Joy in the Journey

My youngest child just turned two. As I reflected on his birth and him coming into our lives, I thought also about how my older two came. I thought about how my experiences with bonding and "falling in love" with my kids were all different. I remember my first child, and how I was just swept away with love. I was overcome. I remember realizing "I'm in love with this little girl". I remember being distraught when I was away from her and elated when I got to be with her. I remember it was intense and loud and full of fireworks. My other daughter I remember it being a slower process. It wasn't fireworks and instantly falling in love. I liken falling in love with her more like the current of a river. A current is steady and it moves you, before you know it you are downstream. Falling in love with my second child felt more like that. I remember one day just looking at her and thinking she was the most beautiful girl on earth. Then came my baby, my f...

Last year, I wrote a series of blog posts about homeschooling. Since coronavirus has made this a hot topic, I thought I would visit this subject again. You can read my original posts here:  Part 1    Part 2    Part 3 As I mentioned in my other blog, I homeschool using  Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool . It is a free homeschool curriculum. I have always used this curriculum, so I can't really compare it to others, but I will say that I love homeschooling with it. If you are just wanting to dabble in homeschooling and are not really sure about whether its something you want to do, it is a great way to get your feet wet without having to commit by buying an expensive curriculum. You can either print workbooks or order them on  Amazon . They have an offline version for the first three levels, so if you don't want your child on the computer for school, you can go that route. I thought I would just give you an example of a typical homeschool day for...

I was praying this morning and thinking about that verse in Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him [God] who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" It my version (The Voice) it says "more than we could ever  ask or imagine". Let me unpack that for a bit. I'm a women of faith and I walk hand-in-hand with the Lord. Where God has led me in my life is more than I could understand or foresee and is places and callings I would've never have made up on my own, it's so clearly Jesus.  But this idea that even as I ask for things, or see answers to prayer happen, that what God is doing is immeasurable more  than anything I could even imagine! That's hard to hold on to. That's hard to comprehend, because how can I? There's more going on than I can even imagine. Like the vastness and beauty of outer space is more than I can imagine. I was thinking about my family and how my husband is so much more than I asked for or imagine (and ...

Sickness. Division. Turmoil. Injustice. There is so much of that going on in our country right now. I don't know about you, but it's a daily struggle for me to keep myself from slipping into depression over it. My heart is aching for the people of my country. And there feels like there is nothing I can do about it. I feel helpless.  I recently listened to a new song from  Andrew Peterson , and it really summed up how I am feeling.  Though it doesn't directly say this in the song, it gave me hope and peace and my mission. How I can help? I need to raise children who love. Who are compassionate. Who are peacemakers.  In a world where people hate each other because of the color of their skin, my family needs to be the ones who love all people. In a world filled with fear, my family needs to be a family of faith. When the world has been completely flipped upside down, we need to be the ones who stand firm on the rock of our convictions. ...

I was a WRECK the first two weeks after our trip to North/South Carolina.  We had been spending every weekend on "Prep the House for Sale" projects, followed by an eventful, but exhausting, week of travel with our three kids, and then coming home feeling crushed that we weren't moving to the Carolinas, that all I had been hoping, praying, and dreaming for, WASN'T going to happen after all. I was crushed.  I didn't fully see it as I was walking through it, but I really was devastated. I thought it was just exhaustion, but I felt completely lost, depressed, and unmotivated. I felt like I was floundering under water. Artist: Isabel Emrich I felt sick. I felt SO tired. I took naps. I prayed. I TRIED to feel better. My husband would give me flickers of hope that maybe we would still pursue moving and I would find myself feeling okay for a little while, then the "no" would come up again and I just felt awful. "Hope deferred makes the heart s...

I have not had a happy baby lately. It took me a while to figure out why. He is going to be a year old in just a little over a week. He is very actively crawling and getting into everything. He is eating a lot of food and handling it great (even solid things like raw blueberries and popcorn). He does not drink from a cup or bottle. He is a mama's milk only kind of guy... Lately, he has been getting super frustrated while nursing. I thought maybe he was teething again or getting ready for a nursing strike. Then his wet diapers started getting fewer. Then it hit me. I follow the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan. They have guidelines for when you are pregnant or nursing, when you are trying to lose weight, when you are maintaining, etc. I realized that I had slipped into weight loss mode the past few weeks and it was really affecting my milk supply. I switched back to the breastfeeding eating plan and upped the amount of Sunflower Lecithin I was taking every day and saw immedia...

I shared last week a little about our trip to North Carolina (see that blog HERE ) and I told you I'd be sharing what was the most impactful part of our whole trip with you. It was the last day before we flew back home and we were living our last day to the fullest. We'd spent time downtown Charlotte talking to people and seeing the beauty of the city.  We then venturing to the outskirts, by just twenty minutes, to a beautiful, historical place, The Latta Plantation... Plantation, I've never  been to one. We've been studying American History in school and I have recently read Harriett Tubman's biography and so this was a part of our trip I was really looking forward to, as well as dreading. Part of what my dream is in travel is learning . I want to learn more and for my children to learn about other people, places, and experiences, that they themselves have not experienced. To deepen their knowledge, empathy, and humbleness that there is so much more than jus...

It has now been three weeks since my son's surgery. If you don't look too closely at his belly button, you wouldn't even know that he was recovering from surgery (it was done laparoscopically through the belly button). He was walking completely upright and not needing pain meds by day four. As soon as he got the go ahead, he was swimming in the creek and running and jumping on the trampoline with all the other kids. It is so wonderful to see, and I am so thankful. But part of me is angry. You see, I also had a laparoscopic hernia surgery. It was four years ago. I woke up from the surgery in pain and have been in pain from it ever since. Now some of the pain was reduced by a surgery I had at the beginning of this year, and I am very thankful for that. But the second surgery wasn't completely successful. And I don't understand why it has to be this way! If this verse is true, where is the good in this?  Does God want me to be in pain? These are ques...

I mentioned awhile back that I was ready for a change and I felt the urge to move (see that blog HERE ). Well, we decided to go for it and pursue moving. I was fully confident and my husband more willing than convinced.  Our first step was to plan a trip to our potential new area... NORTH CAROLINA! I just had that place on my heart and wanted to move there and only there. I couldn't fully explain it, though it made logical sense and met a lot of our family goals, the real reason was it was just on my heart. I wanted to move to the East Coast, to experience new culture and opportunities. It would be a change of job that my husband was seeking and a bigger space and house that I have been dreaming of. It seemed to meet all the goals. So we booked a flight to go visit, a month off, and feverishly began work to get our house ready for sale. SO many painting projects and fixing things, every weekend we worked till exhausted. Then came the fateful week that marked going to v...