The Ways of Her Home

Embracing the homeward call

Snapshot Saturday: Some of Everything

Good Saturday morning! I'm a little late with this post but I want to save these snapshots from the week so I'm going to go through them speedily! We trick-or-treated with our neighbor friends on Halloween night and the kids had a blast! Halloween isn't our favorite, so we don't do a lot with it, but we love costumes and of course we love time with friends so it's fun to get together for an evening of dressing up and eating tons of candy. Some of my photos are little blurry here---sorry--but I want to show you how pretty some of the front porches were with their fall decorations. Afterwards our friends invited us back to their house for a delicious chili supper and ... Read more

Snapshot Saturday: A Colorful Week

Saturday means another week of snapshots in the books and today I have a lot! To our surprise we witnessed a burst of autumn color all around us this week! Nothing as vivid as what those of you up north get, but enough to delight our eyes! The temperatures were higher than the chilly week before, so it was nice to have the changing leaves to still make it feel like fall. We're near the end of fall soccer and Liberty has enjoyed getting to go to the games for two reasons: pretzels from the concession stand and lots of attention! She gets petting and cuddles throughout the entire game. Saturday was very busy. We had our neighborhood yard sale, my son's soccer game, and a big ... Read more

Fall Camping 2022!

Hello, friends! Any campers out there? Our family has always loved camping and several years ago we started a tradition of a yearly fall camping trip with a couple of other families. This year we couldn't all get our schedules together for the same weekend, so we camped with just one family while the other family made arrangements with another group that they sometimes camp with (We missed you, Rivers!). This year was a little bittersweet as two of our girls are seniors in high school so we knew it might be their last fall camping trip together. Maybe not. Hopefully not! But we made the best of it just in case. I'm starting with the nighttime pictures first because they are some of my ... Read more

Snapshot Saturday

Hello, weekend friends! Wow, the weeks pass so quickly and before I know it, it's time for another Snapshot Saturday. We spent most of this week outside soaking up these early days of autumn! Saturday morning started at the soccer field. We are enjoying our son's fall soccer season, the fresh air, sunshine, and friends! And my husband would also add getting a hamburger from the concession stand at 9:00 in the morning, lol! I don't think we'd crave a hamburger for breakfast anytime other than soccer season, but that aroma coming from the ball field grill smells so good during the games. After the soccer game we attended a special charity walk for our local Down Syndrome group. We ... Read more

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 3

Hello, friends! I'm continuing today with our adoption story. In Part 1 I explained a little about our family and why we decided to pursue adoption. Part 2 shared how that pursuit took a turn into foster and respite care and I left off with us thinking this was where God planned for us to stay. This is the point in our story where, out of consideration of my son's privacy as well as the privacy of others involved, my details will become less detailly so please forgive my vagueness in some of this area. Sometime during the year that we were providing respite care, we got involved with a group home for children. Our Bible study group had volunteered a couple of times with babysitting ... Read more

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 2

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3 :5-6 I've always enjoyed walking through wooded trails and along interesting paths with twists and turns. The anticipation of "what's around the corner" is so exciting! As we walked our path to adoption, there were so many unexpected changes along the way, which isn't always as fu\n as a wooded path, but watching God's perfect plan unfold was an amazing experience and more than made up for the rough spots. I'm continuing today with our adoption story which much like the pictured path above, took many turns along the way. If you ... Read more

Our Family’s Path to Adoption: Part 1

Hello! Today I'd like to share a very informal account of our path to adoption and all the amazing and unexpected twists and turns God led us through. His hand was in every step! This will be relaxed and probably with some grammatical errors (ha!) as I'll have little time for editing this week, so just bear with me and let me speak as though we're sitting on my couch chatting. Details in some areas of the journey will be omitted for a couple of reasons. First of all, I want to maintain privacy and security for my son, and second of all, this is not just my story to tell but really more his. Therefore, I'll spare some details that will be his to share one day when he's grown, should he choose ... Read more

The Blessing of God’s Refusals

A couple of months ago I mentioned that I would begin posting every now and then on the topic of adoption and I have been late in getting those posts started. My apologies! I have so much I want to share but I figure you'd first like to know how our family ended up adopting in the first place. Later this week I'll post that story with all its twists and turns. As a lead-in to our story, I'm reposting this little post from summer 2020 on how God directed our paths to and through adoption. So, without further ado… A couple of weeks ago while I was walking in the early morning hours, I noticed this turtle in the grass, just about to crawl over the curb and into the street. Aware of the ... Read more