We planted blackberries four years ago, and every year we watch the plant bloom, grow berries, and then every year birds, squirrels, chipmunks, or some other form of evil gets to them before we can. This year, just like every year before it, we watched the plant bloom, grow glossy red berries, and then, we watched in amazement as
We are in the middle of the late-pregnancy waiting game. Maybe tomorrow we’ll wake up, make breakfast, go to the park, have lunch, shirk a few chores, and count the minutes until Daddy gets home. Or maybe tomorrow I will have a baby and our family will be forever changed. Who knows. The weather just turned — it’s
The other day during breakfast, David leaned over and whispered into his sister’s ear. Then he looked up at me and said, “Mommy, I just told Mary Virginia she’s going to die soon.” He informed me like it was something we’d talked about ahead of time, and then he went right back to eating his pancakes. The
After the race and egg hunt, we had a pre-Easter celebration with my parents and my sister’s family. As we were planning the weekend, my sister emailed me and suggested we dye eggs as an activity with the kids. She hadn’t had a chance to do it and I hadn’t either, so Saturday seemed perfect.
Every year spring seems a bit like a miracle. Even my yard, which was cold and brown a week ago, is blooming. The past few weeks have felt unrelenting. We have dear friends who are mourning a great loss, those waiting, aching for answered prayer, others who are trusting God for healing and His sovereign care. It feels heavy.
My mom mentioned the other day that the leaves were beautiful at home — one of the prettiest falls she can remember. It occurred to me that now that I live in Richmond, a relatively flat city, I miss out on the fall colors in the mountains. When I was growing up I took the
If you follow me on Instagram (if you don’t, I’m amandaleighvt), you know that my family’s version of a trip to the pumpkin patch was a trip to Kroger to buy pumpkins. There are pumpkins on my porch; everyone’s happy. No thanks to me, they did get to visit a real pumpkin patch, too. A
I already mentioned that our vacation was mostly rainy and overcast. In fact, it was SO rainy and overcast, that I can only remember putting sunscreen on my fair-haired, fair-skinned babies a grand total of one time. I know, I know, you can still get burned when it’s cloudy. But when it’s cloudy, raining, and you’re huddled
This is at least the fifth year we’ve spent a week at Smith Mountain Lake with Tom’s family. It’s a summer tradition now — we’ve done this every year since Tom and I got married. Except I can’t really remember the first years, the years before we had kids. Now there isn’t much relaxing, recharging,
Tom’s parents have a lake house on the same street as the lake house my parents have owned since the 70s. Tom and I were actually dating when his parents bought the property, and when they did we just decided to get married because otherwise it’d be too awkward. When I was a kid, my dad would throw