New Beginnings.

Sweet Loves ~

Well, another year is down with a new one upon us.  The older I get, the more I feel like the weeks and the months just blur together faster and faster...with barely room to breathe...or to see the days for what they really are.

Sacred.  Holy.  Filled with so much Life and love.  (And chaos).
Three Hoolie boys and one Wild Child of a toddler girl.  A husband who loves me through it all.
It's a rich life.

This Christmas.  Three gifts each.  But such fun, unexpected gifts...

And it's been a good year.
A year filled with so much change....and so much Goodness.

Days written with God's grace splashed all over them.

That's the whole point of writing this blog, in the first place.  To capture in time what we will all so quickly forget otherwise.  To record our memories and our moments for all of us to remember when we look back over these silly books years down the road from now.  When you boys are men and when London is maybe a Mama with her own sweet passel of babies.  I want you to see how we lived our days - our simple ordinary.  I want you to see how your Daddy and I loved each other...and how we were far from perfect, but how we did our best to walk things out in front of you.

I want you to see how we journeyed with Jesus...

The oldest and the youngest on Daddy's side.

These are the records of our life in pixels.
Our days with a Mama's stream of consciousness scrawled out on paper.
Simple things that I want you kids to remember.
Little memories that I want revived from the back recesses of your minds when you read these words again.

Putting makeup on Aunty Julie.

I get frustrated with myself when I let days and weeks go by without recording the story of our little lives here.  I'm sad when weeks go by without me capturing the little things, the simple days, the everyday ordinary.  The sacred holy of the beauty that's in the mundane of just living life day in and day out together. Nothing special, really....but ...seeing as "how we spend our days is, in fact, how we spend our lives"...well, then maybe everything really is a little bit more rich, if this is truly the case.

New beginnings.  Fresh starts.  God's grace.  Deep love.

It's good to remember.
It's good to look back.

Because when the blur of each day's wildness so quickly meshes into a week....which crashes into a month...and ultimately turns into an entire year...well, sometimes it's barely possible to hold on - let alone look back and fully grasp all that's happened during these past many days.  I think looking back helps us not to live in the past...but to remember how far we have come.  To see where God has brought us.  And to fully grasp the truth of how much He's carried us.

This was a year of change.  Good changes.
This was a year of refining and of letting go.  Always letting go.
And a year of letting God write our Story the way that He sees fit.

These kids. 

This was the year of moving into our very own Home again - tiny though it may be - and of calling it our own.  It was the year of babies becoming toddlers and of little boys inching ever closer to their teenage years.  It was a year of stepping back deep into the life of church ministry and of trusting Jesus to carry us -- all the while remembering how we said we'd never do this ever again, but trusting in His guidance...of walking in obedience...and of finding Joy again in the Journey.  It's been a year of seeing God's sense of humor afresh and anew...and of trying to once again, remember to never say never...

My sisters.  My friends.  My co-horts in crime.

It's kind of a good place to be.

And who knows, really, what this year holds for us.
But, we will continue walking faithful...

Trusting maybe when we can't see the future for what it holds...
Walking in obedience when we might some days feel like running the other way.
Always learning and stumbling and getting back up again in this journey of Parenthood.
Assessing and reassessing when changes need to be made and when Life needs to slow down.
Making mistakes and apologizing again.
Dating your Daddy and growing ever closer...
Learning you kids...and doing our best to show you our love....and our undying acceptance of who God has made you to be.

Hilarious.  And SO super gross....

Always in awe of the fact that He is writing our Story...and of the fact that He is letting us play a part in His-story... Of leaning in, and of being willing participants in trusting the Author of it all.

And so....
With another year behind us, and with a brand new one upon us...
I will kiss that man - your Daddy - into a new year of this crazy ride together.  We'll hold each other tight, and I'll whisper to him soft:  "It's been crazy.  But the story is good.  And I'll still follow you to the Ends of the Earth.  And back again."

This Man.

In the midst of the messy and the madness
I am safe, I am loved, and I am free.
With my Jesus and my loved ones all around me
Step by step, day by day, it's all I need....

My heart.

And to the Author of it all ~
I thank you for this life.
It is deep, it is rich, and it is full....