Half a dozen years

December 16, 2013 by Kelli

My baby is six today. This child brings so much joy to our family, and I am grateful every single day for his smile, his humor, his giggles, his freckles, his energy, his sweetness.

He is so precious to me.

He’s currently keeping his hair longer because, in his words, “I wanna be able to flip it.” Um…okay.

He’s always good for a laugh.

That face. I could cover it with smooches if he’d let me…

Goof

Goof take 2

Perhaps his biggest flaw is that he knows he’s cute, and he works it.

Skinned knees and elbows are part of his every day wardrobe. “Play hard of Go Home.” That’s his motto.

He hates shoes so this is what his feet look like every moment of every day.

He continues to grow taller, yet he has only gained about 4 pounds in the last three years. He’s a scrawny little bugger…

All the girls have crushes on him. What can I say? Chicks dig freckles…

I’m constantly wishing I could freeze time with this kid, and yet each new season brings out a new aspect of his personality that is so much fun. I can’t wait to see what he becomes in the future.

Posts of birthdays past if you’re interested:

Someone’s One – December 16, 2008

To My Son on His Birthday – December 16, 2009

My Christmas Baby – December 16, 2010

Four is More – December 16, 2011

Delightfully Five – December 16, 2012

Filed Under: Family, Kids, Landon Tagged With: Birthday, Kids, Landon, Life, Motherhood

Scenes from a (crazy) (blessed) weekend

December 9, 2013 by Kelli

We packed last weekend full of as much activity as we possible could in order to fit everything in before Christmas. Birthday parties, an all day training for orphan hosting, and our annual Christmas party left us completely spent last night.

But it was all so fun!

I baked, cleaned, baked, cleaned some more, set up, tore down, set up, tore down again, and on and on it went, and when it was all said and done and the dust settled we were left with great memories, and sweet blessings shared.

Today I’m just going to share a few photos of our crazy weekend. I’ll be writing later this week about the impact our Christmas party had on us, and will hopefully have both locally and internationally.

We are blessed, indeed.

We kicked off the weekend by celebrating Landon’s upcoming 6th birthday.

I managed to control 15 kindergartners, a piñata, and a metal bat all by myself WITHOUT BEING BLUDGEONED TO DEATH! Someone give me a medal. Or a stiff drink. Either will do…

Don’t you love how much kids enjoy celebrating one another?!

A 6 year old opening gifts in front of his friends – the definition of claustrophobia…

On Sunday we hosted our annual Christmas party in which we gathered toys for The Ronald McDonald House, and this year we teamed up with Sole Hope to cut shoes for Ugandan children.

So many people we’re blessed to know.

Cutting out old jeans, which will be made into shoes for children. So simple. So effective.

Sweet friends working hard. We cut enough fabric to assemble 30 complete pairs of shoes.

It’s not a party without a wicked game of soccer, football, baseball, tag…

Lee reading the story of the birth of Christ, and why we love to bless and give to others, because so much has already been done for us.

Tia and Landon helped me assemble the shoe kits Sunday night, which will now be sent to Uganda to be sewn together.

We have one week left to prepare for Christmas before our sweet “K” arrives to spend a month with us. I am admittedly a little overwhelmed, and also relieved to have last weekend under my belt. But what a blessing it is to be able to pour ourselves out to the greater benefit of others. It’s not easy, but the reward is worth the lack of sleep, the stress, and the work involved.

I can’t wait to share more with you all this week about the way the Lord has blessed us by giving us opportunities to bless others!

Happy Monday, friends!

Filed Under: Christmas, Family, Grace, Holidays, Kids, Landon, Ministry Tagged With: Blessed to bless, Christmas, Holiday giving, Kids, Life, Sole Hope

The Ultimate Betrayal

December 5, 2013 by Kelli

Guys, we have a problem. On the grand scale of “Problems the World Faces” this is, like, a .5. It’s a small problem when placed against the backdrop of all the things that could go wrong.

But it’s still a problem.

My van is falling apart. A moment of silence, if you please.

It’s a funny thing, paying off a car. When I submitted the final payment, I felt an awesome sense of victory. I felt like I was sticking it to the man.

We enjoyed a WHOLE year of no payments before the heat shield on my engine went kaput and we needed to sacrifice one child’s college fun to fix it.

