 |
| Andrew Augustine |
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2015
Monday, October 20, 2014
Swinging
One of the other families in our co-op has a swing in their playroom and it is in constant use when we are there. I was intrigued but unsure if it was feasible in our very different space and ceiling height. However, when Peter's OT pointed out how much more calm he is when he is swinging, we made the leap to figure out how to make it work in our space. Jonathan did a fantastic job of researching hanging options and then spending the time up in the attic to drill and reinforce the studs for the hanging eye bolts.
The swing from Hearthsong is big enough for all three of the kids at once and easy for them to get on independently, both of which were big concerns as we searched for suitable options. The upper cloth "cozy house" is a stretchy material that gives a lot of opportunity for reinforcing proprioceptive awareness, deep pressure and heavy work--all that just from some swimsuit material!
As long as they are just swinging rather than bouncing around, one can be in the cozy house and one on the swing at the same time.
Bonus is that we hung in not-quite-centered under the sky light so that they can swing and look as the stars at the same time.
The swing from Hearthsong is big enough for all three of the kids at once and easy for them to get on independently, both of which were big concerns as we searched for suitable options. The upper cloth "cozy house" is a stretchy material that gives a lot of opportunity for reinforcing proprioceptive awareness, deep pressure and heavy work--all that just from some swimsuit material!
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Word for the Year
One of the in vogue topics for bloggers during the turnover of the year is to reflect on the working out of their theme word from the previous year and choose a new one. I like this idea; it reminds me of the way that we choose an ornament each year based on something meaningful from the events or trends of that year. What is harder for me to grasp is how a theme word can be chosen in advance. Maybe because it feels like I've been living in the just-getting-by stage of life for so long and planning ahead for a vision for the year just hasn't been something that I've been able to think about. I also have this irrational belief that there will be life changing surprises in every year (like there have been in the last few) so it is better not to set my heart on my year going a certain way or being able to meet particular goals.
As I've thought about it a little more, I realized that there is another way to look at it. There could be something to focus on that transcends life events and takes the state of my heart more into account than trying to control what happens in my life.
Looking back the word for last year was obvious and a little amusing as we experienced Stretching in many ways, both literal and figurative. My body grew and stretched with my third pregnancy, our family grew by one in our nuclear family and one in my family of origin (with a little extra surprise tossed in at the end of the year with the fullness due in August). We were stretched relationally as our children grew and our marriage dynamics shifted, our church life changed, new opportunities arose and the question of how little sleep you can really survive on was tested to its limits. We commemorated that with a rubber band ball as our Christmas ornament this year.
We do have some priorities for this year. Like 2012, we are hoping to have an off year for babies. This gives us an opportunity to address some of the lingering house projects, look into education and enrichment activities for the older kids, have a few months of largely uninterrupted sleep, finish moving in (now that we have been here for almost two years) and so on. One of the consequences of that stretching has been going into crisis survival mode for too long between Jonathan and me. We are ready to remind ourselves of what it means to grow in our marriage. Another benefit of moving out of crisis mode is finally setting up a viable housekeeping system so that things meet a minimum standard of decency most of the time and I am able to attempt a few of the creative projects that so delight my heart. I have loved being part of BSF over the last couple of years but there is so much more that we could do as a family to grow closer to God.
The word that came to mind as I thought about all of these things is Refresh. When you refresh something, you aren't starting with something new. You are taking something that has been there, sometimes for a while, and making it new and clean and better while still retaining the essential character. Having a fresh attempt at something that has been tried before but maybe had to be set aside or just didn't go that well in the first place.
