I had a ton of photos to dump off my phone today as we've been busy with so much going on since Thanksgiving. It was our year to be in Alabama for Thanksgiving with Stephen's family, celebrated (kind of because he had strep and no voice) Stephen's 34th Birthday, then we traveled a week later to Wake Forest, NC for Stephen's seminary graduation (woohoo! He's got his MDiv complete and is looking forward to a semester or two off before he explores the possibility of his DMin). After graduation, we were home and finishing up school (plus a co-op field trip) with the boys for a week before heading to Columbia for Christmas, came home for three days and went to Charleston for that celebration, and then we came back in time for a service on Sunday and Monday at church. By the time Christmas Day rolled around we stayed home for several days so happy to be home, until a stomach bug hit. Now Stephen has the boys that aren't under the weather anymore (and at this point stir crazy) outside in the light rain because they were running laps around the house while I upload some pictures here and take a shower. Life is never dull!
I can't believe tomorrow begins 2019 (Jude can't believe we get to just throw our 2018 calendar magnet away tomorrow for school because "that year is done!"). I'm praying this year will be a great one for our family and that God would use our family mightily for His glory. Praying this year God would continue to provide us with the much needed friendships and community that we desire. Praying that this year would be one of "rest" and "dwelling" in Him in the midst of the chaos at times (if I was choosing words for us for the year). I read something recently that said if we just cut out television time (or phone time for that matter) that we could finish reading through the Bible in about four weeks. I've decided this year to take an extended break from my social media posts on Instagram ( going to start with at least a month) and attempt to just be on my phone less, and focus more on studying/reading through Scripture and also (hopefully) read a stack of good books for growth and enjoyment. I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I enjoy posting pictures of the boys and consider it almost an online scrapbook of sorts, but, at the same time, I feel like social media becomes a place that I constantly have a 100 holy spirits (and not the perfect, edifying kind) critiquing my every move and offering unsolicited advice. For example, I feel like any outing or vacation that we splurge on, I need to add that we got at a huge deal (which is most certainly always true) or that if I feed my kids a sugary whatever, or just do anything that might look less than perfect (or apparently posting a world that looks too perfect is not good either), that I need to post with a disclaimer. Don't even get me started on all the in-fighting among Christians and pastors on other forms of social media...talk about discouraging (when we should be the ones lifting others up instead of fighting over things that at the end of the day really don't matter!). All of that to say, it' s not the healthiest of spaces for me right now and, luckily, in my non-insta world I only have an audience of One. I'm sure I'll continue to take lots of pictures of our little family and keep cataloging them here until I decide it's to come back to the insta-world on a more limited basis.
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| Joah doesn't like pictures or people talking to him right now - the joys of threenagers! But I always want to remember this little hand over face action that he does. |
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| 34! |
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| Not happy about his costume for the Christmas play |
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