(Sidenote – I actually have no idea if it was the heat shield that went bad. I can’t remember what happened. I just remember that when the mechanic told me the issue and how much it would cost, I felt like he was explaining the mechanical failure of a space shuttle – not my van. So I’m sticking with heat shield for the purposes of this blog post.)

That event began a slow descent into car maintenance hell. New tires. New belts. New this and that.

Shattered windshield.

A few months ago, the check engine light came on. I pretended I didn’t see it for awhile before finally taking it in only to find out the fuel level sensor was going bad. It didn’t take a $60 diagnostic test to figure that out given the fact that my fuel gauge is never accurate.

Then there was an oil leak.

Then they told us how much it would cost to fix the fuel sensor, and we’re thinking it would be more beneficial to just get a new car than sink that much into this current one.

That’s when it all hit the fan.

Lee came home and scoured the internet for ~~new~~ used cars. I peeked over his shoulders and do you know what he was looking at?

SUV’S!

“You don’t really need a van anymore,” he tried to reason with me. “You could just get a 7-passengar SUV instead.”

The betrayal! For shame.

Of course, I did consider it briefly. I considered the cool points I’d get back if I got rid of the minivan and went back to traipsing around town in a slick SUV, no longer neutered by my four-wheel metal office.

But then practicality set in. I have three children, all of whom are on track to be rather tall. If Sloan doesn’t slow down, he could easily reach 6 feet by junior high.

I tried to envision him and his tall, lanky friends crawling into the back of a 7-passenger SUV, and all I saw were broken windows and a lot of inappropriate jokes.

Someday I’ll experience release from the confines of the minivan. Someday I will pull up to the curb in a saucy little car that screams “hip” and “cool.” I’ll probably be a grandma by that time, but whatever.

I’ll be one hip granny.

Until that time, however, I’m afraid the minivan is the practical choice for me. They even have vans with built in vacuum cleaners now. WHHHAAAAA?????

Ten-to-one a mom came up with that idea. I’m still waiting for minivan makers to adopt my brilliant idea. And when they do, I expect them to give me a free van for the duration of my minivan driving years.

THAT’S NOT MUCH TO ASK!

So there you have it. I may be in the market for a new minivan in the coming months, and my husband is a traitor to the minivan community. I still love him, though. If for no other reason than for his brilliance in this movie.

Peace out.

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Lee, Life, Minivans Tagged With: Buying your first minivan, driving a minivan is cool!, Minivans, Minivans Are Hot

The single, blinking strand

December 4, 2013 by Kelli

On Christmas night last year, after all the gifts had been unwrapped, the meals consumed, the bustle of the day quieted, and my household fell asleep, I sat in front of our lit tree. With all the other lights turned off, I curled up and stared at the Christmas lights. Some of them twinkle, and some do not. This annoys the part of my brain that longs for order, and yet somehow it fits our family.

I watched the half blinking tree, and my heart twisted as I mulled over the possibility that our adoption would be terminated. At that point, talks of a ban on Americans adopting were only murmurs. Nobody really thought it would happen – we all thought Putin was posturing, just trying to save face. I stared at the tree, and I wondered if it was all going to fall apart. I wondered if this year, Christmas 2013, we would indeed have a new daughter home, dancing around the tree, admiring the single strand of blinking lights and trying to figure out why none of the other lights blinked.

I wrote about that night here – I wrote about how the Lord whispered “Wait,” and how my heart fluctuated from grief to peace, and back and forth like that single strand of blinking lights.

Three days later, all my fears were realized when Vladimir Putin made the ban official.

You know the rest of the story.

Two months ago, I woke up early one morning. I felt restless and sad, a feeling that’s been too familiar this past year. With Christmas coming up, I found myself once again wishing that things were different. I thought we’d have her home at this point. I thought we’d be a family of six before the end of the year.

I spent a bit of time sitting my favorite chair, sipping my coffee and praying that I wouldn’t miss all the blessings of the upcoming Christmas season. I prayed for a release from my heartache. I prayed for a contentment in where my family is right now.

An hour later, I opened my computer, and noticed an email from an organization called New Horizons for Children. This is an orphan hosting organization – they bring children to the United States for 4-5 weeks as an opportunity to experience a new culture, to experience family, to improve their English, and to have a potentially once in a lifetime experience outside the walls of their orphanage.

