{Late Night Waiting}

With Andrew working full time and in Grad School, Judah and I find ourselves with many mid-week late nights together up waiting for Andrew to come home.

Andrew is Judah's best bud and he can absolutely not end his day without seeing his daddy. And I don't fight it because it means something, their relationship is more important than a consistent bedtime right now.

And so I find myself doing a lot of late night waiting with my 3 year old which consist of:

Lots of games of Candy Land

Lots of snugly book reading (our library checkout list is currently at 115 books!)

Busy bag activities (planning a post on these soon, I made about 40 last month and they have been so great for keeping Judah entertained)

Movie watching (our current favorite is anything Charlie Brown) you can see by his face that we are nearing the end of our late night waiting ;)

On these late nights of waiting something special is happening, in the waiting we are making memories together, just a boy and his mama waiting for their favorite person in the world to come home. I love it. Although this is a tough season in our life, we are finding joy in the waiting. 

And the waiting is so worth it...

Our joy is complete :)

{Holy Moments}

Moments that seem ordinary, but are so much more.


Moments that make this life beautiful.


For a long time I thought that holiness would only be found in a certain place, at a certain time, reserved for big moments in our lives.


But lately, I have come to see that holy moments can actually look very ordinary and sometimes come in the middle of our messiest, most simple every day lives.


It comes in that moment when the exhaustion of a long week cements you to the couch and the kids are going crazy...and then dad walks in the door {beyond all exhaustion himself} and everyone is back together again, hugs & giggles and lots of fast talking....a holy moment.


You stop. You take it all in, the laughing, the joy...a shared smile between two parents void of any energy, but full of a shared understanding of "this is why we do it."


It's the realizing that all the hard stuff accumulates to make up the good stuff.


This holy, sacredness of life bursting at the seams.


The quite bedtime stories with just your oldest.


The waiting up late for a husband just to simply see his face today, and it's enough.


The 2am snuggles from a teething toddler.


The way the sun spills in your bedroom every morning, a new day.


The pile of shoes scattered across your kitchen that says "life happens here."


The moments that literally make you stop {even for a second} and realize this is it, this is my life right here, right now and I am thankful.


Holy moments.


Because God is in the every day, this is where life happens in the big and the small.


Watch for those moments this week.


Happy Monday, friends.

{Life RIght Now}

It has been awhile since I have done an update, so I thought I would share a little about our life {right now}.

Judah is just over 3.5 years old already {tears}. He is becoming such a sweet little man. He still has his vibrant, joyful spirit and we are all learning how to embrace it a little more every day. He has an insane vocabulary and really seems to grasp concepts far beyond his years. We love to just listen to him share his thoughts and have a peek into his heart. I started to do preschool at home with him this fall because he is SO ready and just eager to learn. I found a great Christian based preschool program online that we are following, along with some of my own ideas. So far it is going really well, but it is a tricky balance with the twins being the super active toddlers that they are. Nap time is usually our only opportunity to tackle school stuff. Judah is such a social little guy too. He just LOVES to be with people. I have a hard time keeping him off the neighbor's porches :) We are so blessed to call this sweet boy our son. He teaches us so much.

{again, with the fuzzy iPad pics, but something better than nothing ;) }

{Big Bro}

Ryder & Will are 19 {almost 20 months} and ON.THE.MOVE! They are just little busy bees, soaking up everything they can {especially from their big bro}. While they are in very similar stages in a lot of ways, they are also extremely different.

 Ryder is very attached to me {FINALLY, a mama's guy!}, loves to snuggle, cautious about new experiences, passionate about what he wants/ doesn't want, LOVES kitties {not sure how he developed this affection because Andrew and I are anything but cat people!}, He is obsessed with all things Elmo, loves to just sit on his little frog potty and say "poo-poo!" and takes any opportunity he can to be outside {and get on Judah's bike}. He certainly is a blessing to our family.

{Ry may have taste tested the dirt...}

 Will is a pretty independent guy. He is our "wise old soul"- he just always has this intense, knowing look on his face, it cracks us up. He has a very complex vocabulary for his age and seems to really understand a lot more than we probably know. He loves books and will sit for a good 45 minutes just paging through his favorites. He is also very very opinionated about what he wants, which I think just comes with the toddler territory ;) He loves to putter around with little tiny toys and examine the smallest details of things. We just love this little bug to pieces.