This isn't really a year of starting brand new things for us, we hope, but of finishing, going back to things that we started but got sidetracked from, moving forward from what we have and making it what it should be. We moved in, mostly, but there are a few areas that still struggle with how they are set up or were never finished at all (office, I'm looking at you) and our lives are just enough different with a preschooler, a toddler and another baby that some reevaluation is called for. Now that Inessa is going to bed more or less at the same time as the other kids, what will that mean for time that Jonathan and I could spend together? Babysitting is still a challenge but, like many families, we need to learn how to date without leaving the house. There are so many things that Ellie is ready to learn that require more planning. I love the idea of a card file system for managing chores and teaching the kids how to help and I did have one set up for my old household. But now I have double the square footage and two more children and it just needs to be refreshed for how life looks now. Gardening is one of my soul refreshments and, while I still have a little one who will probably eat any yard debris that she can get her hands on, I also hope that some of the time that we spend outside over the spring, summer and fall can go into just enough fresh veggies for snacking and salads this year.
This sounds ridiculously ambitious in some ways but these are all goals that I hope to revisit this year. Sometimes refresh means resting and sometimes it means doing something with the rest that you are getting along the way. I hope that this year will be both of those things.
As I've thought about it a little more, I realized that there is another way to look at it. There could be something to focus on that transcends life events and takes the state of my heart more into account than trying to control what happens in my life.
Looking back the word for last year was obvious and a little amusing as we experienced Stretching in many ways, both literal and figurative. My body grew and stretched with my third pregnancy, our family grew by one in our nuclear family and one in my family of origin (with a little extra surprise tossed in at the end of the year with the fullness due in August). We were stretched relationally as our children grew and our marriage dynamics shifted, our church life changed, new opportunities arose and the question of how little sleep you can really survive on was tested to its limits. We commemorated that with a rubber band ball as our Christmas ornament this year.
We do have some priorities for this year. Like 2012, we are hoping to have an off year for babies. This gives us an opportunity to address some of the lingering house projects, look into education and enrichment activities for the older kids, have a few months of largely uninterrupted sleep, finish moving in (now that we have been here for almost two years) and so on. One of the consequences of that stretching has been going into crisis survival mode for too long between Jonathan and me. We are ready to remind ourselves of what it means to grow in our marriage. Another benefit of moving out of crisis mode is finally setting up a viable housekeeping system so that things meet a minimum standard of decency most of the time and I am able to attempt a few of the creative projects that so delight my heart. I have loved being part of BSF over the last couple of years but there is so much more that we could do as a family to grow closer to God.
The word that came to mind as I thought about all of these things is Refresh. When you refresh something, you aren't starting with something new. You are taking something that has been there, sometimes for a while, and making it new and clean and better while still retaining the essential character. Having a fresh attempt at something that has been tried before but maybe had to be set aside or just didn't go that well in the first place.
This isn't really a year of starting brand new things for us, we hope, but of finishing, going back to things that we started but got sidetracked from, moving forward from what we have and making it what it should be. We moved in, mostly, but there are a few areas that still struggle with how they are set up or were never finished at all (office, I'm looking at you) and our lives are just enough different with a preschooler, a toddler and another baby that some reevaluation is called for. Now that Inessa is going to bed more or less at the same time as the other kids, what will that mean for time that Jonathan and I could spend together? Babysitting is still a challenge but, like many families, we need to learn how to date without leaving the house. There are so many things that Ellie is ready to learn that require more planning. I love the idea of a card file system for managing chores and teaching the kids how to help and I did have one set up for my old household. But now I have double the square footage and two more children and it just needs to be refreshed for how life looks now. Gardening is one of my soul refreshments and, while I still have a little one who will probably eat any yard debris that she can get her hands on, I also hope that some of the time that we spend outside over the spring, summer and fall can go into just enough fresh veggies for snacking and salads this year.
This sounds ridiculously ambitious in some ways but these are all goals that I hope to revisit this year. Sometimes refresh means resting and sometimes it means doing something with the rest that you are getting along the way. I hope that this year will be both of those things.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Summer Dancing Bird
When a three year old dresses herself in character, you have to wonder how colorful she is on the inside too.
"I'm flying!"
This is my view a lot of the time.
For the record, that is butterfly shirt, pants, swimsuit, sash, cape, wings, necklace and rainbow headband. Fully decked out!
