Author: joyfuldomesticity

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Loving a wee layer of snow

Our home looks so lovely covered with a wee layer of snow. Enough to cover up the vestiges of the construction site and lack of yard, but not enough to require plowing yet. It’s the best of both worlds. 🙂

The boys and I went out to enjoy the frosty world. Okay, let’s rephrase that: Asher slept through it in some awesome cuddly coziness, I tolerated the cold biting my legs through my jeans (one of these days I need to unpack my snow gear!) and took pictures, and Gabriel thoroughly enjoyed the frostiness of the world around our home. Picture perfect examples? You got it.

     

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Three Days until Christmas

Because our Baby Nine was due to arrive in December this year, and because I knew we would still be living out of boxes, i wasn’t planning on doing much for Christmas. Not much decorating, not much baking, not much “holiday to-do” of any real magnitude. Not to be Scrooge-like at all, but just because of the timing of everything this year. However, with Asher making his arrival a bit early, our schedule was a bit more thrown off around Thanksgiving than around Christmas. So as it happens, we ended up not doing anything “Thanksgivingy” but we are winding up doing a few Christmasy things. Advent has gotten a bit lost in the shuffle, but Christmas shall not be! And amen. 😉

So the stockings have been hung along our stairway ~ and do you notice the glorious number of them? No longer three, but four stockings adorn our home. What a beautiful thing. Such a little thing to so many people, but truly monumental in my eyes.

And we ended up getting a tree cut, set up, and decorated, if only for the fact that our Gabriel literally begged us to have one. 🙂 So last weekend the guys stepped a mere twenty feet from our back porch and cut down a pine that would have been cut down in the spring anyway! It’s lovely. And my favorite part about it are the seven glass candle ornaments, each of which has one of our heaven-babies’ names on it. I love having a way to incorporate them into our Christmas.

We’ve also got plenty of gifts, candles, a flower arrangement, pillow, afghan, and a few other random Christmas decorations strewn about. And thus, the house that I thought would be fairly void of Christmas decorations this year is actually looking rather festive. I love it. Sitting by the fire in the evening with my boys is delightful, especially with twinkly lights and colorful gifts and pepperminty candles and choral cds enhancing the atmosphere.

 

We have a white board in the kitchen (someday I plan on having a big chalkboard on the wall, but that must wait until other things are accomplished first, like doors hung and shelves built and towel racks put in place…), where Gabriel and I are counting down the days until Christmas. Three days now! Wow!

So as you prepare to celebrate the miraculous incarnation of our glorious Savior, I also wanted to share this great little article that Mrs. Wilson wrote about gift-giving. What a wonderful perspective and how aptly worded. It’s so familiar to me, being right along the lines that I was raised with, and such a joy to see things written out in a humble, godly, loving way. Things that my parents exemplified to me my entire life, put into words by another wise woman. God be praised. So lavish blessings and goodness upon those around you this weekend. Reflect God and His character and His ways. We are made in His image: let us show it and share it tangibly this Christmas.

Make merry, my friends!

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Asher’s Baptism

 

Even though I have a 3 1/2 year old miracle boy, my motherhood has often felt more defined by loss than by life.
But suddenly I have a 3 1/2 week old miracle boy here with us as well. And life is beginning to be the pervading essence in our home. (At least for now.)
And it is beautifully refreshing. What a balm! What a respite! What a catch-my-breath miracle!

And yesterday was the drop that tipped the scales on that point.
It was Asher’s baptism.
For three years, we have sat in the church pew and watched family after family baptize their precious babies. And for much of that time, my husband and I have sat there crying. Weeping. Grieving. Wondering. Pleading.

Yesterday we were the ones who were asked to come to the front, to stand in front of the altar, to make promises before God and our congregation, to offer a charge to our baby, to pray a blessing upon him… Us. Our family. Our baby boy. :happytears:

My mother sewed him a gorgeous white gown, with French seams and tiny buttons and tucks and trimmings. She embroidered his name on it, along with “Baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” and yesterday’s date. And because it was a cold, snowy day she also sewed him a full slip and bonnet. She also gave him a white onesie that says “loved” and pale blue BabyLegs for underthings to keep him doubly cozy.

