I have enjoyed playing with photography for a while now, and recently took a continuing education photography class so that I could learn more about my camera – so I could take pictures with the letter settings on the dial instead of just the picture settings. I learned SO much in my class, and had so much fun. My favorite assignment was to take a self-portrait from behind the camera. I’m pretty proud of mine, so I thought I’d post it on here. Enjoy!
Today finds me in a weird mood – sentimental, thankful, hormonal, who knows. Anyway, there is a song in the musical Wicked called “For Good”. This seems to be on my mind today.
“I know I’m who I am today because I knew you.”
Today has me thinking of those who have made me who I am today. God has a way of crossing our paths with others who He uses to prepare us for the roads He is leading us down. Having Kirsten in our lives (see my previous post) has gotten me thinking back to when I was a teenage girl. I am a completely different person than I was – or ever thought I’d be – when I was 15.
I am thankful that:
The bullets could go on and on. Over the course of the last 20 years, I can look back now and see that God has grown and shaped me through the people in my life. I started with the intention to talk about some specifically, but that list became too long. Some I am still very close to, and some I haven’t seen for years. But I am grateful for all of the faces, and the memories they bring.
I think in my life, my parents got to a point that they were just trying to keep me safe (and keep me from making too many big decisions with 15-year-old logic that would screw up my life) until I was old enough to make decent decisions on my own. I feel sure that prayer was a BIG part of it, too. Lots and lots of prayer.
Anyway, today is a little ramble-y, but this gist is this: Because I knew you (you know who you are, sweet friends), I have been changed for good.
Our new adventure
Many of you know that God has been working in our hearts in the areas of adoption and fostering in the past few years. As we’ve progressed along this road, we were never sure where we were headed – we were just “along for the ride”, waiting to see what God was doing and how we could be a part of that. We always thought we would foster/adopt an infant, and we would wait until our 3 were a little older.
A friend recently reminded me of the saying, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.” How true. A couple of weeks ago, we began to see where God was leading us with all of this.
We have recently gotten close to a family in our church. The mother has had some health issues lately, and because of that and some other concerns, she decided that her home was not the best environment for her 15-year-old daughter at this particular time. We began to talk, and decided (through much prayer and talking with everyone involved) that God was leading us to be a 2nd home for this girl. We still have a very good relationship with her family; we all go to church together, and they speak with her and us often regarding decisions that need to be made.
So, for lack of a better term, we have a long-term foster teenage daughter. We have so enjoyed having her here, and we are crazy about her. She loves our children and fits into our family well – and I have found that I enjoy having some frills and estrogen around the house! Nathan, Luke and Austin are thrilled to have a “big sister.” We are homeschooling, which is another new adventure for us and for her. We all seem to be adjusting well so far. I feel sure we’ll run into some bumps along the way, but I’m thankful for the peace so far, and for the bonds we are building together.
We know that this seems crazy – it seems a little crazy to us, but we really feel like God has brought us to this place, and will continue to work through this situation for the benefit of Kirsten and for us.
Please pray for all of us (the Miller family, Kirsten, and Kirsten’s family) as we continue to adjust to this new arrangement. I’d love for all of the important people in our lives to meet her and get to know her. Please feel free to ask any questions you have.
I find that I remember cute things that the boys used to do, and I’m afraid I’ll forget them as they grow up. So, I’ve decided to stop saying, “I should probably write that down so I’ll remember it”, and just do it.
Here’s my memory for today. When Nathan was young – like, 2 1/2-ish – he began to develop his “favorites”. His favorite things were trains and elephants, which is not surprising. His favorite colors were the fun part – they were: “blue, yellow, green, grey, pink, purple, black, orange” in that order. He would repeat them in the exact same order every time. He would also ask for things by this color order. For example, he would say, “I want the cup that’s my third favorite color.” So then I had to think through the list until I got to the right color.
A couple of days ago, Denys and Luke were looking through a dinosaur book. They came upon the Megalodon – an enormous shark-like dinosaur. Luke is fascinated by sharks, so this was his favorite in the whole book. He looked at it over and over, and wanted Denys to read all about it. Denys read, “Look, Lukey. It says this shark-like dinosaur could get up to 53 feet long.” Luke laughed and replied, “There’s no feet, Daddy! It has fins!”
WOW.
When I first got pregnant, the piece of advice I heard more than anything else was, “Enjoy every moment, because it goes by too fast.” At the time, I had just gotten pregnant (after 2 years of trying and some necessary intervention from a reproductive endocrinologist) with Nathan. 4 1/2 months after Nathan, I got pregnant (SURPRISE!!) with Luke. So, the next April I had a newborn and a 14 month old. I tried to treasure the moments, but I was just too busy, I think.
