working at home in the midst of chaos

earlier this week, i was featured on the gospel coalition's blog.  i submitted an essay about what it is like being a stay-at-home mother of four when life's chaos is overwhelming. and it was one of the submissions that were chosen to be featured in full.  i am so honored and excited to be on a blog i have been reading for years!

nice and early tomorrow, i will head off with a few ladies from our church to the gcm women's conference. i am so looking forward to it.  my kick butt husband will be holding down the fort while i am gone.  he is such a keeper!

{also, thanks so much to danielle for taking my picture for the blog post.  i definitely don't get in enough pictures and i am certainly not in any pictures without the kids!}

photo explosion :: vol. 10

{"mom, look where i keep my pencils!"}

{"hey, dad, my pancake looks like darth mal's face!"}

{so much anger}

{nothing gets me quite like chubby sleeping baby faces}

{in our house, most afternoons are shirt and pants optional, as declared by the kids}

{'how to train your dragon 2'... my first time taking them to the movies.  we were more than a little excited!}

{they are so sweet and quiet when they are sleeping!}

{beach monday, last week}

{he is very quickly learning how things work... he colors and reads and uses a fork at lunch.  when did it become ok for him to grow up?}

{he gets it from his father}

{he insisted i take his picture, as usual}

{jonah will disappear while i am busy and i will find him playing with the boys... he is officially one of them!}

beach monday!

some summers (usually when we have a newborn), i all but forget that we live ten minutes from the beach.

last month, our homeschool community had a beach day at a stretch of beach that i have never been to.  it has a bathroom and shower and the water was more shallow and calm than any other place we have been to since i moved here.  and, for the first time since titus was born, i felt confident that i could take all of the kids to the beach by myself without feeling like it was too dangerous. so, i declared (out loud to the kids, so that i would have to follow through!) that we were having beach mondays all summer.  they, of course, love it.  and we get to go to the beach all morning, once a week, without dragging along steve (who will go with us because he loves us, but really does not care for it).

often friends join us... sometimes it is just us.  we find starfish, catch minnows, boogie board, build castles, and play in tide pool "hot tubs".  it is perfect.

ballet

both gabe and ezra took ballet this year.  friday was their end of the year open house.  it was such a treat to see what they have learned this year and how much fun they had!  titus was thrilled to able to watch and is ready to join as soon as he is old enough.  i had to give him the job of taking pictures on my phone just to keep him from running out and joining in.  also, tiny ballet dancers are so darn cute.