{Will, showing off his sweet smile}

 Andrew is in the midst of grad school and working full time insanity. It's nuts. He is pretty much exhausted from the moment he wakes up until he eventually makes it to bed at night. Given all that he has on his plate he does SO much to take care of us all when he is home. We miss him a lot during the week and are really looking forward to this last semester being over! We are so proud of him!

{Andrew & Judah, Best Buddies}

 And me, I am in full blown mom mode 24/7. I give all the single moms out there SO much credit. It.Is.TOUGH. I have not had much time for anything outside of the kids and house stuff, so getting back into blogging is really a great outlet for me. I have met a few amazing moms in town recently, so it is has been great to build a little community of friends that are close by.

{Me and my 3 boys}

Life is good, crazy busy and stressful at times, but so so good.

{Snapshots}

I thought I would share a few "snapshots" of our days from the past few weeks. I have been really slacking on going through & editing our family photos {and sharing them} for a long time now....pretty sure I still have everything from last Christmas to go through and beyond. As soon as my editing load for clients slows down I will get back to our family pictures and catch up from the past 9 months or so :) I just quickly went through and grabbed a few photos that highlight the boy's personalities...as well as a couple of them with their grandma & grandpa W. Enjoy :)

{Judah during a rare moment of quite time}

{Thats more like it!}

{Our little wild man}

{Toddler attitude}

{Ryder & his big green, sparkly eyes}

{Ryder waiting for some breakfast!}

{Our sweet little bud, Ry Guy}

{Will is such a charmer}

{Will loves to look out the window}

{This guy could play play play all day}

{practicing sharing <3}

{Little hands getting in trouble. All. Day. Long.}

{If you got it, I want it}

{Grandma Kathy is a rockstar}

{Grandpa Kriss & Ryder}

{Caught these two both looking at the camera on family picture day :) }

{All 3 sleeping after a car ride home...maybe we should do this every night at bedtime?!}

{Endurance}

I have heard over and over this past month that,

"God will not give you more than you can handle"

and I have smiled, knowing that this is true...

but at the same time, wondering just HOW much that was.

"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it" (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Many times over the last year I have felt that I was being tested beyond my strength,

but the past four weeks have been exceptionally trying.

When we found out we were having twins about 9 months ago I thought I would never be able to do it. I was terrified. I wondered how I would do it, how we would make it. At the time I had no idea, but now 10 weeks into their tiny new lives I find myself overjoyed and loving every minute of it. The rewards have proven to far outweigh the hardships. God has given me an incredible honor in this and has shown me that I CAN endure and overcome and rejoice in my trials!

I have never felt the weight of the world on my shoulders more than I do now.

Between Andrew and I we are,

Raising a 2 year old

Raising 10 week old twins

Starting a farm

Running a photography business

Running a health & wellness business

Working 80 plus hours a week

Buying our first home (with less than 30 days to do it)

Packing, packing, packing

In between all this we are finding time to sometimes: eat dinner, take a shower, and maybe sleep a few hours.

LIFE. IS. CRAZY.

Our strength is waining. Our patience is borderline.

Every day a new challenge seems to creep in

and every day I wonder,

"how much more can we take before we break?!"

But, we are holding on to the knowledge that God WILL NOT give us more than we can take. He WILL lead us out of our troubles & we will come out so much stronger.

I can not wait to look back on this month and see all that we have learned and how much we have grown.

God is good. He is faithful to His promises.

I am so thankful to have a heavenly Father who loves me so.

Because of this I do not fear any trials that may come up ahead....and I know there will be many and all we are experiencing now is giving us strength to someday meet those trails.

My heart overflows as I give thanks for this beautiful, crazy life.

{Ryder & Will: 2 Months}

My little peanuts are 2 months old!

They are both just the sweetest little guys.

So smiley & happy.

Such good little sleepers: 2 days before they turned 2 months they both slept 7 hours through the night! It has been between 6-8 hours now every night since. That is life altering, let me tell ya!

Ryder still likes to have his opinion known & he is LOUD :) But, as soon as you acknowledge his grievance, he is back to being a happy guy. His smiles just melt my heart.

Will is a little more laid back, he just goes with the flow and waits his turn. He will stare into your eyes all day if you let him and give you the sweetest "coos and ooos." I love it.

They are both starting to notice the world around them so much more, they especially love to watch their big brother run around the room 80mph.

At their 2 month check up Ryder weighed in over a pound bigger than Will as I suspected :)

Ryder:

13 lbs

23 inches

Will:

11 lbs 14 ounces

23 inches

I just looked back on Judah's 2 month check up and they both outweigh him!!! Judah was 2 lbs bigger than both of them at birth, but somehow they have beat him by the 2 month mark! He was 11 lbs 9 ounces.

