Somewhere along the way I traded exploration, creativity, imagination for utility. Somewhere along the way I decided usefulness trumps play. When time is short, and the reality of the darkness of our world creeps in, and work threatens to suffocate, who has time for art? Who has time for recreation? Who has time for pleasure? When my Christian brothers + sisters around the globe are losing their heads for their faith, how can I justify sitting idly and losing mine in a book?
I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great theologian and pastor in Germany during the Nazi regime, desperately fighting against the dominance of the Nazi mindset and theology, its putrid sectarianism creeping into Christ’s very church. What a time to live in! Believers during that time were facing intense persecution and the daily knowledge that their time was short, their lives were at risk. Hardly was there time to waste when doctrines must be fought for and upheld, lives must be rescued.
And yet, even in the midst of this time of war, Bonhoeffer, who led + taught a seminary, regularly included recreation as part of the seminarians disciplined life. Did you catch that? He made sure they had time to P L A Y. Who could possibly think about playing in a time of such great risk and suffering?
But the reality is, who can think at all if one doesn’t have the release found in play?
One of Bonhoeffer’s students said,
“Bonhoeffer wanted a genuine, natural community in the Preacher’s Seminary, and this community was practiced in play, in walks through the richly wooded and beautiful district of Pomerania, during evenings spent in listening to someone reading, . . . in making music and singing, and last not least in worship together and holy communion. He kept entreating us to live together naturally and not to make worship an exception. He rejected all false and hollow sentiment.” (I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p.155)
Sometimes when the world is spinning crazy and threats of war overwhelm, we must remember our humanity, we must still honor the creativity with which our Creator instilled in us. He made us to be creative in His image. He made us to be moved by music, to be triggered by the beauty of nature toward mediation on His divine attributes. When we are tired and weary, we must discipline ourselves to play.
We must make art in the face of war.
And even in the weariness of our regular work, we must sabbath and refresh our souls.
Something God has been teaching me lately is to honor His creativity in me, the desires I have to pursue the arts. It was more natural to me as a child; I have journal after journal of poetry, drawings + scribblings, and stacks of songs I had written from my younger years. Then I “grew up” and gave all of that up in the name of maturity, adulthood, in the name of pursuing God. Somehow I separated “creating” from true spirituality, no longer seeing it’s use in the Kingdom work.
But God is calling me to be a child again in my creating. To honor the longing to write, to get back to the work of play. Plain and simple play, play that isn’t for any purpose other than play. No agenda, no hoped-for-outcome. For a utilitarian like myself, this is a discipline!
So, yesterday, after the kids were napping and my household tasks were mostly done, I sat down with a paintbrush + paper. I’ve never worked with watercolors before, never really painted much before. It was humorous to me how many times I got nervous about what I was doing, afraid to “mess it up,” and literally had to say out loud to myself, “This is just play. Just fun.”
This was the outcome (and, not pictured: a restful, happy me):
Let’s take time to play, let’s discipline ourselves to play when all the world is telling us that only what is profitable, only what is measurable is valuable.
Who knows what we could create? Who knows what beauty we might bring forth?
“The glory of God is man fully alive.”
St. Irenaeus
It was the first hike we’d been on in awhile and it was fresh air to my soul. I had had a hard labor with my second born and also a very slow recovery. I was fully wrapped up in my newfound role as “Mommy” to my two precious little ones, and the days were full. But on that hike, I remember hearing a quiet whisper in my soul, like the whistling whisper in the pines: “Remember who you are.”
I snapped a picture of our chacos, my husband and I, to remember. We met leading backpacking trips for an outdoor program, but we had spent little time nurturing that part of our hearts since having kids.
Fast forward a few months…
It was “that” time of day again. You know what I’m talking about, if you have little ones. The bewitching hour, the 5 o’clock melt down. I was hurrying to get dinner on the table, while my three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son squabbled and whined around my feet. I was pregnant with our third, and it had been a long day. One of those days where you are literally counting the minutes until your husband gets home. And banking on the fact that when he walks in the door, you are beelining it to the bathroom for a quiet moment. Or twenty.
