Facebook Fast

To any friends and family (who might still read this blog!) I'm taking a fast from Facebook.  I've never observed Lent before, or even studied the history behind it...but yesterday I kept reading about people giving up certain things that are a distraction to them from God, which I can definitely see as  beneficial with social media obsession.  Then, last night I read a wonderful article on the Desiring God blog entitled, "Facebook Obsession and the Anguish of Boredom." I knew immediately that I needed a hiatus from facebook.  It is the most time consuming and mindless scrolling of all social media platforms for me, so I am eliminating it for a period.   Maybe I'll be able to handle the comupter form after 40 days, but no matter what, it's not going back on my phone.
So, even though I don't officially "celebrate" Lent, I thought the purpose behind it is a great idea for me to refocus my attention where it belongs.

I'm going to go back to the old form of communication I used to share photos of the kids with family and friends, which is this blog.  I'm a bit annoyed at myself in my writing at this moment, but I don't want to take the time to edit it right now.  The whole point is so my time isn't distracted, correct?  So, forgive the flaws in my writing as I'm just letting my thoughts flow freely.

I took this video of Luke on Monday before co-op.  Lilly discovered how much he loved this learning book of shapes, numbers, and buttons, etc.  She's trying to help him a bit too much, but you can tell from his pointing that he knew it before she tried to show him.  He's a smart little cookie! ;)

Family Photos 2016

Every fall I face the task of picking out coordinating clothes for our annual pictures--and it seems to get harder every year!  Granted, we didn't add any family members this past year, but it's still super difficult to coordinate clothes for 7 people- I don't know how larger families do it!

I went to Old Navy, and thankfully found clothes that would all coordinate together, though it did take me almost two hours to find everything!  It might be tempting to skip a year of pictures, because I might not think the kids have grown *that* much in one year, but after comparing last years' pics to this year, they really have!!  It's really important to us to remember these precious years, so I don't ever want to skip having them taken yearly!

Our dear friend, Amanda McQuade, took our photos this year, and I was blown away by what she was able to capture!

I'm going to post my favorites here below, but for family members who want to see *ALL* of the photos, here's the link to my shutterfly album where I uploaded them all.  :)    pix.sfly.com/fYOKi6GV

Luke's First Birthday- Family Day

Wow, so much has happened in one year!  I know I say it with every child, but the time seems to fly by faster and faster with each subsequent baby...except the days still stay long ;)  

Luke has been a pivotal part of our family this past year, and God instrumentally used the surprise of his pregnancy to lead me to trust Him more.  I have always been a planner that likes being in control--so to completely feel out of control was very intimidating and anxiety inducing for me.

We had to make several changes because he was coming...a new van that would fit 5 carseats, re-buying everything related to pregnancy and baby since I had literally just 6 months prior sold all my maternity clothes and most of our baby things.  Thankfully, Jack was still young enough that we had kept some of the larger pieces such as crib, stroller, high chair, and the clothes he was in at the time we found out (12 months).  Had Luke ended up a girl, I had consigned off all the girls' clothes up to 4T, so even that was a huge blessing for us to only have to re-purchase 0-12 month clothes.

Even though we were already discussing moving to a larger house because we were cramped with 4 kids, we took the plunge to put our house on the market right away.  That was a very difficult summer as most of my close friends know, because I was constantly keeping the house clean for several showings a week---with 4 kids and a dog and very much pregnant and experiencing high blood pressure issues.  God was faithful, however, in not allowing our house to sell that summer, because He brought us to the perfect house when we relisted the house when Luke was only 2 months old.  In fact, we had 4 offers on the house the first weekend it was on the market.  God's knowledge of what is best for us is always overwhelming, but should not take me by surprise.

The addition of Luke to our family also made me realize that we really did need to take the plunge to home school this year.  Though we had several indications prior to that--including Sean's increasing difficulty in school and him begging us to home school him--it wasn't until I realized that I just could not continue to get everyone up at the crack of dawn to work around someone else's schedule, and that I was extremely disconnected from what was happening at my children's school--that we let go of "what was best for me" and grasped hold of what would be best for the family.

(This post is not starting out the way I intended, so I may need to divide this up into 2 posts since I haven't even gotten to how we've celebrated him today!)

So, here we are--with our crew of 5 kids--mid year of our first year of home school--still figuring out the groove of a schedule that will work with a new walker getting into everything, a very tough and active (almost) 3 year old, a quirky and energetic Kindergartner, a bright as a whip 1st grader, and an inquisitive, creative, yet easily distracted 3rd grader.  And, I believe God used Luke to bring it all to fruition by showing me to go out of my comfort space to trust Him in what is best for our family.

Now--after that long intro---

Jon is off from work from now through January 1st (18 days!!!)  What a HUGE blessing that his company closes every year for 2 weeks at Christmas for us to have family time.  Which, by the way, was another huge blessing in Luke being born 3 weeks early last year--to have Jon home to help those first few weeks.

So, Jon took a couple of vacation days to finish out this week this year to celebrate Luke's birthday today as a family.  We started as we do for all birthdays--doughnuts for breakfast...except we are much farther away from our usual Krispy Kreme, so they settled for Harris Teeter doughnuts instead.  Luke didn't seem to mind a bit ;)

Then, Luke promptly fell asleep in his high chair, because he had woken up super early this am.  I guess he knew instinctively that it was a special day and he would need a good nap ;)

While Luke napped--we started making pretzel log "gingerbread" houses with the older kids.  This is where I will make a new post just devoted to the houses since I took so many pictures.  They turned out great!   

After we were letting the houses dry before decorating, the girls and I started making Luke's birthday cake.  They have to decorate a cake for one of their badges for American Heritage Girls, so I let them ice and decorate this one all by themselves.  They were super excited to do their first cake!

Lilly did ask me to spread the icing out smooth when they were done with the outside so they could decorate the top better.

We sent pictures to their group leader so she could sign off on their badge at their next meeting in January!  

When it was time for cake after dinner, Jon pulled out his new guitar to play happy birthday for him.  He had been practicing an hour or so beforehand.  :)  I think it's great he's learning to play guitar so hopefully we can play together one day and Sean wants to learn as well. 

  the kids were all begging to blow out Luke's candle for him.  Lilly got the privilege since she sits next to him.  Jack climbed up and got in on the action too ;)  

I still had napkins from Sean's first birthday nearly 8 years ago.  I forgot I had them when it was Jack's 1st birthday, and I almost forgot them last night!  Full circle kind of moment.

 Everyone agreed that Luke should get the piece with the L to dig in to.  He didn't quite know what to do and played around with the cake before trying to eat it.

 I had to reach out to grab the cake right after this picture to keep him from throwing it on the floor!

 He finally decided to try to take a big bite!  

 What is this sticky stuff all over my fingers?!

 Hey!  This is good!

We had a great day together celebrating Luke as a family.  What a blessed day!  We finished up our pretzel houses after this...so I will go to write my post on those later :)