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Opening the gift

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I know this post is late, but that’s how it is. I don’t write things just to write them. I don’t like to be rushed. I don’t like expectations. So, this morning, two days after my daughter’s birthday, I am finally sitting down (in my bathrobe of course) with my lukewarm coffee and a sleeping baby upstairs, to write. Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing more to say. But then, there is. Because Hallelujah’s story is just beginning. This has been quite the week. Fifth & Jackson is the last place we set eyes on our baby’s sweet face and that is the place Bryan walked into this past Friday to perform a funeral. Just before stepping into that service, he found out that a pregnant couple from church had gone to their prenatal appointment and found that their baby girl had no heartbeat. The sorrow is just so real and close and breathtaking all over again. This past year has taught me a few things: 1. As much as Tucker has been a healing weight to our empty arms, he doesn’t fix the
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The day before

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 T wo years ago, we were still in the throes of the pandemic – the girls doing school on their iPads, Judah watching Daniel Tiger in his underwear, celebrating birthdays outdoors at the Cabin and taking friends’ family pictures in the beautiful fall colors. I took my kids’ school pictures at Adair park (since school pictures at school obviously weren’t happening) and even snapped a few pictures of them holding little pink shoes. Two years ago, today I was prepping a birth announcement.  I knew I wanted to include pictures I’d taken during a camping vacation with friends that summer - I had taken age pictures of the kids with number signs we found at an antique shop in Joseph.  I wanted to use the 20-week ultrasound picture for the 4 th square. It remains unfinished.  Two years ago today, I was looking forward to seeing my baby girl on the ultrasound the next morning wondering what her percentiles would be and if she would be active or asleep during the procedure. Two years ago…it seem
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The birthday girl/old lady

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 Cayden is 11 today. I know I just wrote about all three of my kids in the last post, but I needed to go into more detail for my eldest's birthday.  Everyone thinks their kids are special, and I am no different.  Other students at school call Cayden a "perfectionist," at which we both shake our heads, knowing why they say that, though quite untrue. In an unruly class, she is the one who obeys the teacher, does her work, reads quietly, and leads the groups she's assigned to. I would imagine that when her teacher is absent for the day, in his note he tells the sub, "just ask Cayden if there are any questions." She's THAT kid. In the future I'm sure she will be labeled "good-two-shoes" or whatever today's equivalent is. I see my critical qualities coming out in her often, where she often assumes the worst, some people call it pessimism, come call it realism.....in our house we often say, "don't be a party pooper!"  Cayden is
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