wordless wednesday

overheard at our house today {big sister edition}

izzy (while watching micah be silly and belly-laugh his way through a game):  mommy, thank you so much for bringing micah home.  he's my favorite baby!!

that's good stuff, people.

wordless wednesday (best buds)

overheard at our house today (baptism)

only you fellow brook hillers will be able to fully appreciate this...

izzy (reading her testimony from inside the storage ottoman/baptism pool):  my name is izzy lewis, and i'm almost four years old.  i came to know christ not long ago.  when i met him he said, "izzy, what are you doing here?"  and i said, "jesus, i need your help finding the gruffalo." 



abby:  well it's now my privilege to baptize you - my sister in christ - in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. 



buried with christ...



and raised to walk in newness of life!!!!!

wordless wednesday (why i have a hard time getting a workout done)

EEEK! it's one of our favorite christmas traditions...

wordless wednesday

silent night

and the answer is no.  it's not that uncommon to find izzy asleep with a "baby in her belly".  :-)

wordless wednesday (a watched pot...)

wordless wednesday (leaf piles)

hope fulfilled

i know you're probably surprised to hear from me.  after all, as my mom pointed out recently, it has been close to two months since i've written.  i've accepted that because of the nature of my business, this little blog will probably have some major peaks and valleys, but as the fall rush is gradually slowing i'm ready to once again overwhelm your eyeballs with photos of my darlings. 

but first...

josh and i decided this year to do something "christmas-y" with the kids each day between now and christmas.  we've got a handful of things already on the calendar - baking cookies, watching "rudolph", attending christmas concerts - but the first order of business was getting our tree up as soon as we got back home from our thanksgiving travels.  so yesterday we pulled the truckload of boxes out of the closet and set to work.  we assembled the tree, hung the lights, and started on the slew of ornaments.  the little ones excitedly grabbed handfuls of them out of the "kid box" while i gingerly unwrapped the ornaments out of the "super-special-please-don't-break-these" box.  i gently picked up one of my very favorites and turned it over to read the back for the 1000th time - for your child known only by god.  then like i have every year since 2005, i wept for the child we lost that year. 



like she has with every little one that has ever been a part of our family, my mom cross-stitched a special gift particularly for that baby and i hang the ornament in a prominent place on the tree each christmas.  but this year, as my mind moved from the loss of our second child all those years ago to judah's death last year, i couldn't help but wipe the tears and smile with joy as i remembered a post i wrote last christmas.  the sixth stocking is a story of grief and hope - grief over the tremendous loss our family had just experienced but hope that in the next year the lord would bless us with a child.  this is the third year that we've hung six stockings on our mantle but it's the first year that our house has been home to six people.  and now, just inches from that first ornament made by my mom is another that she recently gave us...




praising god for his faithfulness!

weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

psalm 30:5

overheard at our house today (the gospel edition)

abby (while praying):  god, please be with all the people who don't know you in china and ethiopia.  and in wisconsin.


later while looking at this picture on my phone...

jack:  mommy, is that jesus on the cross?
me:  no, baby, that's abby in panama city.

wordless wednesday (the mailbox)

"can i vacuum, please?"

it's without a doubt izzy's favorite way to serve, and between her and her tongue, they can vacuum a mean floor.





"i did it!!!"

the red plate and two of my men

the year josh and i got married we moved to nashville, TN for a time of leaving and cleaving.  for those of you who know the whole story, you know that unfortunately, nashville wasn't that great to us.  but one of the huge gifts that did come during that time was the ability to spend a lot of time with my cousin and her husband who lived just a hop, skip, and a jump down the road.  tracy and todd had this particular tradition that they had done within their own family for a while, and when we got married they passed it on to us.

the red plate.

what's the red plate, you ask?  well, it's not much more than a. red. plate.  it's more about the who and why of the red plate that makes this tradition so wonderful.  anyone who's experiencing something special - a birthday, the first missing tooth, first day of school, anything - gets to eat their meals that day off of the red plate.  and today was jack's turn - because our big boy turned FIVE YEARS OLD today!!






if you can't tell, jack's stuffing his face with a blueberry muffin (filled with five candles, of course!) before we jetted out the door this morning for our second big event of the day.  another precious man in my life was celebrating a big milestone as well because as of friday evening this week, my dad will officially be a retiree!  his secretary had put together a celebration with several members of his police department and josh, me, my mom, my sister, and our combined seven little people were invited to attend. 



no, the lunch wasn't at the mcdonald's play place, but judging by that crew, it probably should have been.  :-)

**tracy, in case you're wondering, that IS the original red plate that you gave us as a wedding gift eleven years ago.  anytime we've moved it's gotten packed with the 'very important and breakable' box so it doesn't get damaged.  and since i didn't feel comfortable carting it into the restaurant for daddy's big manly retirement party, i'll be serving him some goodies on it this weekend.**