At the appointment the pediatrician noticed Will's eyes crossing. I had noticed it, but was not concerned because my sister had the same issue as a baby and out grew it by 2 yrs old. He literally has the EXACT same eyes as her, it is almost creepy :) I also noticed & told the ped that Will's eyes were different colors, one is very blue and the other half blue half brown. Because of both of these things she wanted to get him into a pediatric optometrist as soon as possible. I was surprised that she thought it was so urgent, but went with her opinion.

After leaving the peds we got a call about 15 mins later that they had gotten Will an appointment with a specialist at the UW children's hospital the next day. It typically takes 6 months to get into this doctor, but his ped was able to sneak him in thankfully.

I brought him to eye doctor for his appointment, still not concerned. But, found out that there are some very real concerns with Will's vision. I left feeling so sad and wishing I could do something to fix it, feeling guilty for not thinking it was anything.

Will was diagnosed with being extremely far sighted. The optometrist said he had not seen a baby this far sighted before and that we needed to keep a very close "eye" on him. He will go back in a few months and will without a doubt need glasses before he is a year old. He believed Will was crossing his eyes because he is having trouble seeing. My poor little bug.

I wanted to cry, but it was just me & Will and I didn't want him to know I was upset. He is just so sweet and has no idea what is going on.

They were also concerned about the difference in his eye color, but said we will also just keep an eye on that. It could just be a genetic thing with the coloring or it can also be a sign of some different diseases--which the doc did not want to discuss until we had more reason to be concerned a few months from now.

Please keep little Will in your prayers.

Pray that his little eyes might just get better on their own.

Pray that the eye coloring is not connected with any kind of disease.

But, for now he is just one happy little guy & I am so thankful for that.

The past two months have been nothing short of crazy, but I have loved every second of these two sweet boy's lives. They are my little treasures.

{Old Old Fashioned}

Life is moving at a fast pace for us and it does not seem to have any intentions of slowing down anytime soon :)

This past Sunday we found out that the plans we had for our move at the end of April were not going to work out like we thought.

We felt let down.

Discouraged.

Angry.

Helpless.

We would have to move from the neighborhood we have loved for the past 3 years and we didn't know where we would go.

We still don't know for sure, but things are looking a little brighter.

It's funny how you think you have everything under control, have all your life plans figured out for the near future...and then BAM. You are thrown off course, wondering what the heck you are going to do with this mess you are in.

It is times like this that I have to sit back and remind myself that I am not in control.

God is.

It is in these moments that I am reminded my life is not my own.

And in a lot of ways, that is so reassuring. If God is in control, what do I have to worry about?

Well, if your me, you are a hard nut to crack and you really like to be in control. And you also like to worry.

Stupid.

Well, I am trying to let go. Trying to have faith that God has better plans in store for us.

And it has not been easy.

We have gotten our hopes up and had the door slammed in our face a few times already.

And each time it has pushed me to give up a little more control and hold on to the faith that I know God would never leave us hanging.

Yesterday we found a house.

A place that felt like it could be home.

Everything about it felt so right.

I prayed, "Lord, please let this be it. Let it work out. I want this so much."

But, at the same time I am afraid to get my hopes up too much...

But, why would it feel so right if it were not the house for us?

it is beautiful.

123 yrs old.

full of character.

full of stories.

i can picture our 3 boys growing up and filling the rooms with memories.

i can see us having dinner in the dining room.

climbing the giant willow tree in the back yard.

canning our summer harvest in the kitchen.

Please pray for us as we go through the process of buying a home for the first time. Pray that things go smoothly & quickly. Pray that we would trust that this is God's plan & not ours.

We are so thankful for the blessing of our family who has been helping us every step of the way.

We can not wait to get "Old Old Fashion" and move out of town, start our farm, live in a beautiful old home....and live the dreams God has on our hearts!

{Change}

We are making changes for our family. Some big & some small.

For our health. For our environment. For our future.

After becoming parents we really started to look at the every day things we do, wanting to do the best thing for our child in every way, big & small.

When we had Judah one of the biggest leaps we took in how we would care for him in a simple way was in choosing to use cloth diapers. From there we started to evaluate all the "details" of raising a child...

What would we use for body care for our baby?

What would we feed him?

What would we clothe him in?

What will he play with?

How will we take him places?

