this precious life.

the past few years i've begun to take my siblings to do something in celebration of their birthday instead of just giving them a gift. sometimes we go out to eat. other times we go do something fun together (see a movie, ice skating, laser tag… whatever it is they are interested in). the hope is that we get to spend some intentional time together instead of me just buying them a toy that they'll forget about in 3.5 days:) at this point, i think most of them would prefer the toy… but (for the boys especially) getting a meal out of the deal is almost just as great:)  abigail and noah's birthdays are 3 days apart so we combined their outing this year and went out to breakfast one morning. i asked them a few specific questions while we were eating and their answers totally show their personalities:) noah thought of the most random things (which is what i love about him!) and abigail gave me the bare minimum answer, even after i prodded for something broader:) i didn't re...

i really do love valentines day!  if you can manage to block out all of the world's negativity & self-centeredness and avoid the commercialism, it's a really fun excuse to do all things pink & heart shaped for one day each year! (singles awareness day? please. you are SURROUNDED by people that love you even if you don't have a special someone). obviously we're supposed to show love all throughout the year, but i do like having one day to be especially positive about it & remember the Creator of this beautiful thing we call love. "this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." (1 John 3:16)  we never did a whole lot for the holiday growing up… some years we would make valentines for each other & some years we forgot to. other years mama & daddy would surprise us with special treats & such. but then 7 years ago we got snowed in and mama threw...

last saturday night we all met up at tillbert's (michael & craig are currently housemates/roommates/whatev  until michael & chloe get married & so that's a mashup of their last names/what we call their house) and then pilled in the big van to ride to the airport & welcome pat home! he's spent the last 7 months in afghanistan serving in the marines and has been missed an awful lot by everyone! we were so excited to finally have him home for a few days! sonny and sara made an american flag out of a bed sheet that we all signed-- chlo went for the stars and i'm pretty sure we were all wondering why we hadn't thought of that first:) pat's parents invited us all back to their place that evening to hang out for a while which was such a blessing! we ate pizza, watched the olympics & the boys had a pow-wow about michael's bachelor party:) haha then after church sunday, we met at tillbert's again for a late brunch. s+s brought long'...