By Natalie
Zoe. Our dear sweet Zoe. Confident, intelligent, thoughtful, driven, funny, honest, Zoe-oh. I miss you sitting on the floor. I miss you bringing me my refilled water bottle. I miss your laugh, our late night card games, the coffee you made me every morning. You standing in the early morning glow of the kitchen, your German cooking, your truth, your hugs, everything about you I miss with an intense ache.
By Natalie
As you may know if you’ve been following along here for a while, every December I assemble an advent calendar for Felicity. This year’s calendar is full of activity sheets from The Box Full, along with a few fun craft kits I found in the Target dollar spot (my greatest weakness) and Michaels. I love seeing Felicity’s joy over this calendar and watching her crafting ability grow each year! (more…)
By Natalie
“I’ll take them.” I said without hesitation. What had come over me? When my friend Jamie mentioned that her girls weren’t crazy about their new preschool and wasn’t sure what to do, I spoke up. “I’ll take them.” I said. Knowing I could do it, I wanted to do it, and was pretty sure that I should do it. Jamie asked if I was serious. I nodded. “Let me know how they do in school the next couple of weeks.” I told her as she was still unsure if they needed time to adjust. (more…)
By Natalie
Lights on 6am
Leggings up, contacts in.
Morning Zoe, time for school.
Dark sky, red lights. (more…)
By Natalie
Zoe’s here! Thanks to everyone who has reached out in the past week to ask how things are going with our new exchange student. Our little family was so excited to finally welcome Zoe to the US. (more…)
By Natalie
We have some exciting news to share! In a few short weeks we will be welcoming a foreign exchange student into our home and our little family for one entire school year ♥ (more…)
By Natalie
We have 14 weeks in our summer. Just 14 weeks of impromptu water gun fights with the neighbor kids, splash pads, juicy watermelon and play dates. That’s about a hundred summer break days and I’m packing in as much as I can! We only have one summer with Felicity at this age and I want to make sure that we had an absolute blast each year! Friends have been asking what we plan to do all summer. The truth is that I probably have way too much planned! I’ve shared some of the big things but here’s a list of everything in between to give you some inspo! A life well lived is a life with intention♥ That’s our family motto. (more…)
By Natalie
Walking into the airport after 9 beautiful days in Puerto Rico was nothing short of heartbreaking. This was so much more than a vacation, it was a homecoming.
Brandon and I had hoped this trip would happen at least 5 years ago, but for one reason and then another it never worked out. As I approached 30 I recognized that something in me longed to connect more with my heritage. I wanted to see where my family and ancestors were from, to experience Puerto Rico for myself. (more…)
By Natalie
Felicity started preschool three mornings a week. She’s eager to learn and we can tell that time away from us is so essential for her growth. When her preschool was looking for extra teachers I decided to apply. I thought that keeping busy while she was away would be a good thing. But after a few days I wasn’t completely at peace with it. When I talked to a friend about it I realized that I was in a sense of denial over the fact that my little girl didn’t need me those mornings and I thought that I’d be cradling another little baby by the time she went to preschool. I needed to feel needed. For the past 7 years there have been kiddos in my care that needed me. My friend encouraged me to be still and find where God was leading me during this time before I forced myself into something that I wasn’t prepared for. (more…)
By Natalie
Brandon and I drove down the streets of NoDa, pulling in to Benny’s pizza. We ordered one giant slice of pepperoni pizza for each of us on a disproportionately small paper plate. Pam and Nate walked in behind us. We greeted, we laughed, we sat and ate together during a summer that feels like it was a lifetime ago. When we finished our pizzas Brandon and Nate drove over to Abari to play arcade games. Pam and I went back to their place in first ward to knit together and watch a show we’d binge every Wednesday night. For about a solid year we’d do this same routine, every Wednesday night. After landing in Charlotte 2 years prior we’d finally found our community and had made solid friends that we were doing life with. Our time together was golden and it felt like it’d last forever. In the midst of weekly routines like this one you never think about when it’s going to end, until one day it inevitably does and you long for it in a grievous way that you long for times that you know you can never get back. (more…)