This fall...
has been such a season of contrasts.
Deep grief,
juxtaposed with incredible joy...
it still baffles me that those two things can coincide together,
but they do.
I keep finding myself laughing until my sides hurt,
beaming with pride,
all while my heart aches with weariness.
We have had some great opportunities to tuck away as a family and just be together...
let me tell you this family of mine is some mighty powerful medicine!
Our kids just seem to be blooming.
They have become such crazy characters and yet they have such a deep heart for each other and for the Lord...
we are starting to get glimpses of the character they hold in their hearts,
and I just stand amazed that I get to be their Mama.
So, indulge this proud Mama as I share far more pictures than anyone may care to see from our little camping trips lately :)
The pictures may not be that spectacular but let me tell you, the memories sure are!
I know this picture is a bit blurry but for some reason I just love it! We recently bought Doug's parent's 1973 trailer from them and are having a blast playing house at campgrounds!
This is Miss Georgia's 'nest' (otherwise known as the bathtub!) where she loves to sleep...or play Mama bird-baby bird :)
I just love Ravenna's expression here! All of a sudden she is just filled with confidence and maturity, has a hilarious sense of humor and incredible compassion. I find her helping Doug and I out without us even asking all the time.
This would be 'Parker the Giant'. He on the other hand has become a total card, also full of this incredible confidence as he crack jokes, does his 'sweet moves' or stops and cares for his little sister if she is hurt. He will come up and place his hand on her shoulder and gently say" Oh Georgia, are you ok?"
He also hopped in the car after school yesterday and with a giant grin announced,
"Mama I have a girlfriend! Sophia is my girlfriend! I have a crush on her and when I realized she has a crush on me I asked her out on a date....I am in LOVE!"
and let me just tell you Miss Sophia has been his buddy for 3 years and is a little firecracker. She has been asking him to marry her for 2 years now!
Apparently she asked him again yesterday and he told her,
" If I can still find you when we are grown up I'll marry you."
When I asked what he liked about her he said,
"She's my friend and her dad has lots of electronics!"
...at least he has his priorities straight????
Lots of snuggly reading time which I love...they are devouring books!
...and making up new fashion statements???
Miss Georgia seems to finally be turning a corner...she had us pretty worried for the first 2 weeks after surgery. She definitely was far WORSE after surgery than before. She was gray with dark purple circles under her eyes and would play for about 20 minutes and then just wilt into tears because she was so tired.
We are still concerned that she may have another underlying medical condition and will meet with her Cardiologist later this week to see if we need to be engaging more specialist.
But man, she is just sweet and sassy as can be.
She is super into rhyming right now.
We introduced the kids to "The Princess Bride" while camping and now she asks us to say,
"Stop it I mean it!"
a million times a day so she can say,
"Anybody want a peanut?"
Parker is doing great with his vision aids in the classroom and thinks he is quite the rockstar because he gets to use them.
We also go back this week to the low vision clinic to see how he is doing.
We went and played at a park in Bend, OR and the leaves were just beautiful!
We would scoop them and throw them up into the air and the wind would swirl them all around.
The girls threw 'confetti' for Parker to scooter through for over an hour!
It was fun to have time to take a series of photos to try to capture the personality of each kid...
For some reason Ravenna's did not transfer onto the computer so I'm working on it...
...but this guy had a ball with the process!
He currently wants to be an actor or newscaster...heaven help us!
"for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10