Hot steam from the oven rising in my face, waves of nausea rolling over me as my body was telling me dinner needed to be ready soon, and of course, the phone rings. My husband calling, saying he would be late again. The realization sinks in that I’ll be wrangling these two wild ones into the bath and pajamas and bed on my own again, another night. In that moment, it’s hard to hold back the tears. But I surrender to the inevitable and get back to work.
A few hours later when my husband is finally home and we’re catching up about the day, he’s asking me if he can go on a sailing trip that weekend with his dad and that’s when I sort of have a break down. Alone again with the kids? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore my children! But the hard thing sometimes about being a mother is your job doesn’t end at 5pm. You don’t get to leave the office and come home. You are always on-call. Even in my sleep, there’s a part of me that’s listening for anything out of the ordinary, listening for that child who might need me.
That’s when I had a break down of sorts. That’s when I realized things were just sort of out of balance. With my husband training for a marathon, he was leaving for long runs early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4 am, and then sometimes not getting home until the kids were already in bed. I felt like a single parent some days. But as soon as I felt the words, “I need a break!” rising like a scream in my soul, I felt something even stronger rise up: guilt. A break from my kids? What kind of mother says that?
I didn’t begrudge my husband for what he needed to do and for the responsibilities he was juggling. I just began to realize I needed to start protecting a little bit of time for myself to get away and turn off the constant “ON” button in my brain.
When all this began pouring out in a hot mess of tears, my sweet husband was more than happy to accommodate. He agreed, it was important for me to have some time to step away and just do what would reenergize me. We began working some things into our schedule, and he was persistent in asking me if I needed some getaway time on the weekends. At first, I continued to feel guilty taking this time, whether it was just to grocery shopping without the kids, or go out for a cup of coffee with a friend.
I couldn’t shake this sense that I really needed to be there for everything. Like it was wrong for me to not be there every night to tuck them into bed, or to not be there when they got up from their naps. I couldn’t shake the sense that I felt like I needed to “please everyone to the point of emptiness” (Fringe Hours, p. 41). But we pressed on.
With practice came more freedom. It became easier to let go, to see that my kids really enjoy having some time alone just with Daddy. It was amazing to see how a little time away refreshed and reenergized me to jump back in to my tasks at home. It felt like I was coming alive again, enjoying my family more instead of being irritated at everyone for always asking for more.
You see, I believe Jesus teaches us that we are to serve from a place of overflow, not emptiness. We are to be so filled up in Him first, and then from that place, we pour out to others what He has given to us (Luke 6:45, John 4:14). Even Jesus, in His perfection, pulled away frequently from all others to a quiet place alone with His Father for refreshment. If the Son of God needed to refresh Himself in order to best serve the world, how much more do we?
This is why I think Jessica Turner’s book, The Fringe Hours will be a wonderful help to many women who find themselves worn down, weary, never making time for themselves, and often drowning beneath the effort to please everyone to the point of emptiness.
I can’t tell you how many friends have talked with me about this particular struggle, the struggle to find time to do the things they love. Many believe that we simply have to forego those hobbies or passions during this season of motherhood, and while I agree that different seasons of life allow for different freedoms, “we must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please” (Fringe Hours, p. 45). I think sometimes we wrongly assume that Christ’s call for us to serve others means we should be haggard, depleted, always giving and never resting. I think sometimes we think the more worn out we are, the holier we must be, and we wear our exhaustion like a badge. God made us whole people, with a body, a mind, a heart, a soul. We are to tend to these aspects of our being out of reverence to Him and as part of worship to Him (Romans 12:1).
What are we teaching our daughters? I look at my now 4-year old girl and I wonder what her mother looks like in her young eyes. Does she look like an empty shell of a woman, always bedraggled, wearing yoga pants, exhausted, and slaving away over chores or running the kids around to various activities? Or does she see a woman who is enjoying life while being a momma? A woman who is still herself, still loves the things she always loved, makes time to play guitar, to hang out with girlfriends, to pursue creativity, making things with her hands? Does she see a woman who is bubbling over with life? A woman who is fully invested as her mom, but still has passions and ambitions? Or does she just see a tired, irritable woman?