I showed Lee the email, and together we prayed over this opportunity. We looked through the children available for sponsorship, and one young woman stood out to both of us. Within days we had filled out the application and made the first payment to officially welcome her to our family for the Christmas season.

God is funny, isn’t He? Last year I thought for sure that we would be bringing home a toddler daughter to raise for a lifetime. Instead we will be welcoming a teenage “daughter” to love for only a short time. She turns 18 a week after she returns home, and she will officially age out of the orphanage. Our hope is to love her well, and love her fully, for the month that we have her so that when she’s on her own, she will have some reference and understanding of her worth in this world.

We want her to see Christ in our family.

We want her to see what a godly, stable relationship between husband and wife looks like.

We want her to know that she is not defined by her background.

We want her to know that we will always love her, even if we only get her for four short weeks.

Will you pray for our family as we welcome this precious girl who has spent most of her life in an orphanage? Pray that this experience will be a positive one, for both her and our family. Pray that she will see and know love. Pray that we can bond quickly, and that when she leaves, she returns home with a new sense of confidence as a daughter of God.

This isn’t what we planned when we set out to adopt, but I am so grateful for God’s goodness in giving us this opportunity – for His sweetness in knowing that this Christmas was going to be a hard one. I’m thankful that we’ll have a month to pour ourselves out fully together as a family.

The sign reads “We’re waiting for you.”

When God whispered “Wait” last year, I had no idea this is what we were waiting for. It may not be as I envisioned, but like the single blinking strand on our Christmas tree, it somehow seems right.

Thanks for joining with us in prayer, friends. It blesses us more than you know.

Filed Under: Adoption, faith, Family, Grace, Life Tagged With: Adoption, Christmas, faith, Grace, orphan hosting, prayer, Russian adoption ban

Thankful for the shattered start

December 2, 2013 by Kelli

Thanksgiving week started out like this in our house. A shattered back window thanks to a wayward baseball sent us crashing (pun intended) into the holiday season with a tiny bit of shock, and a good amount of laughter.

If you ever need a chance to work on not sweating the small stuff, have your five year old throw a baseball through the car. Works like a charm.

My first thought upon walking outside and seeing the damage was horror. I couldn’t help wonder how much this was going to cost, and as we head into Christmas, unexpected broken windows were not high on my list of “things to throw money at.” As I stood in the driveway, mouth agape, Landon walked up to me, his eyes wide and horrified.

I looked down at him and he broke. “I DID IT!” he wailed. “IT’S ALL MY FAULT!!”

And just like that I realized the window didn’t matter – his fragile five year old heart did. I scooped him up and set him on the back of Lee’s car and hugged hard and tight letting him know that car windows are meaningless and easily repaired. I communicated as much love and forgiveness as I could in that one tight hug, because he needed to feel it. He needed to know that a silly accident would never affect my love for him.

As Lee swept up the broken glass, I comforted my distraught child who felt a world of guilt on his tiny little shoulders, and I was reminded, once again, that my reaction as a mom to these types of accidents has the potential to make or break my children. This is the place where they need to know that they can mess up – they can break windows, kick holes in the wall, knock plates off the table, and stain the carpet, and never be far removed from a hug and the assurance of love.

As we swept up the glass, we showered him with grace. It was an accident. It’s no big deal. We have insurance. All is well. And slowly, we pieced him back together and made him a little more whole.

By the end of the day, the insurance company had come out and replaced the glass at no charge, and the only thing lost was my favorite STL Cardinals sticker. And this one incident sent us into Thanksgiving with grateful, thankful hearts. Thankful for grace, and love and forgiveness. Thankful for a God who lavishes grace on us when we make mistakes, when we accidentally make a mess. Thankful for family and life and children who are healthy enough to throw a ball through a window.

I am so thankful for grace, when it is shown to me, and when I have the wherewithal to slow down and show it. Oddly enough, that broken window set us up for a weekend full of gratitude. Had Landon not shattered that glass, I’m not sure my eyes would have been quite as open to the beauty of a Thanksgiving weekend filled with laughter, with visitors, and with enough grace to cover a lifetime.

