when east meets south
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
It was just over a year and a half ago that we stood in this same place – Clementine and I. I wasn’t able to put her down because, even though she was 19 months old, she could not walk. She could not stand. She could not crawl. And even if I could have put her down physically, I could… Read More
Y’all. It is so good to be home. And one reason (albeit a teeny tiny one compared to being able to squeeze my babies at any given moment and sleep in my own admittedly crowded bed) is this: The interwebs. There is no VPN required, no wireless kicking on and off, no overloaded data plan, no upload errors, no timing… Read More