"I'm flying!"
This is my view a lot of the time.
For the record, that is butterfly shirt, pants, swimsuit, sash, cape, wings, necklace and rainbow headband. Fully decked out!
A 3-year-olds eye view
We took a trip to Seattle Children's for blood draws for Elanor and Peter. While we were waiting, Ellie had some fun figuring out how to take pictures.
Litter brother is on my level:
But Daddy is bending down to fit in the view:
First selfie:
Mommy is a blur--or is it in a blur? I'm not so sure which:
Peter gets the phone:
Litter brother is on my level:
But Daddy is bending down to fit in the view:
First selfie:
Mommy is a blur--or is it in a blur? I'm not so sure which:
Peter gets the phone:
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Meeting Grandma and Grandpa
Jonathan's parents made a trip from Moses Lake to visit and meet their newest grandchild--number 10!
Ellie and Peter weren't a bit excited to take a trip to the park with Grandpa. Not a bit...
 | ||||
| Love |
 | |
| Let me show you how I can make the car make really LOUD noises by pushing this little red button right here... |
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Turning Three
Ellie's third birthday fell on Easter Sunday this year so we decided to celebrate on Saturday with family. Ever since I showed her bits of the Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballets, she has been calling herself a dancing bird or dancing flower so I chose a pink ballerina theme. She was pretty excited to get up and see these hanging in the dining room in the morning:
Sitting with cousin Amy waiting for everyone else to arrive:
The rest of the decorations:
The dancers (including the ones over the window that are hard to see in this picture) were turned into a mobile to go over Ellie's big girl bed in the room shared with Peter. The dried roses are the ones that Jonathan has given me over the last couple of years. I'm not the only one who doesn't want to just toss them, am I?
Pink flowers for me!
Peter with Auntie Dodo:
You're so pretty, Auntie!
Playing with the cousins (minus Judah):
Yummy birthday cupcake:
This was my first experiment with Japanese cheesecake, chosen because it was light, lower in sugar than some of the other options, and gluten free (for the cousin who would doubtless be horribly disappointed to miss out on dessert). It was quite a hit--there were no leftovers.
Sitting with cousin Amy waiting for everyone else to arrive:
The dancers (including the ones over the window that are hard to see in this picture) were turned into a mobile to go over Ellie's big girl bed in the room shared with Peter. The dried roses are the ones that Jonathan has given me over the last couple of years. I'm not the only one who doesn't want to just toss them, am I?
Pink flowers for me!
Peter with Auntie Dodo:
Yummy birthday cupcake:
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The MOB walk of shame
I do know that there is another, less savory meaning for the phrase but it also seemed appropriate here. I mean that walk into a hair salon with your little boy whose home haircut has gone terribly, horribly wrong.
It was a perfectly legitimate idea in the beginning. I've cut Peter's hair a couple of times with scissors and had no trouble making it look just fine. For this latest round, I decided that it was time for it to be a little shorter, a little more toddler-like so it was time to bring out the trimmer for the back and around the ears. I had been asking Jonathan for a couple of weeks to show me how to use it but we hadn't gotten around to looking at it together. After a couple of online tutorials, one day I hit the point of fix-this-now-before-I-go-crazy and thought, "how hard can this be to figure out, really?"
It started out well. The trimmer was fully charged, the adjustable length guard was easy to find and install and Peter was intrigued by the sound but was reasonably cooperative with sitting on the table looking at books. The first part went just fine. But just as I pulled the trimmer away to check my work, the guard slipped a little and, woops, there was a patch that was a little shorter than the rest. No big deal, I thought, I'll just camouflage it when I do the rest and be more careful with the guard position on the trimmer. Turns out, like that first wobble of an unstable ladder that sensible people pay attention to so that they don't break their necks by continuing on, that was just the first warning from the trimmer that all might not proceed as planned. As I continued with the shearing, the guard slipped again and then again, this time leaving a bare patch that no amount of tweaking was going to minimize. In desperation, I switched to the scissors, cutting the top and sides in the previously acceptable fashion. That part wasn't too bad but I found it nearly impossible to blend with the uneven back. Finally, in tears, I had to lay down the tools and admit defeat. It wasn't just the funky-looking, yep, mom did it look, that I was willing to have as the price for the learning curve with the new technique. I didn't think that I could stand to take him out in public.
