lately...

...it finally feels like Fall! Kate is fully mobile. Kenna makes me read Mercer Mayer's book, The Bravest Knight, at least three times a day. Tristan is enjoying the big kid freedom of playing with neighborhood friends on his own. My thoughts feel really scattered and the next few months are a big question mark as we await word on a deployment that may or may not happen.




While Tristan was riding bikes with his buddies the other day, the girls and I plopped ourselves down under the Maple tree in the front yard to enjoy the fresh air. We planted that tree when we first moved here and it has finally grown big enough to cast a shady spot for our blanket. Kate is getting to know Maverick a little better now that she is able to crawl all over him. She likes to play with his jingling collar and bite his ears, he likes the taste of spit-up. They make a good pair.
Kenna looked down the street a couple of times while we played and cried in her most dramatic voice, "I miss my brudder!" I know it's only a matter of months before she will be running to join him and the other kids on neighboring swing sets and trampolines.



We don't know if Shawn will be home for the holidays or not. We don't know if we will sit under our Maple tree next Autumn or if we will be planting one at a new duty station. A person can go crazy thinking about "what-if" and "if-only" and "maybe then". I can sit inside fretting over things I can't know or I can sit on a blanket in the fall sunshine with these smiling faces that have a way of bringing me back to now. I'm choosing to take each day as it comes, making the most of it and trusting in God for what's next. Lately, it's all I can do.