when life just won't let up

i have been (and continue to be) learning that life is never simple.  sometimes bad things, or even good things, have a way of knocking you off your feet. but i am also learning that as we scramble to get back up and find our footing again, when normal seems so incredibly elusive, God's blessings are abundant still.  and i am learning to find them amid the chaos.  so while 2014 has not turned out to be the uneventful follow-up year to our difficult 2013 that i had hoped it would be, i am finding that i go to him more easily; and that i see him more easily.  there's so much grace in that, and i am thankful.

these last weeks, my sweet daddy has been in the hospital with a pretty major blood and spine infection. we are praying for both him and my mom, that he would recover very soon and that she would be comforted and cared for after what is quickly becoming a much longer and more complicated hospital stay than any of us anticipated.  and while i have so much i would like to write about our boys and our life right now, it will have to wait until life lets up a bit.  

until then, here are a few pictures of my darling titus very seriously nursing his "baby" (who is, as you can see, a purple penguin).