So we loaded up for the nearest salon (such a ridiculously fancy word for a simple place) and trooped off for the trim that hopefully would deal with the mess, bracing myself for the mockery of the stylists. They were nice enough about it, giving him as good a cut as they could with what I had left and waiting until after I left to laugh at me, per my request. I couldn't show the enthusiasm that I think they were hoping for but at least it did look better than before.
It really is awfully short but I have confidence that at least it will grow out evenly from this point. And we are going to be investing in a proper, fully functional, trimmer set for the future.
My sheared lamb:
.jpg)
It was a perfectly legitimate idea in the beginning. I've cut Peter's hair a couple of times with scissors and had no trouble making it look just fine. For this latest round, I decided that it was time for it to be a little shorter, a little more toddler-like so it was time to bring out the trimmer for the back and around the ears. I had been asking Jonathan for a couple of weeks to show me how to use it but we hadn't gotten around to looking at it together. After a couple of online tutorials, one day I hit the point of fix-this-now-before-I-go-crazy and thought, "how hard can this be to figure out, really?"
It started out well. The trimmer was fully charged, the adjustable length guard was easy to find and install and Peter was intrigued by the sound but was reasonably cooperative with sitting on the table looking at books. The first part went just fine. But just as I pulled the trimmer away to check my work, the guard slipped a little and, woops, there was a patch that was a little shorter than the rest. No big deal, I thought, I'll just camouflage it when I do the rest and be more careful with the guard position on the trimmer. Turns out, like that first wobble of an unstable ladder that sensible people pay attention to so that they don't break their necks by continuing on, that was just the first warning from the trimmer that all might not proceed as planned. As I continued with the shearing, the guard slipped again and then again, this time leaving a bare patch that no amount of tweaking was going to minimize. In desperation, I switched to the scissors, cutting the top and sides in the previously acceptable fashion. That part wasn't too bad but I found it nearly impossible to blend with the uneven back. Finally, in tears, I had to lay down the tools and admit defeat. It wasn't just the funky-looking, yep, mom did it look, that I was willing to have as the price for the learning curve with the new technique. I didn't think that I could stand to take him out in public.
So we loaded up for the nearest salon (such a ridiculously fancy word for a simple place) and trooped off for the trim that hopefully would deal with the mess, bracing myself for the mockery of the stylists. They were nice enough about it, giving him as good a cut as they could with what I had left and waiting until after I left to laugh at me, per my request. I couldn't show the enthusiasm that I think they were hoping for but at least it did look better than before.
It really is awfully short but I have confidence that at least it will grow out evenly from this point. And we are going to be investing in a proper, fully functional, trimmer set for the future.
My sheared lamb:
.jpg)
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Welcoming the unexpected
I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads here is also a friend via FB (really, how else do we see each other's cute pictures of the kids in a timely manner), so the news that we are having another baby is pretty much out. I'm 12 1/2 weeks (yes, I'm claiming the survival of those extra few days!) and the baby will be arriving mid-May if all goes well. Since I have delivered either on or very close to my due dates in the past, we may very well be celebrating mother's day with another birth.