Jessica Turner, the lovely lady behind the popular lifestyle blog The Mom Creative, didn’t just write this book from her own intuitions about women and how they use their time. She surveyed over 2,000 women and conducted research, and then drew from her findings to write this book. The Fringe Hours is meant to help women take back pockets of time that they already have and utilize them in order to pursue the things they love.
This book is super practical with tons of tips and ideas for how to better manage your time and also to discover creative ways to fit your passions into your day. For example, research shows that every person waits on average 45-60 minutes per day. Jessica discusses ideas like planning ahead and keeping a book with you, a needlework project you’re working on for a friend, or notecards to write encouraging words to a loved one while you wait. She discusses barriers to self-care such as guilt, comparison, and self-imposed pressures. She helps you identify some of your old passions and gives many ideas to encourage you to continue pursuing those things, even if it looks entirely different in your current season of life. She also discusses ways we can identify areas in our lives that need more attention
One of my favorite features of the book was that it was interactive with journaling sections peppered throughout each chapter, causing me to respond and record my reactions and goals as I read.
If you find yourself sort of drowning beneath the waves of busyness in your life, this book will be a great help and advocate for you to spend your time well and invest in what truly matters so that, ultimately, you can better glorify God.
Here’s a little trailer from Jessica! Also, you can find out more about the book + read the first chapter HERE.
I load dishes in the dishwasher, scramble together my current stack of books, bible, journal, computer, shoving them into my hastily emptied diaper bag. Tugging my pink beanie down over my ears, I head out into the cold + dark, smiling at the few scattered snowflakes still floating down.
It’s Tuesday. And I’m hurrying. I only have two hours.
Tuesdays are quickly becoming my favorite. This sweet guy has given me Tuesday evenings all to myself. We talked at the outset of the new year about some of our goals + hopes for this year and I asked him if it would be okay for me take one night a week to invest a bit more intentionally in writing. (Or to just lose myself for a bit in a book without the constant mommy-radar that I have up when I’m home, listening and responding to little cries. Or just to scroll mindlessly around the interweb. OR to take a nap in the car, I don’t know.)
I had said how I felt like I could never turn my brain off. There are certainly times during the day when the kids are sleeping and I have time to get a few things done or relax, but in the back of my mind is the constant awareness that I’m on-call to take care of them if they need me. It’s usually fine, but on occasion, it can wear an introvert right out.
It’s one of the most beautiful things about marriage lately, the way we can be a team. The longer we’ve been married, the more we’ve learned that we all function better as a family if each of us has the opporunity to recharge in the particular ways that we each need. It’s been fun to make a habit of asking each other what we can do to ensure the other spouse rests. Sometimes what gives the soul rest is a good hard run in the quiet wilderness where the only sound is your labored breathing and feet on soft ground. Sometimes for my husband, rest is having time to tinker around in the garage and work on his motorcycle or woodworking projects. It’s important for us to make time to connect with each other and go on dates. It’s important that we make time to be all together as a family. It’s important that we connect with the kids. In the midst of all of that, it’s easy to neglect our own souls. Lately we’ve been working on taking turns holding down the fort so the other person can do something that feeds their soul.
And don’t go thinking that we just have a good marriage. We have been married nine years this May. NINE. It’s no small miracle that we didn’t kill each other the first five, but here we are, not just surviving anymore, but (dare I say it?) thriving. The marriage we have now still needs a lot of work, of course, but it is one we have fought hard for. Any progress we have made has come with a lot of blood, sweat, tears + prayer.
This season with three little ones under 4 years old is a very busy season. In order for us to not burn out, we’re learning we have to be intentional about working hard when it’s time to work, and resting hard when it’s time to rest. Playing when it’s time to play.
