Passionate Homemaking

As I look back on the summer and wel­come in the coming of fall, I am so thank­ful for each new season of life and the won­der­ful cycles that God has so beau­ti­fully fash­ioned. We had a full but pro­duc­tive summer!

This month included many adventures…camp­ing with Light­sys (the tech­nol­ogy in mis­sions min­istry we are join­ing), a quick week­end trip up to Seat­tle to visit Aaron’s extended family, lots of family birth­day par­ties (as so many of them fall in this month!), car break­downs, mommy’s belly start­ing to pooch out just a little bit announc­ing new life on the way, Karis start­ing to walk, enjoy­ing the first fruits of our con­tainer garden, stor­ing up won­der­ful pro­duce for the winter, and the like.

I have also expe­ri­enced both of my blenders break­ing on me (one which came with my Bosch mixer and the other which was a backup and had been loaned to my brother-​in-​law, and broke shortly after he returned it to me while I waited for my Bosch replace­ment). Alas…a huge loss around here! Thank­fully one is cov­ered under war­ranty but the piece is on back order for who knows how long…it’s been push­ing a month now and yet I still keep adding smooth­ies to my break­fast menus in faith that it will arrive.

Among all the adven­tures, the reign­ing truth is that God is sov­er­eign and always work­ing out His per­fect plan in and through our lives. I rejoice to see the good work that He is doing and His mer­ci­ful pro­vi­sions in everything.

Car Update

Many of you have been inquir­ing as to our cur­rent car sit­u­a­tion. We greatly appre­ci­ate all your sweet com­ments and prayers. Aaron’s brother and wife gra­ciously loaned us a vehi­cle while we search for a replace­ment. We have been adviced by a mechanic friend of our family to try to sell our vehi­cle as it is. If this doesn’t work, then invest in repair­ing it and sell­ing it. He encour­aged us to defin­tely con­sider find­ing another newer vehi­cle to avoid future prob­lems. Our trusty subaru was push­ing 13 years old. So that is where we are at, get­ting our car cleaned and ready to try to sell. In the mean­time we are look­ing out for a good deal on a newer vehi­cle, trust­ing the Lord will pro­vide for us, as He so faith­fully has done in the past!

Peaches & Produce

Freez­ing peaches for winter smooth­ies and dessert, can­ning peaches for Karis to munch on or add to fruit salads has been keep­ing me busy lately. I have been pick­ing and freez­ing black­ber­ries, blue­ber­ries, and other fresh good­ness. Our toma­toes are start­ing to pro­duce, but it appears they might not be so suc­cess­ful to give us a good can­ning supply…but we shall wait and see!

Karis at 15 months

Karis started walk­ing at the begin­ning of the month! She has been so adorable and fun to watch as she devel­ops in this area. She is such a big girl! She wants to eat every­thing on her own (and boy what a mess she can make -we could use a bath after every meal!), walk every­where, explore every­thing. She loves hang­ing out on our back deck and explor­ing the garden or simply play­ing with the hose. Her hair is get­ting so long and I can hardly keep it man­aged or at least out of her face. She loves read­ing books with mommy…although she hardly sits through one book before open­ing the next and back and forth again. She has a random col­lec­tion of words includ­ing: “Daddy” (but not mommy - oh when will that day come?), “cracker”, and “amen” (which she loves to say after our prayer times), and that’s about it. It is so cute all the same.

Karis is loving on one of her second cousins with Grandma Edmonds. She is going to be such a good big sister! She loves babies!

Pregnancy Update

I will be twelve weeks along by the end of this week! We are look­ing for­ward to the arrival of our second little one around March 11th. We will not be find­ing out the gender of our baby, because we love the sus­pense and sur­prise! We thought for sure Karis was going to be a boy…and low and behold, the Lord sur­prised us and oh how fun it was! Did you know that only 5% of cou­ples now a days wait to find out the gender? Crazy…well, I am stub­born and will make a stand and join that 5%. I have been feel­ing much better in the last few weeks, and I think start­ing to wean Karis was a huge part of that. We are down to nurs­ing once a day. I am thank­ful to have been able to nurse her for so long. My body was just not able to feed three people at once!

The only ail­ment that has entered the pic­ture again, as I expe­ri­enced it in my first preg­nancy, is occa­sional very painful chest and upper back pain. Last time around they thought it was related to my gall blad­der but after being exam­ined it was sus­pected that it was rather inflamed car­ti­lage in my chest. Who knows…but it is sure painful and not very fun! But other than that, I am very thank­ful for a very smooth preg­nancy thus far! Naps are still pretty essen­tial and nec­es­sary to main­tain my cheer­ful­ness around the house. I will have my first mid­wifery appoint­ment this next week, as we plan for our second home birth, Lord willing.

Planning for a New Season

As I begin to reflect on this new season, I am being chal­lenged by the Lord to spend time in prayer and plan­ning. I was able to get out for an hour while the baby was nap­ping today (thanks to the won­der­ful bless­ing of having my hubby work­ing from home!), and spend some time pray­ing and read­ing the Word. I am eager and need­ing to seek the Lord for a renewed vision in my moth­er­ing, to glean clar­ity in how I can min­is­ter to others during this season, and vision for my blog­ging as well.

The Lord was so mer­ci­ful to give me insight into these areas. Praise the Lord! He is so faith­ful to respond to those who call upon Him. These insights will be shared more fully as we enter into our book study on The Mis­sion of Moth­er­hood, a resource that is greatly assist­ing me in renew­ing my vision for my pri­mary mis­sion field - the hearts of my chil­dren. Praise the Lord that He is so gra­cious to fill us again when we lose sight of our purpose…