the long winter

Laura Ingalls Wilder made it seem pretty glamorous, but the truth is - I think every mom in central IL was beyond ready to see sunshine earlier this week. A friend recently commented to me that she has learned this winter to enjoy staying home, and I'm thankful for people like her in my life - who remind me to back up, take out all the junk, and realize what's actually important. And while this winter has taught me similar things, if I'm being honest, I'm definitely ready to say good-bye to the cold and snow. Elijah is less tolerant of change than Ivory and Titus are, and on top of that, his little lungs gave him a pretty hard time this winter. It was a little overwhelming to feel like if I took him out one day, I was risking being homebound for the next two weeks. Furthermore, my energy and our schedule has changed and things just look much different than they did when Titus was Elijah's age. And so I'm still trying to flex into that.

I process externally, and carving out space for that has been challenging. In this space, in particular, I've been inhibited by the fact that if I uploaded too much more information to my wordpress blog, I was going to have to start paying for the service. And so the result was that I just didn't blog, because it was kind of overwhelming to try to transfer my blog again, and I didn't want to pay for it, for sure. But I finally got it all migrated over the course of a few days and I'm thrilled to be back on blogger. It kind of feels like coming home. :) Thanks for coming along for the ride.

So in the end, March and April didn't look much different than January and February, but here are a few photos to document the months anyway. They are not really in order, but definitely tell the whole story! It's everyday life mixed with the highlights. There's a little boy who is growing up, in spite of all the time he's spent at OSF, another little boy who is, well, 3, but also growing up, and a little girl who keeps everybody on track.

I'm not going to post any videos, but if I would, you'd see Ivory learning to read, Elijah giggling at the way Ivory and Titus get in his face, and a few highlights from preschool parties and more. As I look back at these photos, I realize we did more than I thought we did. We even traveled to Ixtlan, and although we returned home with a sick little boy, God was faithful as always. I just wish, often, that I could be more courageous and trusting for Him.















































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