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Eccl. 3:1
A time for decaf americanos and words in cozy coffee shops late at night. So, there it is. It’s Tuesday again, and I’m writing a little and just savoring this strange-vaguely-familiar-yet-sort-of-foreign sensation of remembering that I’m still an individual.
So.. here’s to husbands who hold the 2 month old while they give the four and two year old a bath. Here’s to husbands who do all the dishes (even though they hate it), who read scripture and sing bible songs over sleepy children as they tuck them in bed. Here’s to husbands who believe in their wives and speak words of courage over them when they think they have nothing to offer. Here’s to husbands who tell their wives to dream. Here’s to husbands who sacrifice.
Some of my favorite reads from this past year. This stack is missing a few that greatly impacted me this past year, such as Eric Metaxes’ “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prohpet, Spy,” and Jerry Bridges “Transforming Grace.”
I sheepishly admit that I have historically been careful not to venture too far in my book choices into places that would disagree with my firmly held convictions. I have begun to challenge myself to read some things that might intrigue, provoke, and even irritate me. To read some things that I think I will probably disagree with. I have been afraid to do this in the past, not trusting my mind + heart to weed out truth from lie. As my favorite professor from school once counseled me, we can engage in content that may make us squirm because we can trust that God will separate what is wheat from what is chaff.
The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I see that He continually leads us into more spacious places. He always leads us on to greater freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), and that He will increase our awareness of the great freedom already won for us in Christ Jesus.
Some books that made me squirm and were out of my comfort zone to read were Sarah Bessey’s “Jesus Feminist” and also Barbara Brown Taylor’s “An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith” (not pictured above). I have to tell you: I am SO GLAD I picked those two up. I’m not sure I can tell you that I agree with everything written therein, but I can tell you that I am better off for having read and engaged in those two books. Well worth the journey and the squirming. I think I’m finding that when I read things that are outside of my comfort zone, I am reminded of how much bigger God is than I can possibly wrap my arms (or mind) around. I am reminded that it is in the diversity of the body of Christ that His incredible, unfathomable largeness and otherness is expressed. No one denomination has a corner on all Truth, and we are wise to remember that. I am reminded that Christ’s final prayer with His disciples centered around pleading for them to be ONE (John 17).
I have a big stack already waiting for me to dig into in 2015:
And since I am now reviewing books for fun (pushes nerd glasses up bridge of nose) this stack will definitely grow over the year. Of course, I will share the best with you here, as I firmly believe in sharing good resources and in reading, reading, reading. Not just to stuff our heads with knowledge, but because we want to learn, to change, to have a conversation with the community of brothers and sisters of our faith both in the current day and in times past. What a beautiful privilege that is!
This season of being a mother to little ones has taught me that the best things in life must be fought for. The path of least resistance is not the way of Jesus. I have so little time as a momma for reading, and yet I’m passionate about squeezing it in. There is so much I want to learn and have yet to learn! This year I am convicted afresh that my focus needs to be on my marriage and my children. So I’m hoping to fill my shelves (figuratively speaking) with words that build up and strengthen my marriage and my calling as momma first and foremost.
Of course, I’m hoping to squeeze in some fiction as well. Sometimes a momma just needs to get lost in a good story.
What are you hoping to read this year? What books would you recommend?
Welcome to a new year, folks! How have you been spending New Years Day? After almost rushing to the ER this morning with a rambunctious boy that seemed to have a possible broken arm, it’s been an otherwise usual Thursday. No time off around here. I’ve been begrudgingly taking down Christmas from around the house, while listening to more Christmas music. That’s ok, right??
Meanwhile my little ones have been doing this sort of stuff:
It was a late and exhausting night for my husband and I both last night and there was No. WAY. we were staying up till midnight voluntarily. I mean, when you have a newborn… WHO DOES THAT?! Who volunteers for less sleep? Not us.
We tucked the kids in bed at usual bedtime, made chocolate chip cookies, snuggled by the fire and watched “Life Below Zero,” our latest hulu addiction. I awoke startled to a ruckus at 12:03 am, realized it was fireworks, rolled over and said “Happy New Year, babe” to Brandon, and back to sleep I went. So that was that.
