December 26

It is December 26. Keith is back at work. Douglas ran to Walmart to pick up a couple of my prescriptions before running Freeland to work at Chick-Fil-A. Freeland has his work clothes in the washer and is cleaning up the kitchen while Casper, Annika, and Eliana are doing their morning chores, admittedly they are still in their pajamas, but it is Christmas vacation, after all.

My 5 favorite gifts! 

Yesterday was a sweet day. We had a {barely} white Christmas, which we were all hoping for. The gifts were exceptionally fun to give this year. We were very careful and intentional about getting the perfect gift for each child. Casper got a VR headset and was super impressed with it. I knew he would be. Freeland got a punching bag. He has wanted one for a long time. Annika got a huge stuffed fox, it has been her dearest heart's desire since she saw it several months ago. His name is Nick, and he is already part of the family. Eliana got a huge art set with lots of fun pieces. Of course there were other gifts, but those were the ones I was most excited to give. Douglas got sort of boringish gifts, but he is getting to be such an adult that it is just the way it goes I guess.

My favorite Chrismas morning picture. Seriously, LOOK AT HIM!!

I put together a video for my parents that you can see here if you are interested. This is my family. My oldest sister's family is not represented here, I need to get some pictures from her and I'l add them, but the rest of us are all represented here.

As the children get older I tend to pull them all a little closer. Our years of our whole family being home with no other obligations may be limited. When I think about that I have difficulty breathing.

Casper made each of us a pillowcase. He chose emoji fabric for Annika, she is quite pleased with it.

We opened gifts with oven mitts on Christmas Eve just for fun.

I'm thinking about blogging and how much this little blog has evolved through the years. It started as a place to document our adoption of Eliana from China. That was more than six years ago. It has documented our life since then, my photography journey, my thoughts and feelings as well as the everyday happenings. My work with Superkids is documented here, my trips to China and Taiwan are all here. My health crash is all outlined here, my diagnosis, my chronic pain. And hopefully the faithfulness of God is seen woven throughout the whole thing.

God has been stirring my heart. I have stories to tell. Stories of pain, stories of children I have met, stories of miracles I have seen. He has been laying on my heart the need to tell those stories. I don't know exactly where this will go, but I'm going to start here. It only seems right. So expect a few changes here over the next few weeks.