A Year of Blessings

As I reflect on all that there is to be thankful for this year, I am brought to tears by the goodness of my God. He has truly blessed our family beyond words.

This time last year we felt God had something big in store for us in the month of November. Big, indeed. November marks one-year from getting "the call" – the one we had so prayerfully been awaiting; the one telling us JP was our son! 😊 As we entered 2021, we began the necessary and exciting preparations for our growing family. Before we knew, May was upon us, and we were hopping on flights to meet our son in person. Now, we're nearly 6 months into being a united family. Oh, how very blessed we are by God.

Since my last update, we've continued to have fun experiencing a bunch of firsts with JP! 😊 We've ventured to Sedalia several times for birthdays. With such beautiful weather, JP was able to ride on Papa's dune buggy, play some croquet, learn his golf swing from Nana, and even play some soccer with Uncle Davion. For Halloween, JP was a pirate (no pictures from behind sadly). Sadly, it got a bit too cold for carving a pumpkin, so we painted instead. We were able to attend our church's Pumpkin Palooza and JP filled up on candy and loved the bounce houses! As the leaves are falling, we had fun this past week raking leaves (even JP pitched in!) and jumping in the big piles. We've been having so much fun enjoying fall as a family. Ben and I, thanks to the generosity of Ben's mom, have even snuck in a few date nights! 😊

All of these fun moments come alongside, of course, all the mundane and challenging moments of everyday life. We've certainly been experiencing those this past month as well. Some days, it seems finding our rhythm and balance as a family may never happen. We're continuing to find and adapt routines to fit the needs of our family. To the sadness (or maybe frustration) of some, we continue to not overcommit and make space/time for our family to bond. As a new mom, to a 9-year-old no less, I am adapting (or trying to at the very least) my newly discovered parenting tendencies to God-centered, God-called parenting styles. More to come on that in a future post, but suffice it to say - many days, it isn't easy; but God has called us to something great, not something easy. For that, we are thankful.

Above all, in the easy and the hard, we thank God for blessing our family. We thank him for blessing us with JP as our son. We have all our needs so amply supplied by our awesome God and we could never be grateful enough for that.

We pray each of you and your family have a wonderful, grateful Thanksgiving celebration. To any of you who have prayed for us over the past year and/or provided some help in any way, we are so grateful for your contribution and support in our family. We know God has blessed us in all those that support us here on this earth. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

In case you were reading only to get to this part…enjoy some pictures! 😊

Our prayer request – Lord, thank you for all the blessings you have so generously given our family. We are so very thankful to spend this holiday season united. We ask for your guidance and discernment as we balance routines with the chaos of the holiday season. Help us to remember the true meaning behind each holiday and to remain focused on those meanings, rather than the hustle and bustle of being overcommitted. Be an ever-present help in the daily mundane and in the holiday festivities.

Until next time – all of our love!