It is not always easy to switch from the "conventional" way of doing things. A lot of times it can be cheaper and more convenient to do them the main stream way. And we have not been perfect, even knowing what choices are healthier, but this year we are going to dive in head first and slowly make the changes we have been wanting to implement over the past few years.

I hope to share many of the changes we are making on here as a way to inspire or guide others who might be interested.

Here are some of the areas we will be making changes in:

1. What we eat. We already try to eat locally as much as possible and cook homemade meals. But, as Andrew starts his venture into farming & his first CSA, we are really focusing on what we feed our family even more. I will be learning how to can and preserve all kinds of things this summer :) We are committing to not eating any prepared frozen meals (don't do this often, but if we do it has been from Trader Joe's--no preservatives, ect...but a heck of a lot of salt!) We will eat organic fruits and veggies as much as possible/available and a lot less meat (and when we do, it must be local.) We will not eat out often, but will choose instead to cook from scratch, at home & make it a fun, family activity...we really want Judah to have a love for cooking.

2. What we put on our bodies--shampoos, body washes, toothpastes, deodorants, ect. Our skin is the largest organ in our body and absorbs everything we put on it! I will be trying the "no-poo" regime (more on that later) and researching everything we use & sharing here. It is so scary to think about all the things in body care products and what the possible affects could be on our bodies years down the road...many chemicals in them have been linked to cancers, birth defects, ect.

3. What we buy. We want our kids to not only understand how to wisely spend money, but also to have a respect for the environment & what affects buying new has on it. We are committing to buying used as much as possible, reduce, reuse & recycle! Clothes, furniture, cookware, toys. When we do buy new, we want to buy from environmentally conscious companies, preferably made in the USA. I also want to learn more about sewing and creating things for our family with my own hands.

4. Driving less. It will be tricky now that we have 3 kiddos, but we have never shyed away from a challenge :) Two parents plus two Burleys= transportation for the whole fam!

A lot of times when I talk about this people say their number one reason to not make changes like these is cost. Let me tell you, Andrew and I are some of the most frugal/cheap people you will meet. It PAINS us to spend money, we hate it. I will be sharing about how you can really make it LESS expensive to make a lot of these changes!!

There is SO much more running through my head in ways that we can/need/will make changes...I am so excited to share this journey here!

{One Month}

I can not believe my babies are one month old...such a cliche thing to say, but I really can not wrap my mind around how this could have happened in what feels like overnight.

The days are melting away and there is nothing I can do to slow them down. It feels like we are caught up in a tornado and I am just trying to hold onto all of these little moments.

With Judah I spent every day just cuddling and savoring every minute, but with two babies AND a toddler around I am lucky to stop & hold onto one moment a day. It makes me sad in a way because I can not enjoy each of my babies the way I did Judah, individually. But there really is something so special about having two babies at once....

Twice the chubby cheeks to kiss

Twice the sweet baby smell

Twice the soft baby skin to touch

Twice the little smiles in their sleep

It is overwhelming at times how much cuteness is packed in one place :)

What I want to remember about the first month:

Learning how to carrying two babies at once

Learning how to carry two babies at once while running after a wild toddler

Seeing Andrew cuddling all three boys at once

Judah yelling, "check the baby!" whenever he hears one of them cry

The way it feels to have two sweet babies quietly gazing up at me at 3am

How incredibly tiny and sweet they are

Will's soft lamb-like cry & chin quiver

Ryder's strong, determined cry

Judah telling Andrew which baby is which & Judah being right & Andrew being wrong :)

Ryder rolling over at TWO weeks old

Will sleeping 23 hours of the day

Judah telling me, "good job mama!" when I feed the babies

Judah watching WAY too many movies

Building train tracks while nursing

Our first time taking all three kids on a road trip (to visit great grandma)

Snowy days trapped inside with my sweet family

Andrew cooking delicious meals at 9pm when we finally had time to eat :)

Changing diapers 40 times a day with my eyes closed

Midnight tinkles & many outfit changes

Loads and loads and loads of laundry

The sweet sound of the babies' gentle breathing in their sleep

Keeping track of every feeding & diaper changing on the iPad

Pizza for dinner 5 nights a week

Doing everything one handed, all the time & getting really good at it :)

Judah tickling the babies' toes

Judah licking the babies' faces and saying, "oh gross," but doing again anyway

Late nights with Andrew, both so tired we can barely talk, but smiling

Andrew never hearing the babies cry at night

Andrew getting up EVERY time to help me in the middle of the night

Being so thankful for a wonderful husband & father

Being so blessed

Both boys are about 8 lbs and 20.5 inches long

They JUST started wearing 0-3 month clothes, but can still squeeze into some newborn

Even though we rarely go anywhere I dress them up every day

Ryder has blue eyes and auburn hair

Will has one brown eye & one blue eye and his hair is dark brown

They look nothing alike.