I will forever be grateful for that broken window, and for the boy who continually teaches me to love graciously, wholly and fiercely.

More scenes from Thanksgiving:

Girl cousins

My aunt and uncle have done missionary work in Jamaica for years. Red is their Jamaican “son,” and he fit right in with our crazy crowd.

Our 2nd Annual Family Kickball Game

The men of the group

The whole crew. 31 family members, plus 5 of our dear friends from St. Louis who recently moved to Boca Raton. How can I not be thankful for this?!

The whole crew. 32 family members, plus 5 of our dear friends from St. Louis who recently moved to Boca Raton. How can I not be thankful for this?!

Day after Thanksgiving. Beach. Perfection.

Pure magic, this boy.

Yes, there are.

So tell me, friends – How was your Thanksgiving?!

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Grace, Holidays, Thanksgiving Tagged With: baseball shatters window, Family, Grace, Life, Motherhood, Thankfulness, Thanksgiving

Remember when I used to blog?

November 25, 2013 by Kelli

2013 will be marked down as the year I’d rather pretend never happened. The year in which I was mostly unimpressed. The year full of ridiculous, undeserved blessings. The year of very low, lows, and very high, highs. The unresolved year.

The year I killed my blog?

It got heavy around here this year, didn’t it?

Then it got all bookwormy.

Then I got a little tired.

There are some changes coming down the pipeline for 2014. There’s a plan that’s being very slowly set into motion as I draw the veil on this year. I hope that these changes will bring an added shimmer to 2014, a year into which I walk with much more peace, a remnant of sadness, and a lot of inspiration. I have ideas – lots of ideas – and I’m excited to begin implementing them.

In the meantime, I want you to know that I am thankful for you all. You have been a dear, sweet community not just this year, but over the last six years. We’ve laughed a lot, cried a little, traveled to Africa, and helped change the world.

I’m not finished as a blogger, but as we head into Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, I am focusing a little more time on being a writer. It’s very difficult to maintain this blogging bit when all of life feels like it’s taking off in a different direction and you can’t share it, and your brain is all YOU HAVE TO SHARE ALL THE THINGS OR PEOPLE WILL LEAVE, and your heart constricts and says SOME OF THE THINGS DON’T NEED TO BE SHARED!

Then your fingers quit working because your heart and your brain can’t agree, and instead you end up roaming the house talking to yourself because you need to say all the things out loud.

Then you try to write a post about it, and you confuse everyone.

I’m still living in the land of crazy, my friends. I have a few announcements to make in the coming weeks, and I’ll be posting less frequently as I ramp up for 2014. In the meantime, know that I’m thankful for all of you.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. Thanks for making cyber-land a little more fun.

*Hugs*

Filed Under: Blogging, Family, Holidays, Life, Thanksgiving, writing Tagged With: blogging. Happy Thanksgiving, Random, Thoughts in my head

Insta-Wednesday is BACK!

November 20, 2013 by Kelli

My dog ran off this morning and came home covered in crap – LITERALLY. She’s an old woman, but when she sees a pile of poo, the puppy in her comes out and she cannot resist. So I spent a solid fifteen minutes chasing her around the yard with the hose, and now I smell like a wet, crappy dog.

You’re jealous of my glamorous life…

Insta-Wednesday photos for you to view while I go clean up.

Tia’s cheering square at her meet Sunday. Sweetness.

We served a Thanksgiving meal to people in need at our church’s food pantry Saturday morning.

You know…just monkeying around. And still loving’ our St. Louis Cardinals!

I just don’t even have words to describe this photo…

Lovin’ this Florida Fall Weather!

And last but not least – video evidence that my growing addiction and need for strong caffeine is warranted and justified. This was shot before 7:00 am, and before I’d completed my first cup of coffee. Their energy exceeds mine by miles….

Filed Under: Family, Florida, funny stuff that happens, Instaram, iPhone, Kids, Landon, Photography Tagged With: Insta-Wednesday, iPhone Photography, Photos, What does the fox say?

Keeping Your Kids (and yourself) Humble in Sports

November 18, 2013 by Kelli

Like any parent, I am unendingly proud of my children. While I am privy to the very worst of who they are on a day by day basis, I am also privy to the very best of who they are. Lee and I know our children better than anyone else on this planet. We see what makes them tick, certain aspects of their personalities that need to be polished and refined, and we have a foreshadowing of their gifts and how they can best be used.

