Pumpkin Patch Morning

 We hit up the Pumpkin Patch this morning with our play group from church.  I have yet to discover an apple orchard here, so pumpkin patches are filling in this Fall.  The kiddos are just as excited about pumpkins, so it's all good, even if Mommy feels just a twinge of sadness.

 Emma Claire loved all the little houses.  She's a true homemaker at heart and it makes me smile. :-)

 Keller is getting so big so fast.  He's still my cuddle bug and will let me hold him endlessly.  Oh, how I wish I could hold him all day long!  No one has to tell me how fast these days go.  It's like I blinked and Emma is now holding conversations with me.

 He has awesome hair.  SO awesome that he's gotten the girl assumption several weeks in a row now.  We're thinking it's time for a trim, but not sure it's worth the cry.  And I'm not talking him, but me.

 His blue blue eyes melt my heart...and melt it good.  

That boy has me wrapped around his finger and Steven will be the first to tell you.

 Shiloh, too, has a heart for the home...

...in her own way. :-)

 They are so beautiful!

 Their personalities, their looks, their talents, are all so different.

I am often baffled and sobered when I think how I've been given these little ones to raise up for the glory of God.  Not given to dress up cute, say the right things, fill with knowledge, keep me from being embarrassed, make me look good, or give me a sense of identity.  

 

They are little human beings each with an independent will, adults in the making.  

And I am their example.

Every. Single. Day. 

If that doesn't make your heart drop with heaviness - a gravity of the situation - I don't know what will.  

I have been sobered lately.  The world rushes by us, Christians included, with all this information about parenting  that just makes your head burst.  Information about car seat choices, organic baby food, breast fed or bottle fed, cloth diaper or disposable, baby Gap or Gymboree, mini van or suburban, working mom or stay-at-home mom, homeschooled, or public schooled..

Purposes for their children, purposes for motherhood, even while unspoken.

But our children see.
They see what is truly important to us as the days roll on.

Let's take it back to the basics.

Me and God.

Alone in the dark.

Searching for answers to this Motherhood thing.

The choices, the unknowns, the unplanned, the struggles, the victories, 

the breakthroughs, the refinings, the lessons...

...the hearts.

Real hearts...needing to be pointed towards Christ.

I Timothy 4:12 -- "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."