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Blog, kingston

stop and smell the tulips

One very hard lesson I’ve learned throughout the years is that things don’t always go according to plan. I think that’s especially true when you factor in a family. In those times, it’s good to remember that God is sovereign over all things–even though we may never know why things turn out like they do.

A couple of Mondays ago, we were planning on taking the kids up to Forest Park during Don’s weekend. That was the day that Evangeline was diagnosed with an ear infection and pneumonia. So we rescheduled to the following Monday.

Well, once again, plans had to change. Our boys were coughing and feverish all weekend (which also meant we had to miss out on our church’s Bible conference.) Then on Saturday night, while driving home, our van started making horrible sounds and eventually the power steering went out. Thankfully we were able to pull right up next to our house and we weren’t stranded on the side of the highway.

Long story short–someone was able to come fix our van on Monday and it was much cheaper than we had expected! However, since the van was being worked on, that meant we couldn’t load up the whole family to go to the park.

I had a doctor’s appointment that day, close to Forest Park, so Kingston was my buddy for the afternoon. Of course it was kind of chilly–and super windy–but he was a good sport about it for the most part. We just had to rush to see all the flowers.

“The flowers smell like marshmallows!”

gotta love the way kids remind you to take the time to stop and smell the flowers–over and over again

our exciting trip became much less exciting to him when he realized we were not going inside “the castle.”

(remind me to print and frame this one!!)

When a stranger comes by and offers to take a picture of you and your freaked out 3 year old. **not getting framed! But it does make me laugh.

we did miss the prime time for the tulips but they were still beautiful!

and I’ll leave you with this super artsy belly shot. –photo credit: Kingston

Have a good weekend! (And make sure to wish Don a happy birthday tomorrow 😉 )

April 24, 2015

birthday, Blog, Family, kai, kids

Kai is 5!

Kai-guy turned 5 today! I honestly was not planning on posting anything tonight. I don’t have a lot of words to share and only a few snaps that we took on my phone. But i just couldn’t go to bed without jotting down a few words about Kai because I am just feeling an overwhelming love and thankfulness for him tonight.

The past few days (well, if we’re being honest here—it would be months) have been super hard. The internet can be a deceiving place. I don’t like to get on the internet and complain. I like the pictures that I post to show the happy times. Who honestly wants to see pictures of my kids disobeying or me lying down on the couch multiple times a day? Fatigue and stomach pain have really interfered with my life lately. And over the past few days, I haven’t been able to do much more than take care of our basic needs and try to keep the house somewhat picked up.

That can be discouraging. Add in a million other things and I start to feel like a failure of a wife and a mother. Today, when I got out of bed, I so badly wanted to feel well and be able to smile REAL smiles at my little birthday boy. I prayed that I would be able to feel joy and be able to express how much I love him through my words and my actions. And really, I didn’t get off to much of a good start.

The clock was ticking down and I had yet to feel like I was making this birthday special for him. I was feeling like my “cool mom points” were rapidly being taken away. But throughout the day, Kai would just giggle with excitement because it was his birthday, and he would always follow up those giggles with a big hug for me and a big “I love you, mommy!”

The more hugs I got, the more joy I felt. This continued on through the night as we took him to (the oh so fancy) McDonald’s for his special birthday meal. (You can get away with simple stuff like that when you don’t ever go out to eat. A Happy Meal to my kids is like you’re buying them an iPad–haha) By the end of the night, all I could think about was how he was the one giving the gift instead of receiving it. He was making it a special day for me instead of me making it special for him. He fills me with so much thankfulness. My heart was seriously aching with love for him as I replayed each smile and hug throughout the night.

I know it probably doesn’t sound like much to anyone else, but God answered my prayer for joy this morning through our sweet 5 year old. And I am blessed to have a child (well, 4 of them so far) who don’t expect anything grand for their birthdays. Just showing them our love is all that they desire.

So, anyway, that was kind of rambling and I have no clue if it made sense. But my heart was just pouring with the love I have for my son and I just wanted to share so I can look back to this post and be reminded how blessed I am by all 4 of my children.

So Happy Birthday Kai! We love you to the Death Star and back 🙂

April 3, 2015