He wore his great-great-grandfather’s gold baby ring (along with one that was given just to him, for his own family heirloom), which is another reminder that he is part of the bride of Christ.

Steven wrote a beautiful charge and prayer for him.
I put together a reception for ~200 people afterward, where we served a light lunch of breads, meats, cheeses, olives, grapes, and cake (plus wine).
My parents hosted a family dinner celebration in the evening at their home, with white and gold decorations, white flowers, rich food and wine, music, people we love (and who love Asher), and another prayer of blessing.

The whole day was focused on life. Asher’s life. His life here on earth and his eternal life in heaven. The life that God has called him to, and the life that God has called us to nurture and disciple.

LIFE.

But Asher’s life does not exist in a bubble. And his life does not erase the immense pain we have endured as we have suffered the death of seven of his older brothers & sisters. And I wanted to somehow acknowledge them yesterday, even if it was just privately to myself. My mommy’s heart needed to know that all nine of my children were remembered as the youngest brother was given the sign of the covenant, as the waters of baptism dripped off his fuzzy red head.

So I wore a corsage made of seven baby white roses. My dad bought them. My mom made the corsage and pinned it on me. And a couple people actually commented on my corsage, and I was able to tell them that the seven roses were in honor of our heaven-babies. And I knew. The whole day, I knew what I was wearing and why. As I held my baby in my arm, and held my big boy’s hand, I wore a remembrance of their siblings. And I can’t tell you how that image blessed me.

Thanks be to God for His incredible gifts.
Not the least of which is our sweet covenant son, Asher Timothy.
Hallelujah!

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Wait ~ Christmastime?!

So it was snowing again this morning and Gabriel pipes up, it’s Christmastime!!!!

And it suddenly hit me. He’s RIGHT!!

I mean… wait a second… or hold on a tick as Gabriel likes to say, in the British quippy way…

Christmas is already here?! Didn’t our amazing Thanksgiving just happen?!

And shouldn’t the days slow down just a wee bit so I can drink in this newborn elixir to my drunken fill?! How can the holidays possibly be here and Advent already nearly past?!

So I hung our stockings. All FOUR of them. *happy tears*

And I have a couple Christmas towels and one Christmas pillow out. And a couple candles.

But tomorrow? I think tomorrow we may step into the backyard and cut down a tree. Literally twenty feet from our back door. And then I will march down to the basement and find some lights and ornaments. Because whether I had realized it or not, my three year old did and won’t stop reminding me: IT’S CHRISTMASTIME!!! 🙂

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Eye candy

People ask me for eye candy in the form of Asher photos. So here you go. Eat up. 🙂

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Our Thanksgiving Blessing

Psalm 126

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negeb!
Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.

Our mouths are filled with laughter, our tongues are filled with shouts of joy! We have been blessed with a sheave of wheat so sweet and ripe! Our precious Asher Timothy is here!

On Thanksgiving morning, just before sunrise, we received the enormous blessing of welcoming our Baby Nine into our arms. After a long labor and quicker delivery, we were overwhelmed with the goodness and mercy of looking upon LIFE. 6 pounds, 13 ounces, and 20 inches of squeaky, wiggly, precious, cuddly, redheaded, blue eyed life! As I held my Asher on my chest for the first time, I told him I have waited so long for you ~ I can’t believe you’re alive and sobbed over God’s goodness and grace. It’s just overwhelming. Astounding.

Asher ~ blessed, happy
Timothy ~ one who honors God

We have waited for years to bestow this name upon a living, breathing, image-bearing covenant child. He bears the name Timothy, just like his daddy, and he inherited his daddy’s eyes. We rejoice over this little boy’s life, and delight in sharing his arrival with you. God has indeed truly blessed us and made us happy. We seek God’s strength to raise him to honor God with every fiber of his being, to live in humble thankfulness before Him all of his days for the mercy God has showered upon all of us.

What a Thanksgiving miracle! Our children are a pure, unutterable blessing. Thanks be to God on high!!


 

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Moving In!

