I have not done a great job keeping up to date on all our summer happenings around here, and now here we are at the first day of school for our oldest. I’d like to say my lack of posting has been the result of living every last moment of summer fun to the fullest, but the more realistic answer to my absence would be I have been consumed with surviving every last moment of said summer fun. Most days I feel grossly ill-equipped and outnumbered for this incredible job of motherhood. I don’t anticipate that ever fully goes away, but I plan to keep chipping away at it best I can. Overall, we have some great times and so many victories along the road of transitioning home with Lulu and finding our new way as a unit of five. And as much as I dread the alarm clock going off at 6am every week-day from now until May, I am actually hopeful the new swing of things brings us some structure and routine to help round out some of our free-fall style of life right now.
One of my projects to tackle in the coming weeks is to rename and rework this here blog. When we began our adoption process, we almost didn’t even set up a blog as I felt I wouldn’t use it much. I already had a blog for my photography work and some of my writing, and our adoption blog came to be originally more of an announcement HQ for fundraising and updates. Obviously naive to all that journey held for us, I never imagined becoming so invested and connected to not only our supportive community of friends and family via this blog, but also the larger adoption community. Even now having been home with Lulu for nearly five months it feels we are still very much in the middle of the journey and it would be incomplete to stop recording it now. So continue on I plan to, just with a slightly different name and angle. My goal is to eventually merge both blogs into one with various sections or pages. I am mulling over a few ideas for a new name, but it could be fun to include you all in it – so feel free to leave any creative suggestions in the comments. 🙂
Okay, so back to the original intent for this post – the first day of school! Emma began second grade today, and she could not be cuter, toothless and all. This is our third year at her school and every August I am more and more grateful and honestly overwhelmed by God’s goodness towards us, allowing our family to be part of an amazing school family. I sat in the parking lot for a few moments this morning after dropping Emma off, just thinking through some of the answered prayers Emma, at age 7 has been able to experience. Last August she started first grade with prayers for her baby sister to come home. As the months went on and on, her prayers and pleas intensified along with our own and before long her entire class was daily praying for Lulu’s homecoming. Those six and seven-year-olds prayed their hearts out and stood on faith that can still bring me to tears. What a sweet gift and response to the faithfulness of Emma and her friends for God to orchestrate Lulu’s homecoming at a date and time when many from the class could be there to see us off that plane in late March. I sat there in the parking lot this morning and cried over the relief I still feel being able to breath fully having Lulu home. And as those prayer warriors filed in for another school year, I cried for the role they play in the story of Emma’s life and that of our family.
To think of those prayers and tears shed for much of first-grade, and then this morning taking our annual first-day photograph on the front lawn with the crew below, hand in hand, is a humbling reminder of how far He has brought us. We love you Emma and are so so inspired by the girl you are and the woman you are becoming. You are going to ROCK some second grade sister!
*airport photos courtesy of Jen & Chris Creed Photographers