Will has his great grandma Carol & Aunt Heidi's eyes

Ryder looks so much like his big brother Judah

Both boys have so much of Andrew in them--his hands, his toes, his smile

Will has my nose and Ryder my hair color

They are so precious, so themselves.

I took a bunch of one month pictures, I will post some soon :)

We have received so much support and love this first month...

My sister spent the first two, difficult weeks with us

I don't know how we would have survived with out her!

So many sweet friends came to entertain Judah and hold a crying baby

We have received MANY diapers, special thanks to my sweet parents!

Pizzas were homemade, ordered & baked for us

Neighbors dropped off sweet gifts & took Judah for play dates

Friends volunteered to have Judah play at their house

Others took him on fun trips like the zoo or the children's museum

My parents sent us on a much needed Valentine's dinner

Andrew's parents bought us amazing concert tickets for a great date night

So many sweet cards and gifts were sent

So many prayers on our behalf

Without all of this our first month would not have been so smooth

We made it

We survived our first month with twins and LOVED it!

We look forward to many more and give thanks for all the wonderful people who have been by our side, supporting and loving our little family.

WE LOVE YOU ALL!

{And then there were 5}

Wednesday 2.1.12--the day we went from parents of 1 to parents of 3 :)

We could not have hoped for a better experience. My doctor has said over and over that she has never had a twin delivery go so smoothly. We are so thankful for this after a LONG and difficult pregnancy.

This is Will & Rdyer's birth story :)

On Wednesday (2.1.12) morning I called triage and quickly got the SAME response I had gotten the Saturday before..."we are full right now, call back at 9am and we should be able to get you in this afternoon."

I had just gotten out of the shower, dried my hair was READY to head over to the hospital. The bags were all ready (AGAIN) and I was not about to be told I had to wait another day!

I had just told Andrew the news and was holding back tears when my phone rang. It was triage calling back, less than 5 minutes later. They "suddenly" had room for me and told me to come in at 7am. I later found out that my doctor had called in right after me and found out they were not taking me. She was NOT happy! Love my doctor. LOVE.

As we left the house to head for the hospital we snapped one last picture of us as a family of 3. I started to tear up as we said goodbye to Judah. I was so worried about how everything would affect him. Would he still know how much we love him?! Would he know it would never change?

We showed up at 7am sharp and were escorted to one of the beautiful new birthing suites. We just kind of hung out with our nurse for an hour or so, answering lots of ridiculous questions. Then at 8:30 my doctor strolled in to give the go ahead to start my antibiotics (I found out I was step B positive). I had to have 4 hours of antibiotics in before they could break my water. I was already 5cm with stronger contractions, so they were hoping I could make it the 4 hours.

The morning was pretty uneventful. Judah came up and hung out with us a few hours. He was pretty scared of the big hospital room and seeing me in the hospital bed. He quickly warmed up when the nurses started talking to him & gave him a big brother sticker :)

At around 1, when the antibiotics had finally gone through one round, my doctor came back and said it was time to break my water! She was sure once my water broke things would move quickly.

And they did.

Within an hour and a half of breaking my water I told Andrew I thought it was time! I paged my nurse and the resident doctor came quickly to check my progress. I was 10cm! Andrew had a HUGE smile on his face and grabbed my hand and said, "here we go!"

My heart was beating SO fast. Suddenly the room flooded with people. They had to get me to the OR to deliver. Before I knew it Andrew was dressed in scrubs and we were rolling down the hall to the OR.

The OR was really intimidating compared to the softly lit, comfortable birthing suite. It was HUGE. The lights were bright and there were SO many people in the room:

-MY OB

-2 Resident doctors

-My birthing room nurse plus 4 others

-4 NICU nurses

-2 Pediatricians

-An anesthesiologist/ photographer :)

-A few other random people that I am still not sure of why they were there, but at that point I just didn't care anymore!

The bed in the OR was so narrow and uncomfortable. I was afraid I would fall off when I started pushing!

The nurses were all loving Andrew and his enthusiasm :) He was all smiles and just so excited to meet his new little boys.

My doctor seemed annoyed with all the people hustling around and kept insisting that we really did not need them all there, even though she knows they have to be. She's too funny.