Here is the rest of the story. Ellie was almost 2 1/2 and Peter was coming up on his 1st birthday. My brother and his wife had just announced that they were having their first baby in the spring. Along with their announcement, I had just a fleeting moment of wishing that we were in a position to make that announcement too. We suspected that we weren't done with growing our family but with so many things still to be settled from our move this spring and the neediness of two still quite small children, we were actually pretty content with where things were. My first criteria for deciding we were ready to try for another baby was for Peter to consistently sleep through the night--something that was occasionally tantalizing me with the whispers of what it might be like to have a full night's sleep for the first time in over a year (darn pregnancy insomnia) but had yet to occur with any kind of predictability or regularity. Even as we contemplated reaching this milestone within the next couple of months, we weren't sure that we were going to be ready even then. Jonathan was working a ton of extra hours to get major projects at work finished, we were still unpacking and getting settled after a summer of playing outside and ignoring the inessentials inside and I was enjoying teaching the kids new things and watching them develop into little people--something that I knew I would be distracted from by the inevitable travails of my pregnancies.
One day, a couple of weeks before Peter's birthday, I pulled out some pregnancy tests for a friend who I knew was hoping to try for another baby this fall. I buy the cheap ones in bulk (why pay $10 apiece when you can pay $0.60 apiece) so there are always extras to share around. We keep track of my cycles and fertility signs so I knew that I was on day 26--well before I would have even expected my period. But, on a whim, I decided to take one anyway. Call it quality control since these were left over from Peter's conception and the expiration date was only 8 months or so away. I occasionally enjoy that reassuring single line towards the end of my cycle too (see cheap and abundant tests). But on this occasion, there were unmistakeably two lines. I knew that there had been occasional issues with other lots of this test giving false positives. So I took another one. Still positive.
Jonathan was at work so I had the afternoon at home to process this and figure out a way to tell him. With the other kids, we waited until I was at least a couple of days late to test together and by then we're pretty sure what the answer is going to be anyway. So now I knew and couldn't pretend that I didn't for the five days or so that it would take for him to decide that something was up and we needed to check. I took a picture of the positive test and snuck it into our weekly Friday night fun time together by way of a review of the pictures I had taken of the kids over the previous several weeks. You know that you have two shocked and pensive introverts when the rest of the evening is passed in complete silence.
Over the next couple of days, we reviewed the previous month looking for a way that we could have made a mistake in our tracking or preparation but no obvious moment appeared. There was no room for recriminations or blame anywhere. In the end, we were forced to the conclusion that we had simply been one of those couples for whom God decided on the timing of the child without our involvement.
For many people, an unexpected pregnancy is something that is built into their expectations about marriage and family life. This has never been the case for us. We are planners--sometimes to ridiculous degrees--and we prepare for change by going over all of the possible processes and outcomes well before we put them into effect. When it came to my next pregnancy, we knew that it would be a challenging time physically for me and emotionally for the whole family. With Peter, we were at some level able to prepare for that and set ourselves up with ideas of how to entertain Ellie, feed ourselves and structure the schedule so that everyone got most of their needs met. I also knew that I was not in as good shape as I would like to be before embarking on another pregnancy so we were working on a plan for me to leave the house to get some exercise without the kids this fall so that I would be stronger (and a bit more trim) when the time came. Yet here it was, without any of the grand ideas for smoothing out the process having been implemented and roughly a week to prepare for my significantly reduced capacity which would last anywhere from four to six months.
We have been blessed in some really incredible ways over the last couple of years. Jonathan was hired for a job that he loves doing, we don't have to send the kids out to daycare, we have family close enough to visit frequently, and we were provided with a house that was one of the best that we looked at during our nearly year-long search and, incredibly, was in our price range. And we have two beautiful children. There is a common theme here, however. We planned for them. We prayed for them. We worked for them. We thank God for granting them to us, recognizing that they are still gifts given beyond all earning but we were aware of our participation in the process.
There is a lot of faith involved in praising God in difficult circumstances. I don't want to diminish this reality and I've even been there a time or two. What I didn't expect was the faith involved in thanking God for a blessing that we didn't ask for.
