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

longing for Resurrection

we found out yesterday that our sweet baby went to be with Jesus sometime in the last week.  i saw him or her on the ultrasound, but there was no familiar heartbeat flicker.  even babies in the womb are subject to the groans of creation.  Good Friday was a little more meaningful for me as i pondered the depths of broken world, death, and sin.  praise God that He did come and die and that we have an eternal hope because  in this world "you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world."  while we weep for this one, we know that it is only for the night and joy will come in the morning.  marit, graham, miles are such a sweet comfort as they keep us busy and laughing.  thank you to our sweet friends and family for all your offers to help, prayers, texts, emails, phone calls with scripture and encouraging words.  we feel so very loved.


"And our God is not a God to merely believe, but to experience, not to only believe in, but be held by. A God who not only breaks for you but breaks with you, a God to not only have creeds about, but to have communion with, a God who not only who dies for you, but who cries with you, the God who touches you and binds you and blesses you and heals you and re-members you because He let Himself be dismembered and He is the God we not only believe in— but we know. We know – know beyond a shadow of doubt, death or despair.
He has touched our tears. He has cupped our broken hearts with His scars. He has whispered to the howl, “I know, I know. And I’ve come to begin the making of all things new.” We believe. Because we know. He knows our grief. We know His goodness. And the truth is – we don’t need an explanation from God like we need an experience of God". -ann voskamp (who has been making me a cry a little more than usual) source


 Man of sorrows full of anguish
Sign my pardon crimson red
Grace and mercy freely lavished
From wounded side and thorn-pierced head
We will live in highest honor
Of the sacrifice You've made
Teach us, Lord to love each other
With the love you demonstrate
With the love you demonstrate

We await Your soon retuning
You will steal Your bride away
No more pain and no more hurting
On the advent of that day


may you know the depth of the Father's love for you this Easter as we reflect on the mess He delighted to come into to redeem His beloved.

goodbye winter, hello spring

this could be a lesson in how not to blog: take most of a season off and then update with snippets and LOTS of pictures. what can i say? i can barely keep up these days...because, you guys (those that don't know), i'm pregnant! hurray! and the morning-sickness is a beast. what's the point in trying to keep it a secret. we wanted to tell the kids and once they knew, people at church heard "my mommy got pregnant last night." or after the stranger at the grocery store sarcastically said something about how what i needed was more children because obviously my hands were not full enough, marit joyfully announced that her mommy was going to have a baby! the pure, unadulterated joy of children humbles me. would that we could all avoid becoming cynical and jaded. i haven't been to the doctor yet, but i'm about 10 weeks and due the same week as graham and miles' birthdays in october. we love big families and are so thankful for this gift from God.

it has been a good winter, but i'm surprised at how few pictures i have of our busy days. i'm still old-schooling it with the flip phone and an old cannon camera and i am having trouble capturing these rapidly growing and changing little people. so much happens so fast...the sweet, the challenging, the chaotic, and we are thankful.  and also, we have lots of friends, but somehow i always forget to take pictures when we are with them.  i promise, my homeschooled kiddos get plenty of "socialization" *wink*.

 my sister flew down to run the local half-marathon with me. it was right after i started feeling a little sickly, but she FLEW down and i had done the training (mostly with my sweet friend tara), so despite a little pre-race puking, the thing was done. char ran so well and beat me by a good bit and it was a beautiful day.

forts with auntie are super!

dr seuss had a bday

this is a falcon from a recent adventure.  birds of prey have been a fascination to graham lately and we have a nesting pair of hawks that like to hang out in our tree. we can see the nest from our yard. it has graham absolutely elated whenever they land in our tree. not too long ago they were both in our tree and the kids called me to see...they hopped around for a bit and then...a national geographic nature mating scene occurred...i said "ummmm" graham said matter of factly "they're mating" and marit said "how sweet, they must be married" needless to say, i was not prepared for that nature study!

this is their newest obsession: chess!  adam had to look up the rules, but they actually caught a little of it.  we are thinking checkers might be a better place to start...

we finished the chronicles of narnia and the kids listen to the audio versions sometimes at night.  i love the ideas their imaginations have been opened to through these wonderful books.  below they are dufflepods and i will often overhear funny expressions as they play "by jove!"  or "i trust that you will give me...." we are trying to decide what series to start next.  suggestions?

this is old, but i forgot to post how pax took advantage of our alternate sleeping arrangements while we were working on the kids room.  marit LOVES a cuddle.

volcano time...probably the highlight of graham's homeschool experience so far!

cracking the geodes auntie char gave us for Christmas...went along great with the rock section of our science.  we have really enjoyed our classical conversations co-op and curriculum this year and are going back for more next year.

such a mild winter allowed lots of creek adventures and creature-catching.  i'm so thankful adam had a light month when i have felt sickest.  he is back to his regular random crazy schedule now and though he loves it, we are learning that the ER can have its emotional toll on its docs.  it's no surprise that our world is broken, but sometimes it seems so much more so there.  you can pray that i would know how to encourage adam as he deals with a lot of heaviness at work.  one thing that really refreshes is to be in creation with his family when he is off, so we do a lot of that!   

this sweet boy has really been tender lately, praying for the baby, picking me flowers...i love that side of him.  and i find that if i get him alone, he has a lot to say. 

two dudes and their dog

this kid is our bossiest, goofiest, most orderly child.  he keeps us laughing and has become quite a little chatter-box in his own right.  he likes to close cupboards, and clean up spills and i am not complaining!  he is becoming graham's little side-kick and that has been fun to watch.

silliness

another favorite activity is kite-flying since my uncle gifted us a kite a while back.  seriously.  y'all.  that is good exercise!

marit finished her reading book before Christmas and she is just reading to me every day now and doing so well.  i'm so proud of her hard work!  graham really wanted to learn too, so he is doing the book now too and i've learned that different personalities learn differently and also it helps if mommy has done it before!

sweet boy still loves his crib...he has a lot of changes before his 3rd birthday...got to get him potty-trained, eating a more varied diet, and out of the crib!

graham took this picture of me.  while adam took marit on a daddy-date, graham and i had hot chocolate, read books, watched the tale of samuel whiskers and chatted.  so fun!

we are so thankful for full days and grace that sustains and strengthens us to fulfill our calling.  happy spring friends...hoping the Lenten season has been a hopeful time of preparation for Holy Week and that Easter is a joyous time of celebration for you and yours.