I fully intend to spend a chunk of time, when I have one (a girl can dream, right?) journaling about this past year and looking forward to what I sense God is up to in 2015. Some goal setting will happen then. I have already had quite a few goals rumbling around in my heart but I need to sift through and see what is reasonable to pursue this year, and what is just going to make me feel like a big fat failure.
For the past number of years I have asked God to give me a word for the year, a focus for He and I. Last year (2014.. last year? that feels weird to say already) was the “feast of grace” year. I feel like for the past year or two God has been taking me back to the very basics of our faith.. the Gospel. Grace. And as I’ve been trying to listen to the Lord in the busy work of this season, bustling around, asking Him for a word for this year, all I can think is: JESUS. I just want Jesus. I want to know Him better. I want to adore Him more. I want to see His glory every day. I want Him in the worst way. Desperate for Him.
Motherhood has a way of paring you down, paring life down to the essentials. The basics. The absolute necessities.
Motherhood has a way of making you desperate for Jesus. Maybe I’m the only one.
I don’t know if that’s my “word” yet, I’m still sitting on it and laying it before the Lord. But I can tell you that I will be placing myself deeply in the Word with renewed efforts this year. The first number of weeks with a newborn interrupt our routines in the best of ways, but my soul has been starving for deep and prolonged time in God’s Word. I’ve been carving time out for that this past week and already the soul-numbness and apathy that creeps in when I neglect time in God’s Word is being replaced with sweet hunger.
A friend wrote me today asking about some ideas/ways to stay in God’s Word right now, and it made me think. I want to share these simple ideas + tools with any one else out there like me who is hungry for more of Jesus in 2015.
1. Timothy Willard recently published a book called Longing for More (which I am actually reviewing on the blog sometime this week hopefully).
This would be a wonderful tool, with daily readings for the entire year, organized around the seasons and rhythms of daily life. More on this book to come in the next few days, but for now, I recommend it to you as a devotional-type read with scriptures, prayers and meditations.
2. I’ve recently begun following along with the lovely “She Reads Truth” community during the Advent season. They are starting a study of the Gospel of John as of today and you can follow along for free on their blog here or through their app!
If you’re looking for an online community of women who want to be in the Word and are looking for kinship and accountability in it, this is a great resource! I plan to follow along as I can. If you want to dig deeper into John, they also offer an optional/additional study pack here.
3. The best years are the years when I’m committed to a year of Scripture memory. Anyone else? It’s hard to commit at the outset of the year, but those are the years when I have drawn the closest to the Lord and seen the greatest fruit. I’m nervous, as usual, to commit this year with all that I’m juggling, but if I don’t have time to meditate on God’s Word, some other things are going to have to be eliminated.
I have journeyed with Beth Moore’s blog community (called “Siesta Scripture Memory Team”) every year since she began it (she usually offers it every other year). It is a very doable amount of memorization, two verses a month, on the 1st and 15th of the month. Beth posts the verse she is memorizing on the 1st and 15th of each month, and you go and post your own or borrow hers if you need inspiration. She shares a whole lot more about it on her blog, and the very first post is up today!
Of course, there are a lot of lovely bible studies available out there as well!
What are you doing to keep in the Word this 2015? I’d love to hear what you’re studying or what resources you may have to share! Let’s encourage one another in this great and beautiful pursuit of Jesus.
The book drew me, beckoned to me, really, from the bookshelves at Barnes + Noble. I was looking for a gift for my sister, and it wasn’t what I was searching for. But something about it spoke to me. Maybe because the title and theme speaks to something I continue to struggle with and seem to learn over and over again with God: Every Bitter Thing is Sweet.
How can every bitter thing be sweet? Truly, can we say every bitter thing? Can we really taste the goodness of God in our darkest of days and trials? Will God hold up under the weight of that, under the weight of our darkest questions and scrutiny?
