Today our church closed by singing this hymn. Our younger son was personally and deeply offended that although he watched our worship director sing it, I did not have it on my phone. To him, the phone is the keeper of all music ever written. I had to convince him I don't have every song …
Age of Observation
"Hooooooly Shoot!" --is what our oldest five year old exclaimed the other night when we had much loved friends over. I guarantee that as much as you didn't expect those to be my first words written here, my husband and I were much more shocked. (Our friends, on the other hand, were literal ROFL--that's rolling …
Just My Hands
I'm embarrassed and, even more than embarrassed, but ashamed to admit that when we began considering different special needs, parenting a child with a limb difference(s) terrified me. How would we do things like go fishing with Derek's family? Or playing the piano like my family? Guitar like his dad? Using utensils? School? Bullying? And …
The Top of Our Fridge
When Derek and I were dating and first married, we would rotate where we would have Sunday dinner every week after church--either his parents' house or mine. After dinner, regardless of whose side of the family we ate with, we would close dinner with devotions. Derek was usually the one to get the Bible for …
Welcome, 2020
Maybe I misinterpreted, but as the end of the year posts began filtering into my feed it seemed like most people were as eager to say goodbye to 2019 as we were, looking forward to this new year with renewed hope and anticipation of things to come. We've had some time to think about it, …
Do Small Things
It's finally December, and while in some ways 2019 has flown by, in other ways we will be glad to keep moving forward. This past year certainly hasn't panned out the way we anticipated or hoped. Does it ever though? When we started out the year, as you know, we made changes to our waiting game, …
Ten Minutes
Two nights ago, I was crocheting in my chair like the little old lady I am inside and Derek was jogging on the treadmill when I heard a strange sound. I was immediately suspicious and immediately anxious, but brushed it off. A few seconds later, I heard it again, but louder, so I called for …
How We Dwell
It's been a hot minute and a half since our last post in January. Honestly, it doesn't feel like it should be almost Thanksgiving...but here we are. I took the last half a year and then some off from blogging and instead enjoyed being. Honestly, it was kind of nice! I never want to write …
The Biggest of Changes
Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, we have to make hard calls that mean major changes. In this particular instance, we're making the biggest of changes to make room for the smallest of people. As I've written about before, when we applied for our third international adoption in September, we did so wholeheartedly. We …
The Boys’ Room 2.0
When we moved to this house, we knew our number one priority would be fixing up the boys' room so that it would be as seamless of a transition as possible. The problem is, we spent hours...days...weeks...making their room at the old house what I like to call magazine worthy. Just about the only …
our simple life 