With Lee having been a collegiate athlete, and me spending most of my formative years in competitive sports, it’s no surprise that our children have mostly drifted toward athletics, and they are blessed with skills that allow them to compete well. I’m not going to hide the fact that my children are good at sports, but how do I keep them, and myself, humble as we travel this road of competitive sports?

First and foremost, it takes a load of perspective to simply stay realistic. Yesterday Tia had the best gymnastics meet of her season. She improved all of her scores, raised her All Around score by over a point and took home the 1st place All Around trophy. My daughter is a gifted athlete, and right now gymnastics is the sport that is showcasing her God-given abilities.

But she will not be an Olympian. Lee and I know this. Tia, of course, dreams of the Olympics like every little girl dreams of the Olympics, and I will never, ever squash that dream. As long as she wants to go for gold, I’ll be standing behind cheering her on. I just know, however, that she won’t go to the Olympics in gymnastics, and I am okay with that.

Photo courtesy of my mom who blesses us with awesome pictures so we can sit back and enjoy the competition!

As she competes, we work hard to keep her head level by encouraging her to compete against herself. We don’t urge her to beat her teammates, we urge her to beat her last score. At her last meet she scored in the 9’s on two events – this time we told her to aim for scoring 9’s in three events. She took our challenge and upped it, scoring in the 9’s on all four events. That was her own goal for herself.

The cute is almost too much in this photo…

On equal measure, our boys have shown great propensity for sports. One loves to play simply for fun, without a huge care of winning or losing. The other lives, eats and breathes ball, and it will not surprise me one little bit if that one goes on to play college ball, or even play professionally someday. He may not do either of those things, of course, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he did because he’s got a winning spirit combined with natural ability.

No matter what our children choose to do with their extracurricular time, though, we want them to know that athletics are just a piece of who they were made to be. What matters more to me is the character behind the athletes. Are they kind? Do they support their teammates? Are they good sports? Are they genuinely excited to see someone else succeed, even if they don’t?

And what are they doing off the field, or outside the gym? Those are the things that truly matter. Life isn’t all about sports, and the second that it becomes so, then something must change.

These are lessons that will need to be learned, and they can only be learned if Lee and I model them. We will push them to be the best they can be, but not at the detriment of character. Ways that we work to model healthy competitive character in sports:

– We will never so build our children up that they believe themselves to be all that and a bag of chips (how’d you like that little phrase from the ’80’s?). Humility has to be taught, so as soon as they start thinking they are the bomb, we have to (lovingly) bring them down a notch or two.

– We speak highly of our children’s teammates. We praise their abilities, congratulate their successes, and cheer them on with as much fervor as our own kids.

– To the best of our ability, we try to become friends with the other parents. We have been blessed so far in our sporting endeavors in that we’ve been surrounded by very positive, kind parents. I know that’s not always the case, but thankfully it is our experience, which means it’s not that hard to become friends with the parents of our kid’s teammates!

– We encourage our kids to be the best they can be not to beat their opponents, but to beat themselves. Yes, they want to win, and that’s okay. But do it for yourself, not for anyone else, and be gracious in winning, as well as in losing.

– We simply don’t allow ourselves to get too wrapped up in it. As Lee says, “Never want it more than they do.” When you watch your child compete, it’s so easy to get completely absorbed in every detail of their sport, but we have to remind ourselves that this is not all that comprises a life. Athletics are a small part of who they are – but it’s not the only thing. Lee and I have to remember that ourselves so that we can remind them.

The world of athletics can be tricky to navigate, especially as a parent. We feel every success and every disappointment right alongside our children. But if we can maintain control and perspective over our own emotions, we will be much better equipped to teach our children to control their emotions, which in the long run will only set them up for success in all of life.

Are you a sports family? How do you keep your children (and yourself) humble?

Filed Under: Family, Kids, Motherhood, Sports Tagged With: athletics, humility, keeping kids humble in sports, Kids and sports, parenting, Raising children

Behind on Life

November 14, 2013 by Kelli

The end of the year has somehow been placed on hyper-speed, and I am entirely unprepared for it to come zipping by. Piles of laundry stand in nearly every corner of the house, dishes cannot seem to find their home, Halloween candy is still on top of the fridge, yet somehow I’m already thinking about Christmas. And through all of it I want to scream STOP THE MADNESS!

