This spring we bought a house in North Carolina.

{This is the house we will live in most of the year, still spending our summers in our little old beach cottage.}

There are so many things I want to share about this house and the beautiful property on which it sits and how it feels like this God-given place.

We do thank God for this place.

In all that we do, may our lives here sing gratitude and bring Him glory.  Yet it is hard to come before you and say, “look at this thing the Lord has done.”  Because while I want to tell you how humbled I feel that God prepared this place for us, led us here by faith and prayer and family, I also know there are children who love and worship the Lord who live in huts and drink filthy water and whisper prayers on dirt floors and I know the Lord loves those children too.

And yet here we are, in the country, with our very own red barn, and 300 peonies bursting forth in color in the front yard.

And it feels like every inch of this place is my Lord whispering,

“I know you.  I know your heart.”

I “hear” Him whispering.

And I know that the Lord has said:

 

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.

We have finally accomplished the goal we set for ourselves when we sold our New Old House in the suburbs.  We now own a home in each of our small hometowns, where our children can grow up in close-knit communities, close to all four of their grandparents, and our payments on two houses are significantly less than they were for that one big house we left behind three years ago.  Somewhere Dave Ramsey is cheering like William Wallace.

Our Sweet Home Carolina house was built in 1940.  Similar to our Michigan cottage, it has lots of character hidden beneath renovations and carpet circa 1970.  It has a gracious old Southern charm.  It had a carpeted kitchen the size of a postage stamp, some rotten sub-floor and a few dead mice.

WE LOVE IT.

I don’t understand why God has done this thing for us but I know we are not meant to understand and we thank Him and praise Him and work to glorify His holy name.

Friends, we are HOME.

Rain, rain and more rain . . .

My baby boy on an evening walk with his Grandaddy.

 

a lovely spring photo shoot with my friends’ two daughters.

 

 

Another photo shoot with a friend and her daughter on their new farm in North Carolina.  “There’s no place like home!”

Breakfast outdoors with his buddy “Mr. Chew.”

“The work-at-home Daddy.”

Baby bluebirds in our yard on Mother’s Day.

Babes in my arms, also on Mother’s Day.

What is beautiful in your world?

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in April, my 3 year-old is especially crabby.  It is the kind of day that, as a mother of young children, you could start to climb the walls.  The rain, the whining, the tears.  So I carry him into the kitchen, set him on the counter and preheat the oven.

Baking is a bond for us.

When he was a small baby and never wanting to be out of my arms, the one place he was content to sit and watch was in the kitchen.  Now he is old enough to bake at my side.  I bought him his own toy mixer several weeks ago and because his mixer actually mixes and looks even more professional than my Kitchenaid, it has taken his fondness for baking with mama to the next level.

Today we keep it simple.

Three ingredients.

Butter, sugar, flour.

Shortbread.

Pure, simple and delicious.

There is something soothing about the whir of the mixers and the smell of shortbread browning in the oven.  Don’t take my word for it, try your own batch on the next rainy day.

For your own little one, Wynn’s beloved mixer is here:

 

Classic Shortbread Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
   

2. Cream butter and brown sugar. Add 1 1/2 cups flour and mix well.
   
3. Sprinkle board with the remaining flour. Knead for 5 minutes, adding enough flour to make a soft dough. Roll to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut into 3×1 inch strips. Prick with fork and place on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake at 325 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

My sweet baby James has a secret admirer.

She is 85 years to his 7 months but she is smitten nonetheless.  And knowing his sweet cheeks the way I do, I can scarcely blame her.

He is pure, scrumptious delight.

So we pick flowers, the first lilacs of the spring. If one wants to bring a friend a piece of heaven, the first spring lilacs with their deep wooing fragrance are as close as one could hope to come this side of dear Peter’s gate.

To breathe deep what is holy here on earth.

We wrap our flowers for her, our admirer, our Miss Shirley, in a scrap of leftover linen.  We add a piece of baker’s twine.

And oh how they do make her day!  These flowers, my boy, this gift.  A tiny bit of cheer that means everything that is good still reigns.

Yes, flowers grow here and love lives here and God is present and real like the sweet scent of creation and the way a babe’s hand fits soft and smooth like butter into the palm of a hand wrinkled with 85 years of age.