It is one thing to subscribe to the belief that all children are precious and a blessing and sometimes another to accept that God and not you decided that they were the blessing that you were to receive at this particular time. At the beginning, I confess to a wild wish that we could undo this, somehow go back to the way things were with our carefully ordered future. Of course, that isn't possible and we're coming to a place of anticipation, thankfulness and maybe a little bit of extra interest to see this child that God thought we should have so particularly. We're talking about names, how to shuffle the sleeping space and putting on hold some of the things that I don't have the energy for. I can't say that I'm enjoying the pregnancy side effects any more than I usually do but we're surviving most of the time and, as usual, Jonathan is rising to the occasion of my lessened availability and effectiveness in a wonderful way.
I hesitated to share any of this beyond the crazy story of how we found out that we are having our third baby. After all, so many of my friends have lost babies or haven't been given the ones that they prayed for. The pain associated with your surrender isn't something that we've experienced. It sounds ridiculous to even have this struggle when there are so many others who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy in far less ideal situations. So I hope that my story of another kind of surrender isn't hurtful. We're thankful that most of the people we've told who would be concerned for us have mostly squashed their worries and expressed at least some pleasure that there will be another member of the family. We hope that you will join us in praying for this little one and the family that it is expanding.
Here is the rest of the story. Ellie was almost 2 1/2 and Peter was coming up on his 1st birthday. My brother and his wife had just announced that they were having their first baby in the spring. Along with their announcement, I had just a fleeting moment of wishing that we were in a position to make that announcement too. We suspected that we weren't done with growing our family but with so many things still to be settled from our move this spring and the neediness of two still quite small children, we were actually pretty content with where things were. My first criteria for deciding we were ready to try for another baby was for Peter to consistently sleep through the night--something that was occasionally tantalizing me with the whispers of what it might be like to have a full night's sleep for the first time in over a year (darn pregnancy insomnia) but had yet to occur with any kind of predictability or regularity. Even as we contemplated reaching this milestone within the next couple of months, we weren't sure that we were going to be ready even then. Jonathan was working a ton of extra hours to get major projects at work finished, we were still unpacking and getting settled after a summer of playing outside and ignoring the inessentials inside and I was enjoying teaching the kids new things and watching them develop into little people--something that I knew I would be distracted from by the inevitable travails of my pregnancies.
One day, a couple of weeks before Peter's birthday, I pulled out some pregnancy tests for a friend who I knew was hoping to try for another baby this fall. I buy the cheap ones in bulk (why pay $10 apiece when you can pay $0.60 apiece) so there are always extras to share around. We keep track of my cycles and fertility signs so I knew that I was on day 26--well before I would have even expected my period. But, on a whim, I decided to take one anyway. Call it quality control since these were left over from Peter's conception and the expiration date was only 8 months or so away. I occasionally enjoy that reassuring single line towards the end of my cycle too (see cheap and abundant tests). But on this occasion, there were unmistakeably two lines. I knew that there had been occasional issues with other lots of this test giving false positives. So I took another one. Still positive.
Jonathan was at work so I had the afternoon at home to process this and figure out a way to tell him. With the other kids, we waited until I was at least a couple of days late to test together and by then we're pretty sure what the answer is going to be anyway. So now I knew and couldn't pretend that I didn't for the five days or so that it would take for him to decide that something was up and we needed to check. I took a picture of the positive test and snuck it into our weekly Friday night fun time together by way of a review of the pictures I had taken of the kids over the previous several weeks. You know that you have two shocked and pensive introverts when the rest of the evening is passed in complete silence.
Over the next couple of days, we reviewed the previous month looking for a way that we could have made a mistake in our tracking or preparation but no obvious moment appeared. There was no room for recriminations or blame anywhere. In the end, we were forced to the conclusion that we had simply been one of those couples for whom God decided on the timing of the child without our involvement.
For many people, an unexpected pregnancy is something that is built into their expectations about marriage and family life. This has never been the case for us. We are planners--sometimes to ridiculous degrees--and we prepare for change by going over all of the possible processes and outcomes well before we put them into effect. When it came to my next pregnancy, we knew that it would be a challenging time physically for me and emotionally for the whole family. With Peter, we were at some level able to prepare for that and set ourselves up with ideas of how to entertain Ellie, feed ourselves and structure the schedule so that everyone got most of their needs met. I also knew that I was not in as good shape as I would like to be before embarking on another pregnancy so we were working on a plan for me to leave the house to get some exercise without the kids this fall so that I would be stronger (and a bit more trim) when the time came. Yet here it was, without any of the grand ideas for smoothing out the process having been implemented and roughly a week to prepare for my significantly reduced capacity which would last anywhere from four to six months.
