While I often joke to Ben that Instagram ate my blog, I still feel a bit tender towards this space. While it's been quiet these days (pretty sure this is most quiet year we've had in some time!) I'm still quite grateful this exists. Thanks for following along through these years!
We've started this new year with influenza, so we're feeling a bit ragged. What a gift to scroll through old photos and remember all the wonderful things that have happened in the past 365 days. This year was mostly about keeping our head above water. We joked that we just had to get to christmas and things would begin to feel easy. Perhaps thats why we're sick! we let our guards down! ha. Well, we're grateful to have arrived in this place, with a soon-to-be healthy brood of kids, a warm place to lay our head and a community we are treasuring.
AND dear friends, here it is. My favorite post of the year!
If you want to see previous years, click
here
\\January//
You came in a blur and ended just as swiftly. We celebrated our sons second year of life while growing his brother. We savored every second we could with our dear Helsinki friends and purged and packed our minutes away.
\\February//
You were all hustle as well. Trying to carve out time to rest in the midst of packing and gearing up to move overseas. You were a blur. We were exhausted by the end of this month.
\\March//
Right when we were sure rest would never come, you showed up and allowed us to catch our breath (and get a little wet.) We moved into our new place and hibernated a bit as we set up shop back in the states.
\\April//
You brought family to visit and sweet reminders of why we chose to come back to the states. Right at a pretty tender time of needing to be reminded.
\\May//
You blessed us with seriously fun warm weather and an anticipation for our baby coming.
\\June//
You rattled us a bit by having Rowan come a month early! Praise God for family who drove all day and all night to watch the kids while we lived at the NICU for a week.
\\July//
You were kind to us. Family visiting, being surrounded by friends. Being a family of five felt pretty great this month.
\\August//
We started homeschooling this month. I'm so glad we decided to take the plunge.
\\September//
You brought a lot of feels. The church we had found closed its doors, so we sorted through the emotions of that process. We persued adventure in the gap and continued finding our groove. Life began to feel a wee-bit-normal and we started to branch out from our little montgomery home.
\\October//
You were fantastic. We began attending a new church we now love, went trick-or-treating, celebrated our favorite man and went on lots of mini adventures.
\\November//
Eowyn began dance classes after finishing up a semester in homeschool co-op and we as a family ended the month basking in the joy of being with Ben's side of the family for the first thanksgiving in several years!
\\December//
We ended this year with all our favorite things. Family, visiting new places and SNOW. What a wonderful way to close out 2017.
This year has been an absolute whirlwind. While we worked hard at being intentional and tender and attentive, goodness this year left us tired. We feel a bit weary. Culture shock, sorting out next steps, new dreams, new family dynamics, new friends....our introverted + planner hearts learned a thing or two about trusting an all-knowing God when it felt like most of the year was a free-fall.
Perhaps because we couldn't really anticipate what was coming, we just lived with eyes-wide open? I feel like this was such a tender year because of it.
(but now our eyes are burning a bit and we're ready for a nap. :P)
2018, we're not really ready for you...but you're here! So we'll do how we do and enjoy you!
This is celebrating daily after all. ;)
Cheers to a new year, and all the joy and hope and opportunities for God to show his goodness.
We've been deeply blessed by his goodness through you all.
Thank you for making 2017 something so beautiful.
