so where was i?  oh yes, reveling in our january afternoon at the beach… this is lauren offering me some butterfly sand cake. this is lauren burying my toes with sand. this is me wiggling the sand off my toes. this is her covering her whole foot with sand. this is her busting her foot free. this is my forever baby with the wrinkled-up nose. this is the rest of the family finally coming out of the water to see what we were up to.  turning lauren into ariel the mermaid quickly became a group project. this is daddy adding the scales. this is lauren looking pleased as punch. this…

it feels strange to be shifting gears so suddenly after yesterday’s heavy post.  my heart still hurts for courtney and yet rejoices knowing that tripp is experiencing joy upon joy in the presence of our savior.  so it feels strange to just move on.  and yet as i think about it, living this life with joy, loving on my family, being grateful and giving thanks to God- can all be ways to pay tribute to tripp’s legacy.  in sorrow and in rejoicing, we give it all to the Lord for He sees and He knows our hearts.  and so with that in mind…  i have pictures to share.  it’s what…

last weekend, i ‘randomly’ (not really because i have an inkling that God led me there) came across a mommy’s blog.  only, it wasn’t your typical mommy blog with lots of pictures of smiling, happy kids, and details about everyday happenings.  no, this mommy’s entry was about how her precious baby took his last peaceful breaths in her arms.  his favorite place to be.  baby tripp had junctional epidermolysis bullosa (“eb” for short), a rare genetic disorder.  it’s been called the worst disease you never heard of.  there’s no cure.  because of one little missing protein that binds one layer of skin to another, little tripp suffered more in his…

field trippin’ that is.  it’s one of my kids’ favorite parts about homeschooling.  that and all the playdates co-op meetings. so last week, we had the awesome opportunity to meet up with some families from church at the cabrillo marine aquarium and best of all, to see auntie esther again!  remember auntie esther?  she’s on the list of my kids’ all-time favorite people.  top ten, definitely.  🙂 auntie esther was all ready for us with a lesson that included a story about fish babies and lots of hands-on activites… like looking through microscopes (mikey’s favorite). and pretending to be fish (mikey’s favorite again). and looking for fish hiding in the…

so phil got us new phones a couple weeks ago.  here’s mine: i held out as long as i could and hung on to my free phone (which incidentally is the same one richard blais used to call his wife to tell her he was top chef- see? i’m in good company) but finally caved in with the masses of smart phone users when the thing dropped one call too many. so i figured i’d try out this newfangled phone over new years.  by taking it on our latest trip and using it as my only camera.  *gasp*.  as both a challenge and as a way to be more present…