Now they are 4 and 5. Luke started Pre-K this year and Nathan started Kindergarten.
I am so proud of the way my boys love each other and are best friends. I am proud of how independent they are, and how I never get calls from school, unless it’s to tell me what great kids they are. I’ve worked VERY hard to mold them into the little people they are becoming. But, I can still remember each of them vividly as babies – their smells, how they looked in their little clothes, their bedrooms, cute little habits. Growing up is definitely bittersweet – I’m excited to see them mature into little men, but I miss the snuggly babies, too. I think every mom shares that feeling.
I am proud to say that I did not have a meltdown on the 1st day of school for either one, although if I think about it very much I may have one now.
So … “Enjoy every moment, because it goes by too fast.”
Today we welcomed Austin James Miller into our family. He arrived at 12:20pm by c-section at East Georgia Regional. The boys were at school until noon and Papa brought them by afterward. They ate lunch in the waiting room, and then went to see Austin as soon as he arrived in the nursery. Heather Benton also came to take pictures. Nathan was very interested in seeing Austin, and then was “over it” – moved back to the waiting room to eat lunch. Luke, on the other hand, was immediately smitten. He would NOT leave the window, and was extremely distressed when the nurses mistreated his baby brother by pricking his heel, not putting clothes on him, and leaving him all by himself. Austin weighs 8lb 1oz and is 21″ long – perfectly healthy, no issues at all. Thank you Lord!
Nathan drew me a picture one day while he was hanging out upstairs with Denys. I know it doesn’t look like much, but let me describe what some of the pieces are. The big box on the left is a train, and the smaller one is it’s coal tender – this is a favorite thing for Nathan to draw. Above the tender is a flower that he drew (top right corner) just for me, because “you like flowers, mommy.” Inside the train are a multitude of squiggles. The top row is just “decoration”; below that is a hand making a sign language “I love you” (thumb, forefinger, pinky up, other 2 fingers down), and an “M M Y” (mommy). When he showed it to me, he said, “Look! I wrote ‘I love you, mommy'”.
Now, I have to mention that Denys did not help at all – Nathan came up with the “I love you” hand all on his own – he made it with his hand, looked at it, and drew it. He also sounded out the letters he thought should spell Mommy.
This one’s a keeper, for sure …
Feb 12-13, 2010
So, we live in South Georgia. We have 2 seasons – Summer and not quite Summer yet. The last time it snowed here was about 20 years ago. It has been unusually cold this winter, but it never precipitated when it was cold enough to freeze. Tonight, however, we got SNOW! Denys has joked that the boys don’t think snow is real – that it’s pretend like Mickey Mouse – because they’ve never seen it. Tonight, though, it snowed beautifully and stuck until around 10:00 the next morning. We built a snowman and threw snowballs. It was so much fun – we’ll do it again with the grandchildren in 20 years!
February 6-7, 2010
We had a whirlwind adventure this weekend.
We left a 5am on Saturday headed to Kennedy Space Center for the day. The boys loved seeing the Rocket Garden and the Space Shuttle, but their favorite part was the playground – really. We saw an IMAX movie about the moon, had lunch, and ended the day at the gift shop with a new Space Shuttle.
The next morning – or night – we got up at 2am to go find a spot to watch the shuttle launch. We found a spot across the river from the launch site where we could see the lights from the launchpad. This was the last scheduled night launch for the shuttle program. The shuttles are being retired, and a new manned rocket program initiated. The shuttle was scheduled to launch at 4:39am on Sunday. When we left the space center, there was an 80% chance that it would launch; when we arrived to watch on Sunday morning the probability was down to 60%; it was downhill from there. The launch was cancelled about 10 minutes before the scheduled time. We were all tired, cold, and terribly disappointed.
Nathan, Luke and Mommy got to fly home in Oppy’s plane. This was Luke’s first flight and Nathan’s first that he could remember (his first flight was when he was about 2 weeks old). They were SO excited, and it helped ease the disappointment of not seeing the launch. We flew up above the clouds, and the boys thought it looked like the moon in the movie we had just seen.
We got home Sunday afternoon and we all crashed. We had a fun and memorable weekend, but it was definitely a whirlwind.
We did watch the shuttle launch on the computer Monday morning – it wasn’t the same, but it was still amazing to watch.
Happy Miller Chaos 