We have been blessed in some really incredible ways over the last couple of years. Jonathan was hired for a job that he loves doing, we don't have to send the kids out to daycare, we have family close enough to visit frequently, and we were provided with a house that was one of the best that we looked at during our nearly year-long search and, incredibly, was in our price range. And we have two beautiful children. There is a common theme here, however. We planned for them. We prayed for them. We worked for them. We thank God for granting them to us, recognizing that they are still gifts given beyond all earning but we were aware of our participation in the process.
There is a lot of faith involved in praising God in difficult circumstances. I don't want to diminish this reality and I've even been there a time or two. What I didn't expect was the faith involved in thanking God for a blessing that we didn't ask for.
It is one thing to subscribe to the belief that all children are precious and a blessing and sometimes another to accept that God and not you decided that they were the blessing that you were to receive at this particular time. At the beginning, I confess to a wild wish that we could undo this, somehow go back to the way things were with our carefully ordered future. Of course, that isn't possible and we're coming to a place of anticipation, thankfulness and maybe a little bit of extra interest to see this child that God thought we should have so particularly. We're talking about names, how to shuffle the sleeping space and putting on hold some of the things that I don't have the energy for. I can't say that I'm enjoying the pregnancy side effects any more than I usually do but we're surviving most of the time and, as usual, Jonathan is rising to the occasion of my lessened availability and effectiveness in a wonderful way.
I hesitated to share any of this beyond the crazy story of how we found out that we are having our third baby. After all, so many of my friends have lost babies or haven't been given the ones that they prayed for. The pain associated with your surrender isn't something that we've experienced. It sounds ridiculous to even have this struggle when there are so many others who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy in far less ideal situations. So I hope that my story of another kind of surrender isn't hurtful. We're thankful that most of the people we've told who would be concerned for us have mostly squashed their worries and expressed at least some pleasure that there will be another member of the family. We hope that you will join us in praying for this little one and the family that it is expanding.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Reminiscing
There are a few too many pictures of me looking like this from my childhood:
But at least she is safety minded like daddy too:
But at least she is safety minded like daddy too:
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Folklife 2012
Playing by the fountain with "Autie Etta".
Lightly sweetened boy after a day in the sun and crowd.
Family--the kids were overall happier than this picture looks. It was naptime and we had a hard time getting them to look at the camera.
Messy but happy boy eating messy but yummy dinner in a messy but activity-filled house.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Family Gifts
I finally finished hanging this lovely embroidery that my cousin made for Elanor. The frame came from a local thrift store and when I opened it up it had a mat of just the right color hidden inside. I painted the frame white to fit with the colors in her room. It looks lovely on her wall. Thank you, Desiree!
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Bear Chair
Jonathan's grandfather was a pastor and has become a talented woodworker in retirement. In fact, when we visited his home in Ohio shortly after we were married, I was vastly impressed by the extent and incredible neatness of his basement workshop. Ellie was blessed by this very special package that arrived for her a couple of weeks ago.
She was quite intrigued and tried to make friends with the bear. Then she discovered that it rocked and tried to push it around the living room.
When we put her in the seat and rocked her, she was thrilled.
She is still working on figuring out how to get in and out of it by herself. Now she also goes into her room to show me how well she can rock the glider chair in there too.
She was quite intrigued and tried to make friends with the bear. Then she discovered that it rocked and tried to push it around the living room.
When we put her in the seat and rocked her, she was thrilled.
She is still working on figuring out how to get in and out of it by herself. Now she also goes into her room to show me how well she can rock the glider chair in there too.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)