Brotherly Love

These boys love playing together.  They love wrestling.  They love making each other laugh.  They love stealing food from each other's plate.  They love smacking the other when one is displeased with the other (Kai to Caleb) and carrying the other off when the other is in the way (Caleb to Kai).  They love hiding under blankets, reading books, building towers (and subsequently destroying each other's towers), and pinning their Mama to the ground - all while being together.  In short, these boys love being brothers!

They keep each other busy, and they keep each other happy (usually).  We love the brotherly love in this house!

Trip to Headquarters

This past week we had the privilege of traveling to our mission headquarters to attend our first training event of the year!  We have officially begun the training/fundraising process and are excited to be at this point in the journey.  Our organization, World Gospel Mission, helped us better understand how to spend this year before moving to Africa.  Our heads are swimming with information, but we are already better equipped in many ways - functionally, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  We learned about their philosophy for fundraising (which we greatly appreciate) as well as some of the nitty-gritty details, like filling out expense reports and learning options for designing prayer cards.  It was a great week overall and we are thankful to partner with an organization that is so helpful and encouraging!

The headquarters is in Marion, IN, which is on the way to nowhere.  But heading to nowhere meant we could fly into Chicago and spend time with friends both before and after our training.  We were also blessed to borrow a car for the drive from Chicago to Marion.  Our kids did great on the road trip.  They did great all week too.  WGM provided childcare so we could bring them with us and it was a huge blessing to have the boys there while also being taken care of so we could focus on the training every day.

I brought my camera but never thought to take any pictures.  I think my brain was too full to even consider it.  I did take some photos of the boys playing with their friends in Chicago, however.  They had a fabulous time discovering new toys, pretending to be animals at the zoo (hence the cage), and "going camping" in the tent/tunnel.  Spending time with friends is always a highlight of traveling!

We came home Saturday night and it feels good to have a sense of routine again.  Back to regular naps and bedtime.  Back to regular mealtimes.  Back to familiarity (including the chill in the air - we were practically sweating in Indiana!).

Our trip to headquarters set a good tone for the rest of the year.  We have a busy year ahead of us, but it will be a good year too!

Black and White: Classy

Between traveling a few times since Christmas, managing colds, working around Eli's insane work schedule of late, and desperately trying to get a modicum of sleep while everyone's systems are off, we've been in a sort of survival mode.  Right now I'm just thankful for the essentials: milk in the fridge, Tylenol in the closet, and PBS on TV.

We're low on energy, low on sleep, and low on organization around our house.  We are not low on chocolate, however, which is another essential I'm thankful for right now :)

I've taken barely any photos lately, but I opted to turn some recent shots into black and white.  They're not the best photos, yet somehow the black and white makes my kids look more classy than they really are.  And we're in need of a little class right now!

And then there's us.  We would never pretend to be classy - Eli thinks Chacos are dress shoes and I think Chapstick is the end-all cosmetic - but I like to think that black and white helps us out a bit too :)

We may not have had a classy start to the New Year, but we are trucking along and doing what we can.  And we have a thorough supply of chocolate to keep us grounded, if not classy :)