The gift of friends!

Somehow over the last few years, I have been beyond blessed to have each of you Ladies fall into my life and the life of my family and I can say with 500% confidence that I would NOT be who I am today without each of you. I love you, and although life is about to get a bit crazy, I do believe that our friendships will continue for many, many years!!! xoxo

Dear Emily and Margaret,
Today we had a really busy, really fun day! But what I want to make sure to tell you before I head to bed is that having friends in this life is such a gift. I am already praying for your future friends, especially the friends that will come into your life during pivotal and character building years.

I am praying that God will bring the right people into your life and that you will have discernment when you need to make the sometimes very tough decision to walk away from those who do not build you, or others up and seem to be holding you back from what God has asked of you. When you read this I do and don't hope you arent just rolling your eyes thinking to yourself that your mother is just some crazy Jesus Freak lady who is off of her rocker. :) If you do think that about me, in a small way, I smile for I know I must have done something right, but I don't want you to think of my love for Jesus as something that would cause you to roll your eyes. I hope and pray that what I can demonstrate to you over the years will be the goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and consistency that comes from walking in obedience. You bet I am less than perfect! I am focused on learning and on growing.

COULD you kids be cuter???? (NO!!!)

Anyways, it is getting late, but I just wanted to share that tonight we got to get together with some of our most precious friends that we are going to miss a lot as we move away. Watching all of you kids play together today was such a blessing to my heart: the gentleness, the hugs, the learning to share share share, the swimming, the laughing, the dancing, the bubbles, the wonderful food, the group pictures that we got to take part in is something I will never forget. I couldn't help but wonder what it might be like when/if all of us get together in 15 or even 20 years. We the parents won't be able to encourage you to share your toys, to give hugs and to be respectful during prayer time before we eat. But will you all do those things on your own free will???? I'm sure excited to see...

Documenting our families as of June 1, 2013...