Thank you, Miss Shirley for admiring my babe.  Thank you for smiling as you do when my 3 year-old hands you our clutch of spring, his eyes shy with pride and love, shadowed beneath the bill of his baseball cap.  Thank you for loving us well, because God is love and love reigns here.

Yes, love reigns here in this decidedly lovely life. 

 

This sweet little vintage art print sits on baby James’ dresser.   It reads:

“Said the Robin to the Sparrow, ‘I should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and hurry so.’

Said the Sparrow to the Robin, ‘Friend, I think that it must be that they have no Heavenly Father such as cares for you and me.”

 

 

It is a challenge, isn’t it?  To live a life that says “I need not rush about or hurry, for my Heavenly Father cares for me.  He goes before me and behind me.”

He hems me in.

The Lord is my shepherd, and I am His little lamb.

He brings me to green pastures, grows the grass green just for me, to sit and rest, not rush and worry . . .

to praise His holy name.

We bought Wynn a Radio Flyer wagon for his 3rd birthday.

He absolutely loves it.

When you are 3 years old you have very important things to cart around the yard.

Like, for instance, an old plastic watering can.

There are many plastic versions of this wagon now available, but I was thrilled to find the original steel version for the best price on Amazon:Radio Flyer Classic Red Wagon

We hosted a family bible study at our house on Friday night- 23 kids, mostly under age 6, and about 20 adults.  We studied Noah’s Ark, which was fitting because it was quite the zoo!   I tried to set a pretty serving table, above.  This of course before it was filled with food!

We placed card tables across the front lawn which I covered with white drawing paper for the kids to color on . . . each table had flowers from the yard and a handful of crayons.   Inexpensive, pretty, fun- my favorite combination!

My dad made this rope swing for Wynn for his third birthday.  He could swing on it all day long.   And speaking of love, have I told you lately how this boy lights up my world?  He is hilarious and magnetic.

 

Mr. 6 months old.

A start to his new nursery.  Took this shot just before bedtime when the light was low and moody.

And a recent Wynnbaby crib set, this customer was awesome to work with . . . she wanted a set designed around the verse “Go and make disciples of all nations . . .” Mark 28:19, so we decided on vintage fabrics appliqued as hot air balloons.   She was sweet to send me this picture after putting it on baby’s crib.

“Spring shows what God can do

with a drab and dirty world.”

-Virgil Kraft

{My toddler boy feeding a neighbor’s lamb with a bottle! }

If I haven’t mentioned, I adore living in rural North Carolina (where we live September thru May-we are still spending our summers in our beach cottage in Michigan, I know that’s confusing).

It is so beautiful and peaceful here, I have almost forgotten about my previous loves Target and Starbucks.

But I wouldn’t trade this landscape for the best latte in the world.

and I wouldn’t trade these flowers, which I picked from our very own yard.

Take that, Dollar Spot.

Sweet, sweet spring, do not be soon to part.

Oh Carolina, we are delighting in your every sundrenched, flower-filled day.

I walk the halls with my baby in the night.  I walk halls where the hardwood floor squeaks and moonlight seeps through the secret words I whisper in his tiny ear.  Mother and child, we walk this hall together, our love thicker than the darkest black of the night sky.  We are unsearchably deep, my boy and me.

His sleeper is soft fleece and his tiny fingers, slightly damp grasp my neck, my hair, my mama heart, adoring.  His tears fall warm and he sighs deep heaving sighs.  I shush and I bounce, I pat and I keep walking these halls, one barefoot step in front of the other.  And when nothing else seems to calm, I begin to hum and the music of our song fills the hall.  And like any mother, if it would make all wrongs right, I would gladly sing and sing and keep on singing, to soothe this babe I love, to say the things that words cannot.  And because he knows my voice and he knows our song, those heaving sighs give way to the silence of ears listening, to comfort and then slowly, ever so slowly, my sweet baby begins to dream.  One chubby cheek upon my shoulder, squished and delightful, he is mine and I am his.  I lay him in the crib and I memorize every detail I can of this little life. Blonde hair, black lashes, rosebud lips.  I store all the details of him away in a place where they are safe and cannot be erased.

For he will grow and forget.

But I will age and remember.

We are unsearchably deep, my boy and me.