our yearly family update!

Just wanted to share a short and sweet update on the family for anyone who still may stumble upon and read this blog! 2013 was a great year for us, and we're looking forward so much to all that this new year might bring.

Josh and Suzi celebrated their 9th wedding anniversary this year and welcomed their littlest, Thomas Charles. It's unbelievable that he is seven months old already! Anna and Becca turned 8 and 7, Bennie is 5, Sara Kate is 3, and Eva turned 2 this last year. They're very involved with their church, school, piano lessons, and of course, the endless everyday work of living on a beautiful farm.

Sara met and married a wonderful man named Lucas this year. Introduced by a mutual friend, the two were pretty much inseparable since the day that they met. They were married outside on a chilly, beautiful day in October. They're blessed to be building a new home right next door to Lucas' mom [and only 20 minutes from the rest of us!] and are hoping to finally be able to move in sometime before the end of February. They love working with the high school youth group at their church, being involved with AA and NA, and are thrilled to be expecting a baby in early September!

Stefanie and Ethan will celebrate their 3rd anniversary in a couple of months, and their little girl Esme just turned 1 year old. They are expecting baby #2 [it's another girl!] in early March, and the Army is moving their little family to Germany at the end of April for a few years! We're sad that we'll be so far away from all of them, but it'll be fun to be able to visit them overseas!

Skyler proposed to his beautiful girlfriend, Jessica, in Florida on Christmas Eve, and they are planning an August 2014 wedding. We're so happy to welcome Jess into our family!

Samuel [15], Seth [11], Silas [9], Savannah + Sophia [7], Shiloh [5], and Spencer [3] are growing fast, loving life, learning new things every day, and since they've been indoors a lot lately due to one snowstorm after another, they are playing lots of board games and eagerly anticipating summertime again--we can foresee many days spent at Luke and Sara's pool this year!

Perhaps one of the greatest "achievements" of Mom and Dad's this year is having embraced a more healthy way of living + eating, and they've lost a combined weight of over 70 lbs since they started! Of course, the rest of the family has benefited from all of the healthy, delicious meals as well. It's been an interesting and exciting journey, but the rewards have already been more than worth it!

God has blessed each one of us far beyond what we could have imagined. We are so, so grateful to be a part of a big and loving family, and are so thankful for the friendships that He's given us from all around the world! Even though our blog may suffer because of the inherit busyness of our lives, we're really appreciative of the time that you all take to keep up with our family. So much love to all of you, and come visit us anytime!

[Also, the easiest way to keep up with our family is via Facebook and Instagram! Our family's IG usernames are somanyblessings, _suzanneelizabeth_, imsarajane, embracing2day, sknelson24, and the1blackfox]

Esme.

This beautiful little girl came into the world this morning, and we're all pretty thrilled! Esme Gabrielle Rodgers. She was born three weeks early and she's a tiny thing at just six-and-a-half pounds, but she's healthy and making Stef and Ethan as happy as can be!

Also, Josh and Suzi announced the upcoming arrival of baby #six in June! That will mean thirteen siblings and nieces and nephews under ten years old, so you can imagine the fun we'll have!

We're so very, very blessed.

 

wonder & shades of brown

"I have believed the lie that wonder is something that is given to me by someone else.

That it is fire and flurry, the crashing of might and might, the explosion of flame.
Dazzle and daring and the fluorescent spectacular.

But the truth is that none of this is wonder. Not really. There is nothing passive about true wonder.
It is not dependent on bigness or limited by smallness;
it is not the response to entertainment or to spectacle.

Wonder is a choice. It comes only when I choose to stay.

It’s that thing that happens when doubt and astonishment and mystery converge.
It happens when I stand in one place long enough.
When I stare out at the broken cattails or the winter-bare branches
or a dew drop until it stops being about me. Starts being about the branch.
And then about more than the branch. And then about God.

And it doesn’t always feel like epiphany or the climax of a hit movie.
Sometimes it comes and goes so quickly that you almost can’t believe that it was there.

But in that moment, something in your heart reaches towards God.
And for a small span of space, you believe Him to be all he says he is,
and you know it is enough…and this is the true heart of worship."
deeper story || the daily work of wonder

Each new day seems to rush by us in a dizzying blur. I was recently convinced that summer was still beginning, only to notice frost on the ground and the trees entirely bared of leaves. Autumn came and left again before I had the chance to blink an eye. The oh-too-familiar signs of winter are already rapidly approaching, and there's snow in the air, Thanksgiving menus being planned, and Christmas secrets in the making. I'm pretty sure we must have skipped October completely.

In a way, there's so much to look forward to about the coming of colder months ahead and all the cosiness that they bring. There's a sense of wonder that comes with the slowing-down and the togetherness of the season, the depth of tradition, and being surrounded by enough simplicity to notice beauty in wonderfully trivial, ordinary, fleeting moments. Like cinnamon rolls on a chilly morning, the first snowfall, sunlight streaming through frosted windowpanes, and being bundled in oversized scarves. There's beauty and wonder in that, and it leaves so much to look forward to.

[And by the way, just in case you're wondering how I could possibly not take any pictures the last few months...
well, I did. They just happened to all be on my phone.
And in an effort to clean up my phone, I imported all my 3,000+ photos to my computer,
and then deleted them from my phone. The end.
They are no where to be found.
Silly iPhones.]

these are that day

“And how could we endure to live and let time pass

if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back

--if we did not know that every day in a life

fills the whole life with expectation and memory

and that these are that day?” 
|| C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

Enjoying the last of our carefree summer days. Harvesting the garden. Preparing to begin a new school year. Sewing...lots of sewing! Celebrating birthdays. We often wonder when time will stand still long enough for us to soak it all in...every experience and emotion and memory. We are so very blessed.