We’re making progress! We’re in the house! And I have been able to do a good bit of unpacking. The house will continue to be worked on while we live in it, so it’s definitely a work-in-progress, but we are so thankful to have moved before Baby arrives! Now we are settling in a little at a time, and I am trying to convince myself that it’s actually time to start focusing on Baby. Because I don’t think this next week or so is going to be very slow in passing!

Thank you for your continued prayers and encouragement. The Lord’s goodness is so abundant and we are extremely thankful. The beautifully falling snow that keeps layering frosting on all the roads and trees and fields and hills is just one more evidence of His sweet presence. It is the most beautiful thing to wake up in our very own home with a view out the windows that looks like it’s straight from a picture-postcard!

I will update as I can… which will be easier once we have internet at our house. 🙂 In the meantime, this was our first breakfast in our new house together as a family.

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Twelve more hours

In twelve hours, God willing, the U-Haul truck will be sitting in our driveway, ready to be filled with [most of] our earthly possessions! Crazy. Super duper incredibly insanely crazy.

Things are slowly falling into place. While we are “moving” tomorrow, we are not sure when we will be living there. It may be a few days yet, or we may just rush in and stay there right away. We’re playing it a little by ear, you could say. Thankfully my parents are next door and their guest room is all set up for us, so if we need to crash there, we are always welcome. What a blessing that is!

To think that this is our last night here in this house is surreal. I’ve lived here for 6 1/2 years. It’s the only place I have ever lived with my Steven or my Gabriel. It is the only house where all nine of my children have lived. It the house where seven of them have died. I have horrible memories here. And I have fantastically beautiful memories here. It is bittersweet to leave our home here for our new home. I can’t put it into words. As I sit here with bare walls, and rooms filled with boxes, I am reminded that my home is not here on earth. These things are all temporary, transitory. Thanks be to God for giving us homes and material things here on earth to make these temporary homes so enjoyable, so beautiful, so tangible! But also, thanks be to God for giving us the future and the hope of our eternal glorious home with Him and our complete family in heaven!

Here’s a sneak peek at a few rooms in our house today… and hopefully I can update with some “move” pictures soon!

Kitchen, kitchen eating area, stairway (and front door), master bedroom, nursery, guest bath.

And did I mention that there are about 8 inches of snow at our new house right now?!! Just to add to the insanity of this whole process….

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Baby Nine’s Shower of Blessing

On Friday evening, our church family hosted a baby shower to bless us as we anticipate the soon-arrival of our Baby Nine. Besides numerous women & girls from our church family, I had my sweet Gabriel, mama, sister-in-law, and one of my nieces there with me. It was nerve-wracking, honestly, for me ahead of time, thinking about attending a baby shower. For someone who has experienced infertility and/or loss, baby showers are extremely difficult things, almost regardless of the circumstances (if you’ve worn those shoes, you likely know what I mean). So I was very thankful when God gave me showers of blessings there and wiped away many of my nerves replacing them with joy.

Of course, my best friend offered a beautiful prayer of thanks and blessing, and included all nine of my children in the prayer by name (except Baby Nine… she doesn’t know his name yet…) :happytears: and that got the waterworks started… and then my mom did the “word of encouragement” (basically a 5 minute time of encouragement for a mom, tailored for me and my life) where she used Hebrews 12:1-13 as her springboard, talking about my journey, my children, my grief & pain, and the strength God has given me to run the race thus far along with an exhortation to continue resting in His strength to continue running the race He has set before me :happytears:, which got the waterworks going again… and then it was my turn to read some Scriptures & prepared words of thanks. By the time it got to my turn to speak, I was already crying (and so were plenty of other ladies ^_^) so it wasn’t such a big deal to just keep dabbing my eyes and sniffling a wee bit. ;)
I had half a dozen ladies come up to me later thanking me for what I said, and telling me they are so glad God is so honored in our family’s story, and such. I’m thankful that my words were a blessing, and that God enabled me to thank a small portion of people who have walked alongside us and upheld us over the last couple years of grief. God is good, and His mercy endures forever!

As I thought about it, I realized, though, that I need to share my words here as well. So many hundreds (in fact, probably thousands) of families have prayed with us over the last few years of suffering God has brought into our journey, and only a handful of them were present at the shower. But these words need to go far beyond the circle of saints that were with me at Friday’s shower. If you have walked any steps with us on this journey, these words of thanks are for you. If you have prayed with us and for us, this is for you, with sincere and utter thankfulness.

