This too shall pass…

My poor blog. Why have you been neglected? Because:

Relationships! (We are all still putting our Living Proof Live  knowledge to work in our lives! God is AWESOME!)

End of the semester grading-whew! Such an AMAZING group of students. I look forward to seeing them excel in their own classrooms!

   Saturdays at the Farmers’ Market!

 

Planting our herb garden, and tomatoes in our weed garden. It’s all about the experience, right?

Jett turns 2 with the coolest birthday party ever! Your parents rock!

   

Chick-fil-a? I’d like to place my daily order.

  

She had been asking for cotton candy for a long time, I think she likes it! Go Naturals!

     Caroline and Thomas had their end of the year program at their Sonshine School. We love this school! Caroline sang her heart out.

 

Most of our GFN (Girls’ Fellowship Night) group on our last night of the Breaking Free study by Beth Moore. The ultimate bible study if you are looking for one to do. It will teach you how to be free from areas in your life that keep you from experiencing all of the benefits of being a follower of Christ! (The one I’m working on the hardest is the benefit of God’s peace-the obstacle of having peace is prayerlessness. See earlier post…)

Caroline’s recital at The Academy of Dance! She won an award as Dancing Doll 2011!
 
 

Promotion Sunday at Mt Comfort Church of Christ! Our babies are now at the end of the hallway! Here’s her buddies Emma, Canaan and Sara. Next year: UPSTAIRS!? How time flies.

So why the blog title? Because this will pass. All of the good and the bad will pass on. I needed the reminder today as I carried a loud Thomas out of our church’s auditorium. People say it’s because he’s a boy and he’s approaching the age of two. I know they are right, but it still makes it hard to go through the stage.

I know this is such a tiny, not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, type of issue to be blogging about, but I’ve always wanted to keep track of our highs and lows as a family on this blog. When I think of all my little family has been through in the last four years—it’s a lot. And yet, we are still moving forward one day at a time. This is just where we are right now and in a few months we will be laughing about how it was, just not today.

Here’s a picture that is probably representative of a snapshot 14 years in the future:

Thomas driving a jeep and looking not the least bit afraid of the bumps and jostles happening, and Caroline-my loyal, rule follower-looking very nervous and ready to come tell me what her brother was up to!

Lots of our pictures and time together involves me running after Thomas or him running out of the picture:

Our fun trip to Batesville to visit Papaw, (Tyler’s Dad) Kate and T.B.(Tyler’s sister and her husband.) I’m keeping Thomas out of the pond.

Easter egg dying! Notice Thomas is not in the picture. I chose to do this during his naptime. Terrible mom or is it okay for me to leave him out for the safety and sanity of others? Ps Becky wouldn’t mind me saying that this was a staged picture and it was hard even with just one sweet boy.

Summer has started at our house when the slip n slide comes out! Here’s our friend Luci and Thomas running away. By the way the cicadas are crazy right now! People are being swarmed by them when they come to visit us (sorry, Nellie!)

 

Or he’s running out of an otherwise precious picture. This is Tyler’s sister’s son, Tate. He is so sweet, but all boy. He reminds me a lot of our other cousin, William, who is about the same age. I’m hoping Thomas will turn out like these boys!

I’m not saying at all that Thomas is bad, he’s just making some bad choices (So sorry Mollie, Thomas pushed you down today to show how he loves you...)

He makes good choices, too:

He loves looking at his dad’s books. I put a few on the bottom shelf and he pulls out the huge ones, with zero pictures. I’ve found him like this several times. His favorite is Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy by Kip Thorne (if you were curious.)

And after church he crashes. This is a good choice, too.

He can be very sweet, too. He will randomly kiss and hug on us and say, “Peas” (please) over and over again when he wants something, and he loves to be tickled. His favorite words, are “No” “Nah” and “I did it,” but in a flash he’ll be in his room listening to his ipod and I’ll wish his screams for more grapes after he’s already had 20 too many, could be heard once again.

 

Thomas will hold Caroline’s hand and she will say, “Oh mom! Take a picture!” So I have at least 6 of these on my phone.

Tyler and I will be married in two months. Each day I get more excited! We’ve all four grown together as a family and we are ready to make it official.  Oh what blessings Thomas and Caroline are to us. We’ll take it all, the good times and the not-as-good times, because we know how this all will pass. We have our sights set on loving each other as God loves us and cherishing the time we have together.

Psalm 118:24 - "This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."