life lately

this is going to be all over the place. but isn't that life?

this guy. he's the one that will just go off by himself when he needs to. i found him at the dollhouse one afternoon in the midst of all the chaos...just playing quietly. i can relate ;-)

i eat a salad for lunch and dinner pretty much every day of my life. different stuff on it. but i LOVE salads. one day last week i just didn't want a salad for dinner. and this sounded good. not quite paleo...but still pretty healthy and FRESH tasting! rice cake with avocado, cucumber and feta cheese.

joshua and levi watching lincoln and sawyer's football practice. my heart grew a little bit when i saw this random act of love from joshua to levi.

i'm a pretty disciplined person. (ha! those that know me are rolling their eyes.) so reading the Bible has been a part of my daily life for decades. but there are seasons...seasons where it seems to not quite hit the mark...and seasons where you just can't get enough.

i'm in one of those "can't get enough" seasons and i LOVE them. when my alarm goes off in the morning, i HOP out of bed to open that Book and see what He is going to fill me with before i start my day. it doesn't mean HE is any more present right now than in those silent seasons. i'm just choosing to embrace and be grateful for every day of this season.

for the last few months, i've been using this website, she reads truth, as a guide. they have previously gone through books of the Bible...and right now it's a study on just OPENING your Bible. you can get an app, use the website, or get an email sent to you every morning (that's what i do). it's really good stuff. and gets me in the Word and i usually keep going on my own!

we started science this week in school :-) i'm really, truly enjoying the schooling part of all this.

but there is some hard, hard stuff going on in my heart. between the conference last weekend, and adjusting to our new "normal" with homeschool/public school, and just other JUNK that i'm trying to work through, there have been a LOT of tears and frustrated prayers and struggling to find JOY.

BUT. He is with me.
He is good.
He is faithful.
and i KNOW He has called me to this right now. every bit of it. and there is comfort in that. 
He will be with me through it all.
it's not easy. but it's where He has me.

sawyer had to do a timeline of his life so far. going back to having to leave him for 3 weeks...and being reunited (and the emotions of those first months!) was HARD.

this kid. he's pretty amazing. very quiet. but thoughtful. last night he asked (ASKED!) if he could make "special water" for everyone for dinner. he spent a GOOD 20 minutes putting salt on the rims (ha! he's watched me enjoy some margarita's ;-)) and cutting lemons to put on the edge. he even let me take his picture and gave me permission to blog about it...

i know what he's asking for for christmas ;-)

walked in the door at 6:30 this morning from my run to this sight...oh, you know, just doing a core workout. ??

we keep all the kids socks on top of the dryer. in buckets. it's right by the kitchen/garage/shoe buckets and makes more sense than all the way up in their rooms. well, it's levi's job to get the socks IN the buckets after they are washed. people were missing LOTS of socks. and we realized that he was THROWING them in the buckets (and missing...and they were all BEHIND the dryer.) so he did some rescue work for us :-)

so, that's life lately. lots to be thankful for. lots to learn.