self-portrait.

soon after we moved in, several of our neighbors came over to introduce themselves and welcome us to the neighborhood.  it was refreshingly awesome since that’s never really happened in any of our other moves aside from one next-door neighbor here and there.  most just kept to themselves and mostly we did too.  except for the fact that we have four very social kiddos who could often be found playing out front and would wave and call out “hello!” to anyone passing by.  we met many people that way and it’s been an unexpected blessing of having a more-than-usual number of kids. anyway. it’s been nice settling in to a…

i love that i found mikey’s bible open to this page on his desk.  and i love how he carefully arranged his star wars figurines around it just so.  i love that kid.

sometimes it’s hard being the baby.

this summer, phil and i have tried to be more mindful about taking our kids out on one-on-one dates.  we realize that special alone time with mommy or daddy is really hard to come by when you’re one of four and that time is only going to grow in importance as they get older.  on the other hand though, finding that chunk of time to slip out for that special date can be challenging.  because most of the time, we prefer to stay together when phil’s home and rely on a zone defense between the two of us.  but the kid dates means that one of us gets to go…