Within 10 minutes of being in the OR my doctor gave me the go ahead to start pushing. All I could think about was how badly I just wanted to BREATHE again! That was my motivation to push the first baby out :)

The anesthesiologist quickly turned photographer grabbed our camera from Andrew and told him to enjoy the moment and he would take care of the pictures! What an amazing guy!

About 15 minutes later Ryder was born. I could not believe how sweet and small he was. He looked so much like Judah did, but a lot tinier. As Andrew and I were cuddling our new son my doctor reminded me that we were not done yet! :) What a strange feeling...to deliver you baby and realize that there was one more still to come!

As they were weighing and checking Ryder over I had to concentrate on pushing again. It was so hard to do when all I wanted to do was look over at what was going on with Ryder. Andrew had followed the baby over to the warmer and seemed to have forgotten his job of helping me :) One of the nurses ushered him back to my side.

Before I started pushing I asked my doctor how long it usually was between births. She said "anywhere between a couple minutes to 6 hours."

I was not about to push for 6 more hours and started to push as hard as a I could. Everyone was saying, "whoa! WHOA! Slow down, hold on just...here comes another baby!" It seemed like only a few seconds went by, but from the time of Ryder's birth to Will's birth it was 17 minutes...so I maybe pushed 5-10 minutes! It was awesome. I swear delivering twins was EASIER than my delivery with Judah! It just happened so fast.

When I first saw Will I was blown away by how different he and Ryder looked. He was SO precious and so tiny too. Just as he was in the womb, he was so quite and peaceful with the sweetest little cry. We were in love.

As they took Will to be weighed everything finally felt real. We just had twins. We have two sweet little babies! After 9 months of an incredibly difficult pregnancy I had my reward...and it was SO worth it. I would do it again in a second.

Here is our first picture with both boys:

{Andrew is holding Ryder & I have a just born Will}

Both boys were 6 lbs 13 ounce! The whole room started laughing when they announced it! They were also only 1/4 of an inch apart in length!

Everyone in the room was beaming. We were so thankful of such a smooth, easy delivery. It was the perfect start to our family of 5 :)

I felt great afterwards and was walking around really quickly. I remember feeling so much more tired and sore after having Judah. This time I hardly felt like I had given birth.

We called my dad, who was not able to be there, first and told him the babies' names. We wanted him to feel special and be the first to know their names. We had named Will after him. (More on why we chose their names in a later post).

After talking to my dad, my mom , sister, Andrew's parents and Judah came in the room to meet the babies. Judah was thrilled! Shortly after they came in a few friends followed and Judah exclaimed, "BABIES! BABIES! BABIES!" He was jumping up and down and so excited to show off his new brothers. Thank you Mandy, Carolyn and Mitch for coming to meet our boys!

When everyone left and we moved to our recovery room we finally had a moment to stop and be thankful for what a blessing the day had been. We were just in awe of our 2 sweet boys and stayed up way too late cuddling them. One nurse scolded us and told us we better get some sleep while we had a chance. But, we didn't care, we were so happy and would have stayed up all night.

To celebrate we ordered Chili's take-out :) I had been craving it for so long and was not able to enjoy it because of my gestational diabetes...it felt SO good to be able to eat what I wanted again!

Thank you to everyone who kept us in your prayers that day and for so much of my pregnancy. We could feel God answering them all along.

Blessed

Being a Mom has been the greatest blessing of my life.

It has also been the greatest challenge.

In the day to day, I sometimes forget how blessed I am.

I get caught up in the mundane, the routine.

The tantrums sometimes outshine the sweet little moments.

The fear of the unknown takes over the present joys.

How will I care for THREE children TWO AND UNDER?

How will I ever have time alone?

When will I shower?

How will we manage?

I forget about:

Judah's sweet smile & big blue eyes.

The feel of his small hand in mine.

Our dreams of a big family coming true.

The gentle bops and bump from two babies in my belly.

I AM BLESSED.

Even when life is difficult, the blessings remain.

I pray that I can hold on to this knowledge in the months ahead.

I pray that as things get more complicated and difficult the blessings will be more apparent.

I pray that I would be satisfied with the life, the blessings, the challenges of this life.

I pray these same things for you.

I want to end with a song that I have been listening to over and over again lately by Stephen Kellogg- "Satisfied Man."

Click here for video

"IF HEAVEN AND FAMILY AND CHILDREN ARE WHAT'S LEFT OF THE RACE THAT I RAN, THEN I'LL QUITELY SLIP TO THE SLUMBERING PEACE OF THE SLEEP OF A SATISFIED MAN..."