when east meets south
The start of our day at the Animal Kingdom looked a little like this. Not quite ready for it… but getting there. (Except Clementine. Just look at her. The girl is pretty much always ready.) It didn’t take us long to get there, though. Just a few steps past the Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom and we ran… Read More
Our second day at Disney World was all about Epcot. And this is where we met up with once-online-but-now-real-life friend and photographer, Sennu Maria Keith, who came armed with a very big camera and an even bigger dose of joy and enthusiasm… Ready to take pictures of our humongous family for the entire day. Last October, Sennu had reached out… Read More
Not too long ago, we were blessed by the dreamiest gift. Like a make-your-dreams-come-true gift. A gift I don’t even think I could have dreamed up if given the chance. We were given – our entire family, y’all – a one-week trip to Disney World. A fellow-adoptive mama, as she was planning her own family’s trip to Disney World last… Read More
In China, the Chinese New Year celebration begins seven days before Chinese New Year’s Eve, and ends on the 15th day of the lunar year. This year, Chinese New Year fell on January 28th and lasted until February 11th – a date also known as the Lantern Festival. Which means that, even though Chinese New Year was officially several weeks… Read More
Such a Christmas. We celebrated similarly to how we’ve done it the last few years. Pared down our giving (and asking) and were very intentional about how we spent our time together all December long. And the best part? This little one. Home and celebrating Christmas. Her very first. And despite a tentative beginning, she caught on pretty quickly. And… Read More
We are a family of 15. We don’t go all the places we used to. For the last few years we’ve been taking two cars most places because we outgrew the old Sprinter a few kiddos back. We began praying over a solution as a family, and I asked for prayer from my prayer partners as well, knowing God could… Read More
I have always loved Thanksgiving. Gathering family from near and far around the table to enjoy the yummiest food of the year. And celebrating all the good things while tracing them all back to His hand. This year we had some especially good stuff to celebrate. Six months home with Magnolia. In that short time we’ve witnessed her receiving and… Read More
We love tradition. And we especially love traditions around holidays as a way to kindle memory-making for our children, and to just plain make things fun. Halloween, however, is one holiday that has been challenging. I have great memories of Halloween as a kid – sooo, as much candy as I can carry, I just have to put on a… Read More
About a year ago, give or take a few days, I did one big catch up post. A whopper of a post that covered the end of one school year and the beginning of another because, well… life. And this year is even crazier than last year. With the addition of our constantly curious Magnolia, spare time is hard to… Read More
Here we go, finally getting to the end (the end!) of editing and cataloguing my favorite pictures from our time in China with Clementine. No, not Magnolia… Clementine. I’m just going to get this out there, y’all. This little corner of cyberspace has been sorely neglected. Lots of things have resulted in this sad state of affairs: homeschooling nine, a… Read More