Thankfulness

These past two weeks have been spent doing quite a bit of catch up work on baby books. I keep a detailed baby book for each child and also a scrapbook of my pregnancy, the delivery, and coming home from the hospital. I also have a journal for each that I keep track of different sayings, stories, changes, discoveries, etc. I KNOW these things will be precious to them someday...and worth all the work...but it is quite a bit to keep up with. The last time I updated everything was before we moved into this house...when Doster was 2 and a half. Since then I've been jotting things down on scraps of paper and making piles and piles and piles.

I've set up a card table in the living room that I've been working on and tonight I needed a bit of encouragement to keep going. Jason and I sat down and looked through each scrapbook and relived the pregnancy and experience of each of our children coming into this world. Oh my, definitely the reminder I needed to keep myself going, preserving these memories.

It was so fun looking back. It was so cute to see a completely black head of hair on Jason in the hospital pictures from Caroline's birth. The pictures from Mary Anna's birth show LOTS of gray hair...wonder what brought about the change over those seven years? :)


Our trip down memory lane brought us to the book I made from our blog we had when we were building our house.
65 Grove Park Drive...the journey.

It was this month - two years ago - that we began the journey of creating this home. It was so fun looking through the book together and reminiscing our excitement each day as we watched our home being built. The cool fall weather is such a physical reminder as we would bundle everyone up to come see the progress on the house each day.

The kids expressing their joy the day the carpet was laid in our new home.

My last entry really touched me tonight as I realized that I take so many things for granted that I didn't just 2 years ago. It was a good reminder, amidst the job stress we are now facing, of what we have been given.

Me unpacking and making my new pantry my own.

Saturday, March 15, 2008 "This morning Jason took the kids to Home Depot and I had the luxury of enjoying a cup of coffee, piece of toast and a good book on my deck. I was very distracted from reading, though, as I was captivated by the wet, quiet and beautiful woods behind our house.

As I sat I felt such peace and calm and found myself being able to give the Lord complete glory for my disposition. I realized just how grateful I am for this piece of land Jason and I are able to put our name to, a piece of land we'll be growing with and journeying through life upon.

I decided to brave the mud from last night's storms and walked back to our creek. It is amazing how many memories that creek evoked from my childhood. In Iowa we had a creek running through the front of our farm that we would cool watermelons in during the summer. I vividly remember the cattails and crawdads as we played in the sun. Then my memories took me to the creek across from my parent's land here in Georgia. We would bury treasure (marshmallows, matches, and Band-Aids) along the creek bed for those emergencies that were sure to occur. The sound and sight of our creek today brought back so many memories as my own siblings and I would play, as children, in the cool water.

And to think, my children will have these same memories, they will create their own versions, but they will enjoy those same things that were so full of treasure for me as a child.

As I walked along the creek this morning, in the quiet damp woods, I was overwhelmed with the knowledge of what we've been given. Not what we've earned or bought or worked for or afforded, rather just what we've been given. Our Father has blessed us with a home so dear to our hearts, not one of great grandeur or wealth, but one of solidity and firm foundation to grow this family in and upon. My heart overflows..."


Caroline praying for our new home....at the end of this post.