...because HE lives...

2 weeks!!!

2 weeks and then our boy comes home!!

It has been hard, and good.  The past 5 1/2 weeks are like nothing I ever went through as a mom.  Not even my our oldest son went to boot camp.  That was hard. Not even when our oldest daughter went to TX to be an inner city camp counselor for 10 weeks.  2 summers on a row. THAT was hard.

This is a different kind of hard.

GOD continues to stretch and show me, just how much our children belong to HIM.

This summer helped me to rethink so much.  It made me rethink faith goals, schooling goals, family goals, life goals, even marriage goals.  Praying, living, crying through so many things.

Because HE lives!!!

Glory be to HIM and HIM alone.


As far as our African daughter?  Even the crickets are quiet now.

Another refining.  Another lesson in trust.  Another reason to surrender.

It has been Elena & I this summer.  Bless her heart, she is a trooper.

We have been working on house projects, gardening, watching old movies ( she LOVES I Love Lucy) seeing friends, seeing big-big brother and his future wife, her nana & poppa, looking at pictures of the grandson/nephew and agreeing over the fact that he really is a beautiful boy and of course, missing big-little brother.



The garden is doing beautifully, in spite of the fact that we have had no rain.

Thanks to the help of this little peanut who waters the garden.  It is hard work.  Watering takes 45 minutes to an hour.  I weed the plot, she waters.  When I finish, I help her, but she still works alongside me.

And she is a joy!  

She is also a little momma.

I mean, seriously.  

One day, I had bought a cantaloupe.  We got home and I unloaded that car.  I knew I bought everything in.  That night, I thought I would cut up the cantaloupe because it will get rotten if I don't.  Once it is cut up, it disappears immediately, but if not cut, it gets thrown out, which is not an option for me.

Anyway, I couldn't find it.  I went out to the car and looked for it.

Nothing.

Then I rethought to the afternoon, and I could have sworn I bought it in. Maybe I imagined it and actually left it at the store.

Bummer.

Well, 2 days later, her little stroller was in the middle of the living room.  Facing the other way. I went to put it back in the corner, and look at what I found:

Confession:  It never occurred to me to look in her stroller.

Though I should know better.

This little girl will turn anything into a baby.  If hers are not around, she will grab anything, wrap it in a blanket or towel, or stick it in her stroller or baby bed, and she is good to go. 

I mean a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g.

Toothpaste, rulers, a cup, pillows, markers, anything; randomly wrapped in a towel or mini blanket, nurtured and sang to, laided down to sleep.

Little momma, I tell you.

So, off we go.  A full week of going from here, to MA to VA Beach. 

Then coming home and waiting.

But while waiting, living for HIM.  Because HE lives!!!