Last year we added three kids to our family in five months. In March, we adopted our nine-year-old son from China, and then our two teen nieces came to live with us in June and September. Let me tell you, I totally underestimated how difficult an older child adoption would be. We adopted our daughter…
The past few days I’ve been seeing a long checklist template floating around Instagram stories, with a bunch of “New Year’s Resolutions.” You’re supposed to check all of the ones you’d like to accomplish in 2018. Things that would make you look like a real loser if you didn’t check the boxes—volunteering, donating money to…
Dear Married Daughter, First of all, I am amazed that I am old enough to be writing this letter. When you were young, and sitting in the grocery cart while we shopped, people would stop me and comment on how cute you were and I would smile and thank them. They would often look at…
Self care is such a novel idea to me. I went years without seeing the value of self care. I figured if I just kept pouring myself out to my family, I would finally be able to be satisfied with a job well done. But pouring from an empty cup is pointless and impossible. And…
Prayer. The thing we most need to do, but what so many of us struggle with. I have a few people in my life who are prayer warriors, plain and simple. I call them when I need prayer because I know they will truly pray. Lately, I find myself wanting this in my own life,…
I’m catching on to the fact that life is hard. In fact, it is so difficult at times, I start to question God’s wisdom in all of this. I mean, come on. Here we are, running around on this earth, trying our best not to get devastated by some awful thing. You may say you…
If you’re wondering why I haven’t blogged in, well, too long, it’s this: Pregnancy and motherhood have kicked my butt. Scares and ultrasounds through the first trimester. Monitoring our son in Seattle every few weeks during my second trimester, all to be told he looked perfect at 29 weeks. Then being in the hospital twice for…
I watched my husband fix his hair, brush his teeth, and spray on his cologne. He grabbed his coffee and kissed us all goodbye. I felt a wave of bitterness well up in me. I don’t know where it came from but I knew it wasn’t good. Off he went. Again. I chose the life…
Anxiety can be such a beast. It ruins good days and makes bad days feel impossible. The hardest part about it, is how little others understand unless they have experienced it. Here are some things people without anxiety like to tell people with anxiety: Just tell yourself things are fine Count your blessings. Things could…
To the wife whose husband plays Pokémon Go… First off, I’m sorry. None of us could have seen this coming. We could have done something to prevent it had we only known. Locked them up. Hid their phones. Gotten rid of our cell phone data plans. Moved to a hut somewhere without the internet. But alas,…