Sara Hagerty is familiar with bitter trial and circumstance. In this precious book, she explains some of her story, her struggles in early marriage, her struggles for many years with infertility. Her struggle with a God who spoke to her and gave her a vision of a child toddling across her bedspread, and then closed her womb to this possiblity. The struggles through multiple foreign adoptions and the seemingly endless setbacks and disappointments. And all the way, she traces the glory of God shining brilliant in these darkest moments.
In her book she reveals how God took her, a child who believed in a God whose love was best displayed in blessing, and transformed her into a desperately hungry soul. She writes her story of encountering a God who cares to carve out spaces in the soul, empty, hungering spaces that He can fill.
“A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb,
But to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
{Proverbs 27:7}
What if our places of discontent and brokenheartedness, what if we discovered that these places are the very holy + sacred ground of God’s deepest riches, the “treasure of darkness” that Isaiah 45:3 talks about?
Here’s a little excerpt from the first chapter:
“The Bible resting on my chair showed wear–how could it not? My friend, my best friend in this hour, was the Author. The book I’d once used to plan youth ministry talks, the book I’d once used to quote pithy sayings and to confirm opinions I’d already formed, that book had found its way into my deep.
The God behind it was proving Himself to be fundamentally different than what I’d supposed for at least a decade, maybe more. But I was finding Him. In the places I had feared most and spent a lifetime avoiding, He was meeting me. My worst, my very worst moments were getting rewritten without circumstances changing. I was getting acquainted with the kind of deep satisfaction that bad news can’t shake. He was showing me Himself as strong enough. He was letting me hide in Him, letting me find a safe place.
And so I cradled my midnight questions while mamas cradled their babies, and I let God’s psalms tell me He cradled the answer in Himself. I felt forgotten, but I heard God speak that He had not left me. I felt weak, but I heard Him promise an overshadowing. I felt anxious that my constant fumblings would annoy Him, but I heard Him say He delighted in me.
And I felt hungry.
I wasn’t this hungry when God was a distant coach, forcing me to perform.
I wasn’t this hungry when I had a life easily explained, easily predicted.
I wasn’t this hungry when everyone understood me.
Pain had created space. Space to want more. Space to taste a sense of being alive. An alive that would grow to be my favorite kind of alive: secret, hidden to all eyes but mine and those nearest to me.
This had to be the hope of a lifetime, Him and Him alone.”
If you’ve ever wondered about this God, this mysterious God who both gives and takes away, and how anyone can love a God who gives the strange gifts of hardship and hunger at times, you would be helped to read Sara’s story.
If you’ve ever battled fiercely with hard circumstances and painful seasons and have wondered how to make sense of it all, you would be helped to read Sara’s story.
Essentially, if you’ve ever lived the human experience, you would find sweet company in Sara’s poetic prose.
Triumphant, encouraging, beautifully crafted. Sara Hagerty not only shares with you her journey to a deeper hunger for God, she stirs up your own hunger, too. I highly recommend it!
* * * * *
Book Look Bloggers sent me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I am not required to give a favorable review and the opinions expressed are my own.
My darling little girl
Look at you here, four weeks old:
We had no idea the joy in store for us when we would hold you for the first time, when God would deliver you to us. How wise He was, how kind He was, to give us you, sweet girl. What a bright light you’ve been in our lives. So full of joy, so hilarious and so dang smart and so strong-willed! We pray that God gets a hold of your strong will and uses it mightily for His glory, as you have such strength to offer already, in your tiny little precious heart. You tell me all the time that you love God and that He lives in your heart. I hope you know how precious that is to your mommy, who wants so much for you to receive the very best in this life, and the very best you can receive is JESUS. He will make all the good things come true and all the bad things come untrue, as we read so frequently in your little story bible.
