5 years married.
8 years together.
Happy anniversary to my best friend, amazing father and loving husband
Thank you for living so deeply and fervently this passage every day. You have challenged me so much over the past 5 years to be a better person than I was 8 years ago.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
V.I.M.F (aka. G+N hahah..)
Excited for many more years of shenanigans, laughter, love, faith and joy!
Love,
E
How time flies! and how quickly little kids grow! =)
Our sweet little sponsor child this trip was almost as tall as I was! It has been such an incredible experience sharing our lives together these past 5 years. Although we live so far from each other our families feel so close.
Adrian’s mom told us the last time we visited (2 years ago) that she prayed that we would have a son. So when she saw us coming she shouted at us “I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU NEXT TIME YOU COME YOU WOULD HAVE A BABY!” haha.. She is amazing.
She then told us that 1 month ago (without even knowing we had a baby) she said she had a dream. She saw S holding a baby boy on his shoulders. She said there was white snow everywhere (she has never seen snow!) And then she heard God’s voice whispering from behind her to tell her to pray for this child. So she has been praying for our little Sam since. We have come to love this family so much. It is so incredible to see them each year, share stories and pray for one another. It kind of gives me a glimpse of heaven. How every tribe and tongue will join together to worship our Lord together. I will see this family in heaven one day and then ‘language’ won’t be a barrier to our love. =)
E
We are back!! Samuels’ first missions trip was FULL of grace, love, joy and fun! I will post more as soon as we do our ‘plan of attack’ in ‘de-packing’ .. or shall I say… ‘treating’ our luggage, clothes and everything else. ahah..
Thank you for your prayers. Will update on our trip very soon.
Here is a photo of our sweet little Sam. By God’s grace, he was such a little trooper on hot and long travel days. =) After two longs weeks, we are home.
E
phew! We had a LOOONNNGG day! but with lots of friends, family + fun!
OH wow! Where has the time gone! I have missed Sam’s 6 and 7 month update! yikes! Our family got hit with quite the sick train (two in a row!) so we have been on the mend. Praise God Sam has been feeling better these past couple days. So! I’ll do 6 and 7 month updates together!
Sammy. Our sweet little boy. You have grown leaps and bounds these two months! How quickly you are growing and learning and discovering this big world (one tissue paper and carpet lint at a time).
What we love:
6mo - you found that you have feet! and they move! (you even sampled them.. prob. didn’t taste very good. ahha)
7mo - you say MUM!!!! We are not sure if it really means anything now.. but it seems that every time you see me, or are upset and want to be ‘soothed’ you say ‘mum mum mum mum’. =)
When you get REALLY excited. You make sounds while ‘breathing in’. haha… oh silly boy.
I love how you are really recognizing people! When you see someone you recognize you give a HUGE smile, arms and legs go wild and you squeal in delight! Then you thrust your whole body and reach out for some cuddles! (now this is opposite, for those you meet for the first time you ‘still face’ them and lift one eyebrow..haha.. so serious)
To soothe yourself to sleep you repeatedly like to punch yourself in the head with a little fist. hahah.. so funny.
Favorites/Discoveries:
- you pull yourself up to standing! We were quite shocked because well.. frankly.. you have no interest in crawling (If you see a toy you want you just roll to get it.) So when we saw you move from just sitting to standing.. time to lower your bed!
- the walker! From your cousin. You absolutely love this thing! It allows us to see into that little mind of yours. Apparently, curious about the laundry room, the wash room, opening cabinets, reflective surfaces (piano, oven). If you get stuck you can back up and turn, change directions.. it is really funny to watch. When you are done, you find me, ram the walker into my legs and lift your arms up and say ‘mum mum mum!’.
Current Challenge:
- illness and alas… sleep. haha.. I think I still spend the majority of my day/night soothing this little dude to sleep. (sometimes successful, sometimes not.) Who would have thought that at almost 8 months old I would still be waking up every couple hours. Which in turn, is made worse by illness. We are battling a cough and stuffy/runny nose. =( I always say.. poor guy poor guy, but S says “no, don’t say that.. say tough guy tough guy” haha..
Our prayer for you:
That your hope and ultimate joy will be in God.
xxoo!
mumumumum
After years and years I have picked up sewing again! My mom is an amazing seamstress so I picked it up from her at a young age, but since moving out on my own (not having a sewing machine) I kind of lost the ‘art’. Just recently my sister bought me a sewing machine for teaching little E piano! Sweet! So ever since I have been loving sewing again! My most recent project is THIS! I am making a ‘star trek’ onesie for one of our friends who is expecting a little one very soon! Here is the top. I still need to work on the bottom. With a baby, I can only sew in like.. 10-15 minutes increments each day.. oh well. Mommy gets 10-15 minutes of fun time to herself. =)
photo-a-day // day 40!!!
Conclusion to the photo-a-day challenge! It certainly taught me a lot about discipline! (and gave me a good excuse to think of new ideas and perspectives). I wanted to end this with a ‘non-glamorized’ mom photo..ahha.. I realized.. most of what I post here is some what of a ‘glamorized mom blog’. Which, in reality is an oxymoron (glamour and mom I mean). Something has always got to give and for me.. well… notice the THICK layer of dust on the mirror.. yup. To spend time with my sweet little boy, capture photos, rest, ‘survive’ I forgo a clean house. That’s right! Sink full of dishes, dust on every window, mirror and surface, toys and clothes all over the floor. I even leave the house without even checking the mirror now! (which leaves me gasping at my appearance when I catch a glimpse of my unkempt self).
Motherhood is beautiful yes, but it is a lot of hard work and sacrifice! I remember ‘dreaming’ of the day I would be a mom when I could do ‘this’, ‘that’, but little did I realize that those wonderful things take time which well… if every mother had just a little more ‘time’ we all would be super mom’s. haha..
Motherhood I am learning is not about being ‘super mom’. It’s not about having it all ‘together’ all the time. My kid doesn’t need the ‘newest’ things, my home doesn’t need to look like it jumped off the pages of a magazine. I shouldn’t allow feeling judged by other people with how I run my home, raising Sam, the choices we make paralyze or make me feel insufficient.
God expects me to be none other than what He created me to be. God gave us Sam because we three are the perfect match for each other. I am his mommy, S is his daddy, flaws and all. And if we make mistakes along the way, then a beautiful thing called grace covers us all.
By Grace, through Faith.
