the island--finally

well, we finally finished up the kitchen island.
why is it so hard to pick paint colors, finishes, and knobs??!
i really think the island finishes the kitchen exactly the way we wanted.
sorta beachy, sorta traditional, sorta different.


john framed it out and added some quarter round to finish it.
he filled all the cracks and nail holes with wood filler.
sand, repeat, sand again.
then our friend april beat it up, painted and glazed.


the process took a while. and i'll be honest, it was a big fat pain in the butt.
not hard to do--but the waiting about killed me.
i'm so impatient.


my favorite part is that it doesn't match the current trends.
we did what we liked and that was hard. especially when everyone told me a blue distressed island with crystal knobs was crazy.


so there you have it.
in the future we'd like to put in a couple of glass-front cabinets and of course get some new appliances.
for now though, we love it and really can't even remember how the kitchen looked before.

i deserve this

Sometimes I have to ask myself: what did I do to deserve this?
When people ask questions like, “How severe is he?” or “What he is able to do?”
I find myself wondering what my life would be like if John and I didn’t want to have a third child.
What would our lives we like if we never had Ben?
Let me tell you, that's one tough question to swallow.

It only takes one little smile to explain it all.


God had different plans.
And He knew that my life WOULDN'T BE AS FULL if Ben wasn’t here with us.

Right now, today, I find myself wondering what my life would have been like if I didn’t have Ben.
Would I have as much hope, love, compassion, acceptance?
I doubt it.

I see it all around me still.
People just like the old me, struggling to ask questions about Ben, afraid to be around a smiley, happy-go-lucky kid who just wants to be loved.

As much as anything else in my life that I know to be true, I know that God gave me Ben so I could see the beauty in people of all shapes and sizes and abilities.

He told me that I deserve this.

And it is so good.

cupcakes

it's a little past 9pm and i'm just finishing up making three dozen cupcakes.


i'm not really complaining though.
they are for a small bday celebration for a good friend who has done the same for me.
i hope she's super surprised--and hungry!

i feel like i've been in hyperspeed mode all day.
work was really busy and it's going to continue like this for a while.
i left about an hour after i planned to and was racing everywhere.
luckily, i texted my friend about anna's dance tonight and she reminded me that anna's dance is now moved to thursday nights!
thank goodness one of us has our heads on straight.
so instead of rushing to dance, anna and i went and picked her out some new dance shoes and a new twirly skirt.
then we picked up dinner and went to josh's practice to keep ben company.
i wish i had brought my camera. ben was so funny running everywhere and being so happy.
anna was running around with all the little sisters and josh was trying to tell me, while in the middle of a scrimmage, that he has another loose tooth.

the wind was cool and the light was perfect.
fall feels like it's in the air now.

please hurry fall. hurry, and bring the pumpkins and the mums, the apple cider, the long lazy saturdays full of football games, the rustling of leaves, and the brisk mornings.
i am patiently waiting.