This year with you has been a blast. You’ve been the biggest joy and help to momma during my pregnancy with your little sister, and what a happy big sister you are! It makes me so happy to see the way you adore your little siblings and take such care with them. You’ve fallen in love with all things girly and fancy, and I don’t know a single other little girl who is fancier than you right now, other than fancy Nancy herself! You change outfits approximately 17 times a day, which can sure make me crazy sometimes, but when I stop and just take it in I have to laugh at your creativity and zest. I’m so glad that you see being a woman, womanhood, and being a momma as something precious and to be treasured and enjoyed, and I hope that doesn’t change! I love your imagination and your excitement over the smallest and simplest things in life. I love our snuggles in the morning when you run down the hall to find me on the couch with coffee. I love dancing with you and twirling you. I love your love for books (may it never end!) and that we can share in the fun of losing ourselves in a big stack of library books.
You are so special to me. Even when you are crazy and naughty, which is inevitable given the two parents you came from, I adore you. I’ll never stop loving you, no matter what, with an always and forever, never stoping, never giving up, unbreakable love. That’s what it’s like to be a momma.
How are you two already?? This year with you has been the MOST fun. You learned to walk this year. You said your first words, now your first sentences. You’ve begun to reveal more of your little character, your sweet personality. What a thing it is to have a little man-child.. a little dude who notices every truck, motorcycle, or digger. You’ve begun to be captured by books this year. You love being outside and you’re so brave at the park, trying things all by yourself. You had your first big move to a new house. You discovered swimming and riding “kykles” this year. You love helping momma in the kitchen whenever you can (“get the tool (stool) momma?”). You live to pull all the pillows off the couch and play “jumpey-jump.” Anytime I say, “It’s so scary, Noah!” you say “s-okay momma!” If you hear baby girl crying, you run to kiss her and tell her it’s okay. You became a big brother this year! And you’re such a good big brother, so careful and tender with your little sis. You’re still trying to figure out which parts on your body are your ears and which are your eyes. Every night when we pray, you tell us you’re thankful for Jesus and your favorite songs to sing are “Jesus” (Jesus loves me) and “Zacchaeus.”
You’re growing so fast and so big and you’re such a happy little guy. Momma and Daddy love you so much and we are so very proud of you.
We are all sorts of tired over here, back in the midst of the beautiful crazy that a newborn brings. The holiday season is upon us, and two of my favorite little people have birthdays coming up the week of Christmas, too. It’s the best (and busiest) time of year!
We’ve been doing lots and lots of this lately:
This time around, I know how quickly that little newborn will morph into a toddler. How soon her little baby fuzz will fall off and these sleepy days will become wakeful (and more rest-less). I’m being more intentional this time around to just spend time holding and savoring this little one while she’s this little.
A few days after our littlest was born, Thanksgiving was upon us. Though we really probably shouldn’t have been out with her yet, we couldn’t resist the Thanksgiving feast with our sweet family nearby. (I told Brandon later, I truly don’t know anyone who cooks as well as my parents do. We often are treated to dinner at their house, and it is hands down better than any restaurant I’ve ever been to!)
One of our favorite Christmas traditions is finding a little local Christmas tree farm and chopping down our own tree (see last year’s endeavor here). Since I was just days out of the hospital, we didn’t feel like we could risk traipsing around with a newborn in December looking for a tree so we went to our favorite nursery nearby to pick it out. It was still fun! It is what you make it, right? 🙂
(the kids decorated their own tiny tree for their room)
It gets more and more fun every year to celebrate the Christmas season, building memories and our own little traditions and seeing these little ones come alive to the wonder of the season. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!
I’d love to hear your favorite traditions and memories surrounding Christmas! Hope your holiday season is full with all the fun things that draw families together and make for a warm home, and full of what draws our hearts to Christ and to remember the beauty of His incarnation.
The blog’s been quiet lately, but our home has been busy! This little one finally arrived on November 22nd and we’ve been busy loving on and snuggling her ever since:
She was about a week late, so we are especially overjoyed to finally have her in our arms. Big brother and sister are thrilled to meet her after waiting so long to get their hands on her.
Newborns are just the best, eh? The snuggles and sweet smells and first smiles sure do make up for the sleepless nights and nursing woes.
Welcome, sweet girl! We’re so glad you’re here, and we all A D O R E you so much. You’re the perfect addition to our little family.
everything He gives 