My Thank You Words for Baby Nine’s Shower

 Read Psalm 77:1-14

Read Psalm 78:4, 6, 7

A year plus a few days ago our son Hosanna was our seventh baby born to heaven. A few days later, many of you gathered in the frost on our front lawn for a prayer vigil (and some gathered via distance in their homes to pray). At that time, I never thought I would be HERE—especially not just a year later.

So many of you have walked this long, hard road of grief alongside us. For over four years, actually—but especially for the last 2 ½ solid. THANK YOU.

Grief is so isolating—infertility and miscarriage and death are so isolating—being a bereaved mother is so isolating—so thank you for coming alongside of us, alongside of ME, in recent months and years to weep and mourn and grieve with us. Thank you for praying with us through so many ups and downs, hopes and griefs. And now—I can’t believe I get to thank you for REJOICING with us!

It honestly feels so different to rejoice now after grieving for so long. It feels so different to hope now after despairing. It feels so different to carry life inside of me after having deaths occur inside of me. Thank you for wanting to celebrate and rejoice and glorify God with us because of our youngest son, this little boy, this brother of yours. THANK YOU.

It’s been such a long journey to get to this place (and it certainly isn’t over yet).

Four and a half years of marriage. Nine children—seven of them who live in heaven. Countless medical consultations and ultrasounds and other diagnostic procedures, many hundreds of vials of blood drawn, iv infusions every other week in 2010, four trips to Mexico for medical treatments that aren’t even FDA approved, sixteen+ months of daily injections (as many as three injections every day, but currently just two), a minimum of half a dozen oral medications and supplements every day, billions of tears, prayers, hopes, fears, doubts… One experimental medication cleared for use in treating recurrent miscarriages in the United States in January, which God allowed me to actually start using in January—and one nearly miraculous little life that finally took root in March that God has continued to nurture and grow and bless and prosper ever since.

How many people have prayed for us to have another living child? How many prayers have those countless people each offered on our behalf? The gates of heaven have literally been hammered and bashed by these prayers. God has heard. And He has extended extreme mercies. To us. And to you. He has made us blessed. He has made us happy.

Thank you for being the arms of Christ to us in so many varied situations. Thank you for being warriors with us in prayer. Thank you for seeking to hone your skills of weeping with those who weep. Thank you for jubilantly rejoicing with those who rejoice.

Your efforts in all of these things have not gone unnoticed. We appreciate each of you, and we are confident that your reward in heaven will be great.

This isn’t the end of our journey by any means. But it is a beautiful, even balming, chapter in the midst of what God is speaking in the story of our family’s life. We are thankful—so very thankful—to have you upholding us as we continue seeking God’s wisdom day by day, pursuing His greatest glory in the story He is speaking for us.

We were blessed by many church families in the form of a wonderful carseat for our new baby boy, and I also came home with a couple bags full of new things for Baby Nine: some super darling clothes, blankets, homemade bibs, stuffed animals, organic bath stuff for baby and pampering bath stuff for me, puzzles, a book… it was so surreal to sit there opening presents. I really felt like an imposter, a fake, definitely like I didn’t belong. Even between opening gifts, I kept thinking, “why am I opening these gifts? shouldn’t someone else be doing this?!” It was surreal and odd, but in a good way.

It was so great to see Gabriel participating in the anticipation of his newest baby brother at the shower, and to see just a small portion of people there who have been with us (or at least watching us) on our journey thus far. So while it was nerve-wracking to go to my own shower, it really was a great blessing on so many levels. It blessed me, it blessed others, and the gifts people bestowed on us will certainly bless Baby Nine. God is kind, and I am so thankful for His abundant blessings.

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Paint

So I am a couple weeks behind on posting anything about our new house… but we are still moving at the end of next week! I know: insane, right? 😉

But a couple of weeks ago I did remember to take some pictures of progress, and this is one (okay, two…) of my favorites. Gabriel wanted to help paint his new bedroom, and we documented a wee bit of the process.