snuggler

one of my very favorite things to do in the spring

usually about 5% of our seeds survive the trauma of being planted by these sweet ones

we are thinking they might grow into their uniforms in a few years

post-game...totally exhausted

it's a combination of ridiculousness, hilariousness, and cuteness