the boys

What a gift it is, this little hiatus from all our norms of work, school and early mornings. We went to one of our favorite places,the Nature Center. I love watching it change through the seasons but there is something so peaceful about it in the dead of winter when colors are dulled and trees are bare and delicate.
I love taking pictures. I love how it helps me see things and helps fleeting times linger. I love the light in Harper's eyes when he sees his brother. Already this precious brother relationship is forming. Juden is so gentle and adoring of our baby, eager to help him stand and watch every new thing he learns.
These days I am reflective of what has grown in our hearts during Advent and Christmas. I'm thankful for each day and the mercy I am shown. I'm overwhelmed by the beauty of these dear ones God gave me. And I'm eager for a brand new year full of hope, promise, growth and new goals. Some list making is on the horizon but for today I am being still in the joy that is bigger than the hard work of raising littles, grace in how quickly children forgive when I make mistakes. I'm resting in that thing which grows in the midst of sleepy looks exchanged in the middle of the night with a crying baby between us. I'm reveling in the simple beautiful prayer uttered by a child that has almost brought me to tears with obstinacy. I am drinking in this whole lovely exhausting season of nursing babe and sleepless nights, mud on clean floors, endless questions, constant laughter, not enough lap space and not enough hands and all the tender chaos of living and loving together.
I've always been a dreamer but when I stop to really look, this is more lovely than them all.

Christmas

‎"Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness and then I slept."
~ Dylan Thomas~








It's hard to believe Christmas has come and gone already. There was no snow to wake to this year but it was a lovely day none the less. It was busier than I would have liked it to be. But that's okay, I am still learning to quiet some things, and embrace some others. I'm not so concerned about a picture-perfect holiday as I am about what is happening in our hearts. Are we learning to love deeper? Are we looking to the needs of others? We are learning, becoming, hopefully changing, always. Here are a few of the precious things I'd like to remember from this year:
*Creating some of the magic I remember for my children.
*Watching Harper discover lights and rejoicing in his life added to our family this year.
* Family movie nights by the fire.
*Christmas morning breakfast feasts.
* Watching our children act out the story of Jesus being born while a blanket-headed Ella tried to wrestle Harper into laying in her arms and saying, "You have to be still, you are the Son of God."
* Having a house filled with music and fresh green everywhere.
* Candle light reading and worship each night, drawing our thoughts always back to He who is coming again.
* Watching Juden marching through the trees in front of a line of siblings and cousins quoting A Child's Christmas in Wales.
* Hand made cards from my loves.
* Watching my brother snuggled with our children reading a poem my dad read to us.

Wherever you were this Christmas I hope it was filled with peace and light.