Confidence

No one:
Him: Well, those baseballs keep growing. 😆💪🏻

All Smiles

It’s that delightful time of year when the sun is still out when Dad gets home 😄

Red

Flashback to my little leprechaun last year 👩🏻‍🦰☘️😁 That incredible strawberry blonde hair traveled FOUR generations from the last known redhead in our family! I was afraid it wouldn’t last but it’s still holding strong!! Maybe even a little darker now?!🤞🏻👏🏻

Camera Back Out

Here is a picture I took this month instead of one from ages ago. Yay me. Burned out maybe? 😅😑

One Year Anniversary

One year ago. It was warm outside and we ran over to the school to ride bikes and play on the playground. In a matter of days the school shut down and the playground was off limits. Seeing playgrounds roped off with caution tape was one of the most surreal things of the pandemic for me. I’ve always loved this picture technically, but it carries great emotional weight as well. Thank goodness we never had to give up the bikes.

A Little Light

Celebrating this little man, today. He truly has a heart of gold. I am so grateful he came to our family. Today he gets baptized into our church. He has been counting down for months and his whole heart is in it. I’m so proud of him. 💛

Car Seat

“As long as the seat allows.” Honestly, when you sit in the ultra back of the car we forget about you and leave you to your car seat until you’re 18. Good thing I take pictures so I have occasion to think about this once in awhile. #safetyfirst

Don't Look Back

I cannot bear to spend much time looking back at life before the quarantine. That would be life before masks and homeschool, yes. But further back for me—back before 30 months of isolation. Missed activities and holiday traditions. Before heart surgeries. Before Lydie. Before we were forced to turn inward and rely on ourselves and God—sometimes with others but more often alone. Before deep sacrifices were made in exchange for inexplicable understanding. Before value and love and persistence and faith were redefined. Before I met so many limits that shattered me and tested the active role of Grace in my life. Before I saw God’s open hands in the eyes of my child offering, “THIS is the life I have for you.” Before we were fired in a furnace and made into something new.
Life “before” was beautiful, but I am not that girl anymore. I could not have imagined then the experiences, emotions, or journey ahead. I remember her life like one views a movie through a screen—distant and THERE. A different house, job, family, path.
There’s a new girl in town with a dramatically altered view—pivoting on a few key points of eternal truth, but otherwise paradigm-shifted. Her life is beautiful, too; but the direction is different. She holds the past and carries it with her, but does not seek to go back—and she couldn’t if she tried. The “New Normal” has been her working reality for three years—it just keeps evolving in detail and acceptance. New friends, new jobs, new lessons, new experiences—more beauty, more love, and more witnesses of the Divine.
So no, no going back, here. Only forward, sometimes without a map and seemingly in ill-prepared shoes, but forward, nonetheless. With God, with my people, with one step at a time. Tripping, stumbling, running, seeing. Aren’t we all just learning to walk?

Wild Unraveling

It’s been a very rigid life for years, now. Beeping monitors, doctors’ appointments, restricted schedules. Score sheets and evaluations, carefully planned purchases, selected home curriculum. Timers, masks, Clorox wipes. Measurements, measuring, being measured; the constant strain. Not just medically, but professionally, socially, and mentally, too.
I feel the wild in me unraveling. And not just unraveling but taking over like ivy or the smell of rain or orange juice spilled across the kitchen floor. A great root swelling beneath the surface, getting ready to send a piercing tendril heavenward at last. Labor pains that can’t be stopped. I’m softening my heart to welcome it with reckless abandon. To bear this new and different, but more authentic thing. It’s coming. If not in freedom of schedule at least in freedom of heart and mind and perspective. Which is, in the end, the only real freedom you can declare in this world.

Point of View

I get tired of everyone’s houses and parked cars in my shots. I was one hundred percent lying down on my driveway squinting as I manually focused for this shot. Cars driving by, people out walking. Almost got hit in the head with a ball a couple times. I’m a sight to behold I am sure but I don’t care because being creative is what keeps me sane. And since my boys aren’t the least bit embarrassed yet and usually not even aware, I’ll just hang onto that as long as I can. 🤸🏼‍♀️🤫

Guess who started preschool? 🤗 We have transitioned from early intervention therapies to school-based therapies and we are not looking back! Covid has taken a lot from everyone. One group that has been hit especially hard is the special needs community. Families who would have access to therapies have been largely stripped of their support systems with the move from in person sessions to virtual telehealth sessions. As you might imagine, Zoom therapy for a two year old is not that effective 🥴 We did our best, and her therapists did all they could to help, but the fact of the matter is these kids need hands on help. And parents need a team to fall back on!! One of my greatest stresses over the last year has been the weight of Lydia’s health and development falling largely on my untrained & exhausted shoulders. I am just not enough!! So, although there are certainly risks to taking her out, there are also great risks to keeping her in. We just do our best to find the balance. 🙏🏻🙏🏻 Swipe to see her on her first day. Her excitement to be out with people learning & playing is through the roof. 😁 And she was very proud of her stamp picture. 💛 #misslydiefaith #specialneeds #theluckyfew

Anticipating Spring

My 📷 creativity has taken a big hit this last month as we’ve crawled through February. 🐌🏳️ But March is coming with longer days & less frigid temperatures. 🙏🏻 We went to a playground the other day—for the first time since this all began. One year since my boys have played on a playground! 🤯 I had to try hard not to cry. I wonder how much of this next year will be like that—forced confrontations with uncomfortable anniversaries. I know we’re all excited to get back to normal, but many of my encounters with “normal” over the last 3 years have also been met with deep emotion—a mix of heartache and hope, hurt and gratitude. So as we approach March, whatever that brings us, if you find yourself simultaneously excited, relieved, exhausted, and heartbroken... I see you. One day at a time. 💛

Lensbaby Play

I think I prefer the b&w, but I don’t mind the color one, either. 😊
***
“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world.” – Stephen R. Covey

Intensity

Happy little February throwback. That sunset was incredible. 💜❤️🧡💛