The past few months of our lives seem to have flown by. I don’t know if it’s the ages of our kids, the crazy moving situation that we went through, or just life…but it has seemed like we are moving at a million miles an hour. I am almost looking forward to the slower winter months that come after the holiday (although as always, I am dreading the dreary cold and snow!).
We started off the mont with our incredibly stressful emergency move from our tiny house. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read more about that decision in this blog post. Since we were in such a hurry to get out, we packed up and moved over the course of one week. On Tuesday night, our small group from church came over and literally packed up our house for us and helped us move the basic essentials like clothes, kitchen dishes, toiletries and our mattresses. We lived with bare bones (no tables/chairs/couches) until Saturday when a huge team from our church came and helped move all of our stuff over. I’m not going to lie…I cried A LOT that week.
It’s been
I cannot even begin to tell you the freedom and peace that washed over our family as soon as we moved away from that toxic situation. Life still has not been easy (you will see that as you keep reading this post!), but the fact that we can go outside without being screamed at has changed every aspect of our lives. It’s crazy to me how one small toxic person can poison so many areas of life. Theo and I were walking on pins and needles ALL.THE.TIME when we lived next to our neighbor and now we are able to just breathe. And take the kids to play outside in a big pile of leaves!
No sooner had we moved in than we got the news that a Dayton detective had been shot. Theo was not at work when it happened since he was still working his desk duty, but it still hit hard. That whole week was a blur as we held onto mourning and choosing to not live in fear. It was hard to send Theo to work that week. Most of the DPD officers worked many, many extra hours that week. They also were invited to attend the honor walk and they were all asked to be at Detective Del Rio’s funeral.
The group Police Wives of Ohio came together to honor Detective Del Rio and his family, and one thing that we did was to hang blue bows all across the city of Dayton. The kids and I hit up every craft store in our area and bought out all the blue ribbon. I tried my hand at making
Meanwhile, at home, I continued to unpack and try to get settled. I dumped out every single toy the kids own and went through it all. We still have way too much stuff! I don’t know how we lived in a tiny house for so long and seem to have so much stuff still! I will say that the kids love having a little more space to run around.
This year is the first year that my kids have been out of the house and around other kids regularly. Tera is in Kindergarten, Kiah is attending preschool and Ezra is in childcare while I teach part-time. And you guys. We have been sick NON-STOP since August. It’s always Ezra that comes down with something about 24 hours after being in childcare. I know that the childcare is not dirty or unsanitary, it’s just that our immune systems haven’t been exposed to any of this before! It’s so frustrating to have constant sick kids, but I’m told that after the first year they tend to become immune to everything. So here’s hoping!
Speaking of school…it has been such a cool opportunity to become a part of this community. The kids and I were able to attend the official ribbon-cutting and dedication of CHESS Christian School. I’m just so excited to be a part of this and can’t wait to see where the Lord takes this school. It’s fun to wonder if our family will be a part of it for years to come, or if this is just a short season. Only God knows!
This month also brought our first snow and our first 2 hour delay! I’m sure it will not be the last, but the first is always so exciting! I timed myself and it took me 7 minutes to get the kids dressed, and they spent about 12 minutes outside. LOL.
Can anybody guess what Kiah’s favorite color is?
And can anyone guess what Ezra’s favorite activity is?
Our sweet Ezra turned ONE this month! Can you believe it?
About a year ago, I started making afternoon tea time a thing. I get the kids some hot chocolate, pour myself some tea and we all have a snack. I usually put on a podcast for the kids. We do this through the summer, too, but there is just something about a cozy, warm winter snack that can’t be beat. Sometimes I even spoil them by putting marshmallows in the hot chocolate.
During these cold months, I have to be really intentional about looking for blessings and beauty, otherwise I start to get really down in the dumps. But this sunset was unbeatable. The amazing thing is that we have sunsets like this almost every night. What a view!!
I am always amazed at how creative my kids are and the things that they can find to entertain themselves (we are stuck inside from November-March and we really try to keep
We celebrated Ezra’s birthday with a joint birthday party for Adam + Ezra. They were born just two days apart and since Adam’s family and our family don’t have any extended family around, we just made it a church birthday party and invited our discipleship groups. It was so fun showering these two sweet boys with love. What a year it has been!
We also celebrated Ezra at home by having a special meal, cake and then some birthday gifts. Ezra is very into cleaning supplies…he LOVES walking around with the mop or broom, so he got lots of kid-sized cleaning supplies for his birthday.
To say thank you, Ezra promptly threw up and gave us all the stomach
Thankfully, we all recovered and I busted the kids outside as soon as humanely possible.
We decided to stay here in Ohio for the holidays and got together with friends for Thanksgiving! It was so fun and the food was SO GOOD!
We also decorated for Christmas! This year it was really fun because we finally bought an artificial tree. We actually bought it last year after Christmas because we discovered last year that Kiah is very much allergic to the live Christmas trees. Theo put the tree together, strung the lights and then Tera actually did 90% of the decorating! And Ezra has done 100% of the undecorating. I don’t remember either Tera or Kiah being so into the Christmas tree, but Ezra LOVES it….and LOVES taking things off of it.
Our house is still on the market and we have frequent showings (usually 4-7 a week!) so I need to find creative things to do to get the kids out of the house. One day we hit up 2nd Street Market and it was SO FUN! I will for sure be back!
November is over and now we move into the craziness that is December! I had really great intentions about celebrating advent this year, but so far it’s already Dec 12 and we haven’t done a very good job at anything advent related! But you know what…that is ok. We are safe. We are healthy. Theo is back to patrol and not on desk duty anymore. The kids are thriving in school and I’m enjoying teaching. We have so so so much to be thankful for!
