This is not working. I say that all the time. The baby won’t stay in her bed. This laundry pile stretches out infinitely from prehistoric past to all predictions of the future. We are outgrowing the kitchen table, which is the biggest table we can fit in the kitchen. Cat in the house. Math. Bedtime…
Category: family life
The Story of Yesterday
This is the story of yesterday. Yesterday is recurring in this household. It is a day that starts way before I am ready to get up and ends way later than I want to stop. It starts with babies crying that they want to eat and get up and it ends with babies crying that…
Unfolding
It is such a mercy that life unfolds before us. Ten years ago, if I had seen a photograph of my future-self this morning, driving along in a 15-passenger van with six children ages nine and under, I would have asked what any other stranger wants to know: Are they all mine?! And the answer…
The Best Day of My Life
Tomorrow is my due date. I can hardly believe that in a few short hours or days, the secret face of this child will be revealed, and we will be holding her in our arms. God has done a huge miracle in my life to make me brave for this day. I wrote in my…
My Father
This morning, I am going to church to hear my Father preach. I have done this literally thousands of times in my life. Every Sunday morning and Sunday night of my childhood, I listened to him deliver a message that he had prayed over and wrestled with throughout the week. This morning, I will sit in the…
Paper Doll Club: The Little Family of Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, Princess Bunnies, and Pop and Tart
Hope you enjoy this week’s paper dolls! We have a little Bunny Family, and a couple of Princess Bunnies by Paloma, age 6. I am also happy to share the little Bunny Boys by Kells, age 4. They are named Pop and Tart. Decorate them, cut them out, and play! To subscribe to The Paper Doll Club…
Making Time for Quiet
My life is loud. With five happy healthy children ages seven and under, a husband who is basically the personification of music, recording in the living room and making Irish whistles and bamboo saxophones all hours of the day and night–not to mention around 25 piano, guitar, and whistle students that rotate in and out of our…
Living by Faith
About a month ago, we found out that I am expecting again. This will be five children in 7 years. (I’m sure many of you reading this are having a gut reaction.) It means that I have been pregnant or nursing now nonstop since early 2007. It is a lot to take in. It is…
Time
You can’t slow it down. No matter how much you want this moment of just-after-rain-shimmer, when the baby is still sleeping and the kids are still in the backyard, preoccupied with the change of the world under the influence of a spring shower, you can’t keep it. You can’t stop it. You can’t slow it…
Fill-in-the-Blank Mother’s Day Cards (Downloadable!)
It gets hard to say “I love you” in a new way. Year after year, anniversary after anniversary, Mother’s Day after Mother’s Day… We love our husbands, our children, and our parents. They are the closest people in our lives. But it gets hard to think of new ways to express that love in words….
Waking up to the Miracle
I had an amazing experience this week. It is hard for me to tell about it, because I had to look into the face of suffering to see it. But I want to tell it. I have to tell it. I am bursting to tell it. On Monday, I went to visit my niece, Marti…
Rearranging
I have a recurring dream that I am walking through my house and suddenly, I open up a door, and there is a room that I had forgotten was there. Just a great big, empty room. I am flooded with this giddy excitement, and I realize that I can make that room into anything that…