A New Year

A New Year...I am always full of emotions this time of year...right after Christmas Day ends, reflection begins for a week until the new year. This year's reflection was simply, "I could have never imagined this year". I remember last year anticipating the new year and I could have never imagined the year we had. I am amazed!

New friends, new dreams, many blessed interruptions.... anniversaries-mother's death, birthdays, marriage, home, holidays....many living in our home....many visiting our home....extremely joyful times and extremely sorrowful times....full sanity...full insanity....milestones for the kids....milestones in our hearts....the gospel clearer than before...orphans, widows, the forgotten weaving in our hearts......summer across america...drugs on our street....mugging in India...new neighbors....dear friends leaving...and all in all in the end, we come again to JESUS. He is the one who makes us, revives us and makes us work again....He is our breath with each new day.

I read that "growing up is just thousands of feelings in thousands of days"....so we've added another year to our first thousand days here in Austin....it has given us many feelings with many experiences...and truly we look back and can say we are growing....

So, we enter another new year....knowing we cant even imagine what He has in store for us! But we will trust and pray it all for Him! To you God, Our King...who numbers all our days...we shall live them to and by you!

Happy New Year!!

Love, The Stewarts

Catch up on December

The Kids got to give some gifts to our favorite neighbor...Mr. Powell....even Karis comes and gets us calling his name when he comes to the door.
Fun times with Sarah and Savannah who have lived with us since September!
Sally is always the life of fun in our home!!
Pa and Gammy came to visit with the coolest gifts!!
Smore's and more smore's! can't count how many outings in our backyard for these we have had and are still having!
The Superheros!
Hanging out with moms in the city of Austin! I belive 15 children just between us pictured!!
Cutest Karis! In her Christmas PJ's eating her favorite thing...cereal!
Wesleygrant's love language comes through gift giving...he picked out a special necklace for sally this year all on his own...it was the sweetest ever to see them give each other gifts!
Famous Zilker Trail of Lights with friends, funnel cakes, Kettle Pop Corn and coldness!
This was one of the best Christmas's we have had with the kids and all of our traditions!

We had a staff Christmas party at our home for Stew's staff....it was so much fun!
Wesleygrant had a preschool program...he goes 4 days a week and is loving it!
We had a send off for our dearest friend, Jackie! It was so hard to say goodbye, but we are so proud of her and all she is headed to do in DC!! Love you so much, Jaclyn!!

Christmas has a lot of cooking and the girls did it all with me! it was so fun! and funny!!
So, despite the disaster last christmas at the tree farm, we tried it again and it was so fun!! Our tree fit, so we didnt have to cut half of it off! Elgin Tree Farms is a keeper!!
Celebrated 6 Year anniversary!! And i got a new camera!!! SO much has been given and happened in the last 6 yrs!! looking forward to another year!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

WesleyGrant's 5th Birthday!

We celebrated Wesley Grant's 5th birthday this past Tuesday. He got to invite just a few of his friends and we celebrated with a Star Wars theme! It was a blast! Stew knighted (if you even do that to a jedi) the boys and gave them a special light saber. Each friend represented a character that a jedi must have and that we saw in them and their friendship with Wesley Grant. His friends were:

Cayden-Wisdom
Deacon-Servant
Caleb-Protection
Tyler-Truth
Sammy-Joy
Christian-Humility

I am so thankful for his friends and their families. We always pray for WesleyGrant and his friends. I know that they may come and go...or wonderfully stay the same, but we are thankful for this season and for all these little boys. We pray that God will surround him with friends who will point him to Jesus.

We love you wesleygrant...one little step further into manhood! we are so proud of you!

Celebrating birthdays!

We have had a birthday to celebrate almost every other day! This was Deacon Ivey's birthday (deacon not in picture) and these are karis and sally's little friends. We celebrated at the farmer's market field in the triangle! i think it was the best fun i have ever had in austin! wesleygrant and about 4 other birthdays are to come! love these pics! Love you Ivey's and Bush's!

Happy Halloween!

Long Road behind, Long Road ahead

I can so see myself in my daughters here in this photo as I think about life as a mother right now. I've had so many moments with the face on sally's where I just stopped in my path of mothering...in the middle of the day, princess self and all and thought..WHAT IS THIS?! Or found myself like Karis standing bent over...stopped...ready to quit the journey altogether!

But truly, don't we moms find ourselves in these moments? I sure have not lived out many seasons of motherhood, but over and over I hear older moms tell me that by far, the preschool years where their hardest years. And I find that I just nod with a smile and testify to what they are "remembering" and I am living.

So what do you do? How do you continue on and get to the other side of the preschool years, without falling flat on your face? I look around and so many have done it...just like child birth...you are waiting for your first labor and birth with your first child and you think...surely i can do this...so many women have done it! And so surely i can get through these preschool years like so many other women...

All three of my children continue to need me at the same time. It would be nice if they simply needed the same thing...like a glass of milk...but it isn't that simple...they need me for different things that take all my attention. I've started saying in my house. "sally or wg or karis, you are not the only child in this family...mommy has to finish with ___ and then I will be glad to help you. We are a family and have to work together." I don't know if that is what you should say or not...my children have started saying, "mommy, we have a lot of kids in our family..." or mommy, we can't adopt a sister or brother b/c they would have to wait so long on you!"

BUT...these are the moments where refining seems to be happening to me more than my children...and that is good. Perhaps they are learning to work together while I am learning a thousand things. I think my seasons go like that...but hopefully we are both learning a thousand things.

My prayer has been Proverbs 31:26 "She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue."

I continue to look ahead...and Jesus is the only thing that keeps me going. And in the end, I hope that my children will do even greater than I in this long road behind and ahead.