butterfly. babies. love.

as i begin to write this entry, i look down on my lap to see a 15 week old beauty, nestled so sweetly and perfectly in a blanket, sleeping ever so peacefully on my lap. i am moved constantly by her delightful sounds and giggles, her undeniable cuteness, and the way her little mouth purses to attempt to speak, and then to pout, and then to smile and attempt to speak again. she has moved me by her pure innocence and her helplessness and her resilience, by her need to be near me and to hold me and to feel my skin and to hear my heartbeat. i think of her sisters and how often they have made me shed tears of joy and of wonder also. how they have moved me simply with one word, often said at just the right time or the awfully wrong time, and how their complex personalities and intense love often make my heart feel like bursting. i am moved by their passion for all that is good, and their intrigue about why things are wrong, their prayers and their screaming arguments, their logical banter ...

2015 will be a year of penning suggestions, prayers, advice for my girls. on love: love is not something simple. love is complex and it is most definitely worth waiting for. waiting is difficult, but it is necessary because you gain much knowledge and learn many lessons, all the while holding onto your own sense of independence and understanding of your unique place in this world. your daddy says that although it seems incredibly hard to wait for love, once you have it, you will see why it was so important. but, yes, it is hard when you are on the other side. i can tell you, with all honesty and sincerity, that love from a man is not something that you should be rushing towards; you should not move in that direction until you know your own value and your own worth, not until you understand that you are not defined by this world's standards of beauty or success or belonging. love can be once in a lifetime and it should be something that you pray about and fight for and wo...

elisea sara greeted us with smiley eyes and a knowing smirk. we are absolutely enamored with her. this pregnancy and elisea's birth was a bit different than what i had with viy and cai. there was a lot more associated with elisea joining us. there was more expectation, more activity, and more, dare i say, pressure.... you see, when viy and cai were in my womb, we had no idea what to expect. the miracle of pregnancy was wonderful and then the miracle of twins was another layer of amazement for us. it was more than we had ever believed for ourselves, and we were constantly in awe of what God was doing and knew that our world would change, but that change was unknown. this time around, there was an element of experience and components of knowledge that informed our decisions and activities. we tried to get as much time in with the girls and ensure that Christmas season would still be about enjoying the story of Christ's birth, and celebrating with a tree and lights and ...

my short list. i am thankful for God's Love: a Love that is too sacrificial and too remarkable for my human heart to fully contain... and for a Grace and Hope that is too divine and illogical and limitless for my human mind to even begin to fathom. i am thankful for a strong, stubborn man who loves our family with every ounce in him, understanding my quirks and weaknesses, while encouraging me through his quiet gestures and his commitment to responsibility and love.  i am thankful for two little girls -- fierce and loyal and strong-willed and tough and still soft around the edges... for the incredible joy of watching them grow and the unique love that i get to receive and offer daily.  i am thankful for the littlest one being formed in my womb, for the suspense and the excitement and anxiety that she brings with each turn and kick and movement and heartbeat... and for the incredible opportunity to, once again, nurture and carry a child for these months of intima...

this time of year reminds me of my first fall in this area.. married four months and living in a cozy townhouse, struggling to feel comfortable in my new life and a new place... busy and ambitious as i taught at the community college and spent two nights out of the week enrolled in classes at upenn, seriously considering enrolling full-time in the phd program. life was so different. and i was so different. i found time to consistently write  poetry, still stumbling upon them seven years later as i try to organize bins in my closet or boxes in the storage area... i wondered about what my marriage would evolve into, what my husband would teach me about love and faith, and if i would ever truly feel that this was my life. i constantly found my mind wandering to how things were "back home" surrounded by family and cushioned by familiarity and safety. i looked forward to a time when i would be back in a high school classroom, teaching a curriculum that i helped write and fel...

This season with the girls has been amazing. I am not simply referencing the whimsy of summer -- the fun activities outside involving water play and sunny skies or the late night snuggling.  I am thinking about this season of life…. these incredible chapters that are being co-written by two bright and amazing little girls. This is just a short list of what I am so incredibly grateful for these days: The morning snuggles when I am still in bed, and they carefully crawl in to cuddle – “Wake up smiling, Mommy, I am kissing you”. Their reminder to start the day with a Bible verse and the prayers that follow… prayers that can be incredibly poignant and sincere while equally and shockingly comedic. The constant lessons and poems and stories they are spinning… some true, some completely fictional, some loosely based on real events. The way they greet each other, with such enthusiasm and longing, after sleeping in separate rooms for their naps – “Hi Sister Boom, I ...

We have all experienced heartache. Our hearts feel empty, hollow, sometimes they feel filled.. but with emptiness and pain. There are different degrees and different depths, and different methods of comfort, of restoration, or healing. Sometimes the heartache is brought on by a pang of regret, a flood of memories, the reality of a situation... and sometimes, often, it is triggered by loss . The loss of a dream, a chance, hope, joy, opportunity. And the heartache that  leads us to a curl up into a small corner of our world, to a small dark space of isolation and of sobbing, heaving, clinging to small shards of life, of light, of hope -- the heartache that is associated with the loss of life. Whether it is of a friend, acquaintance, coworker, neighbor, or even a "stranger" that we have somehow grown connected to... this pain overwhelms us. And when it is the loss of family -- a grandparent, aunt or uncle, cousin, mother or father... child (whether young or old, or simply a ...