This morning, as I clapped my kids out of the house, I felt the panic start to settle tight in my chest. As I begged my middle to child for the 50th time to please hurry up – Please get dressed – Please stop dancing in your room to the invisible beat in your head and put on your shoes – Please brush your hair, I had to stop, take a deep breath…and then laugh.

Yesterday I plucked a white – WHITE! – hair from my eyebrows, and I blame it on getting children out the door on time. But this morning as I watched her grin in her bedroom, talking to herself, having a merry party without any thought of missing the bus, I wanted some of that. I wanted just an ounce of her zest for fun. It’s annoying as all get out, but it’s an awesome trait.

Life is more fun if you don’t sweat the small stuff.

There is a solid chance I’m going to stay two steps behind on life until January rolls around. If I just accept this as fact and roll with it, life should be much less stressful. Upcoming birthday parties, Christmas parties, Thanksgiving celebrations, visitors, holidays, gymnastics meets, and every other things that is coming up will come whether I’m prepared or not – I might as well just enjoy the ride.

So today, as I put away laundry, clean the kitchen yet again, exercise and do myriad of other errands that aren’t very fun, I’m going to think of her.

And maybe I’ll dance a little.

How are you doing, friends? Are you feeling behind on life? Join me in a virtual dance party!!!

Also, go watch this video because you’ll laugh, and all you parents will understand.

Filed Under: Family, funny stuff that happens, Holidays, Life, Motherhood, Tia Tagged With: holiday crazy, keeping the sanity, Life, Motherhood, parenting

Christmastime is (basically) here

November 12, 2013 by Kelli

As a general rule of thumb, I try to save Christmas until December. I don’t want to be tired of it by the time Christmas morning rolls around, so I hold off on Christmas music and decorating until after Thanksgiving.

This isn’t always easy, though the warm November weather here in Florida definitely helps. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to buying a Christmas tree in flip flops.

There are a few Christmas activities, however, that simply cannot wait until after Thanksgiving. Buying gifts, I’ve found, is always less stressful if I start before December. And ordering Christmas cards to send to family and friends is also best done in November, because if I wait until December, then I will have no chance or hope of sending them out before the new year.

So I’m already beginning the process of searching for the perfect Christmas card. Last year, I used Minted to print my Christmas cards, and I LOVE how they turned out.

It twists my heart tight to view that card and remember how hopeful we were this time last year. We were at the tail end of paperwork, and we had visions of this year’s card including a fourth child. But the beauty of this card is that it well documents our 2012, and it provides a beautiful backdrop for the tapestry that would become 2013.

This has, by far, been the hardest, most grief-filled year of our lives, but how thankful I am for hope. I look back at last year’s Christmas card, and I remember what it felt like to hope. We have hope again as we head into this Christmas, and I plan on our holiday card showcasing that. This is why I love using Minted. I worked closely with their designers last year to create a card that perfectly encapsulated where we were in the year 2012.

I will work closely with them again this year to capture 2013, with all the grief and shadows, refinement and joys that came with it. Sometimes I get overwhelmed at the idea of sending out Christmas cards, and I wonder why I still put myself through it. Looking at this card, however, I’m grateful that I have kept up the tradition. Christmas cards showcase more than just a pretty picture – they capture all of life in a nutshell.

If you haven’t ordered Christmas cards yet, and you’re looking for a place that will help capture the place you’re in as a family, I would love for you to check out Minted’s site. Their cards are beautiful, easy to personalize, and their designers will help you create a card that befits your family and your year. They have a huge selection of holiday cards to choose from, and great features, like address printing for your envelopes.

Because we all know that addressing the envelopes is the worst part of sending Christmas cards.

So if you’re looking for an easy way to kick off the Christmas season without completely steamrolling Thanksgiving, look into Minted and start creating the perfect Christmas card….and then send one of your cards to me, because the only think I love more than sending cards is receiving them!

Merry Christmas Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Disclaimer: I was asked by Minted to write a review of their site and promote their holiday collection of cards. I received credit in exchange for my work. I was not paid to write this post. All opinions expressed are my own.