she is such a joy – sweet, silly & smart – can’t get over how gracious God has been to our family through the gift of Liberty.

she loves going to the local pre-k & seeing her friends & favorite teacher, Ms CoCo.  she’s learning to read and eager to do “long homeschool” but still takes naps most afternoons.  she’s affectionate & emotional, kind & generous, hilarious & especially fond of doting on her little brother & playing with her big brother.  she’s a wonderful middle child, only daughter.  in the past several months she’s also become much more attune to spiritual realities, enjoys singing made-up worship songs & on occasion, is surprisingly insightful.

because we know that liberty is dependent on our prayers we’re inviting you to join us in our birthday prayer tradition.

will you please join us in praying psalm 63:1-5 (see below) for liberty?  our prayer is that these verses would be the meditation of her heart & the testimony of her life.

and we celebrate the boy he is – affectionate, extroverted, fun, imaginative, thoughtful, God-loving, wonderful big brother – and the man he is becoming.  we truly can’t be more grateful to our Heavenly Father for our firstborn, the boy who first called us “mommy” & “daddy”!

because we know that sterling is dependent on our prayers, we’re inviting you to join us in our birthday prayer tradition.

will you please join us in praying proverbs 2:1-5 (see below) over sterling?  our prayer is that these verses would be the meditation of his heart & the testimony of his life.

there’s probably no one more surprised than us that we have a (soon-to-be) one year old!

on tuesday, august 18th shepherd will turn 1.  as with the older two sprouts we have chosen a life verse/prayer for him.  we joyfully invite you to celebrate his life with us as we together give him the gift that truly keeps on giving via our birthday prayer tradition.

will you please join us in prying proverbs 3:3-7 (see below) for shepherd?  our prayer is that these verses would be the meditation of his heart & the testimony of his life.

because we know that liberty is dependent on our prayers we’re inviting you to join us in our birthday prayer tradition.

will you please join us in prying psalm 63:1-5 (see below) for liberty?  our prayer is that these verses would be the meditation of her heart & the testimony of her life.

how did that happen!?!  we’re not quite sure!  but we do know that sterling is dependent on our prayers… & as such, we’re inviting you to join us in our birthday pryr tradition.

will you please join us in prying proverbs 2:1-5 (see below) over sterling?  our prayer is that these verses would be the meditation of his heart & the testimony of his life.

thank you for prying words of life over him & on his behalf!

here’s my attempt at salvaging & sharing some of those in-the-blink-of-an-eye memories.

the sprouts were bridal escorts in a friend’s wedding which meant that they got to carry the train of the dress & ride in a limo! it also meant that they were at times the star of the show. but most disturbing for them was that it meant they got caught in a rainstorm of confetti. so being the tidy sprouts they are & taking their duties very seriously they tried to remove every piece of confetti from the bride’s dress, a tedious job for sure!

while jarod’s sister cassie was visiting (late april, early may) she had the privilege of seeing our {normal} life & we got to see our {normal} world through her eyes. here’s a glimpse of our familiar (accentuated by her artistic bent):
she also blessed us with some sweet maternity shots. baby sprout at 6 months gestation.

and some candid moments, like our walk to dinner. what the camera didn’t capture was that during dinner i insisted Sterling remove his helmet to eat which immediately resulted in him falling off his stool and hitting his head… & Liberty vomiting all over me. special memories for sure! (sometime we’ll also have to share Sterling’s “view” of our world!)

over a month later the sprouts are still talking about & missing “Aunt Cassie”.

& I figure it’s time to share the name of our most recent “sprout”.
but before I do, I wanted to share a little about our (primarily my) naming process.

i have a few criteria for names:

for some reason girl names were very difficult for us this time around. we have considered many, many girl names & though some of them we really liked, for one reason or another we’ve felt like we couldn’t use them.

boy names were not so difficult to settle on. problem was we had two!

one that i deemed our 2^nd boy name from the same 1950’s baby book i chose sterling’s name from. oakley.

as much as i loved it, jarod was a bit more reserved. you see, I liked that oakley has a strong meaning – grove of oaks. and in my mind’s eye, lends itself to beautiful imagery. i especially liked that it’s from the same era as sterling, unique but not unheard of. sterling & oakley – they’ve always seemed like perfect brother names to me. however, jarod thought everyone would automatically associate his name with the sunglasses brand, oakley. so, since jarod didn’t feel the same way as I did it was clearly not a “real” option.

being that we only had two boy names to begin with, we agreed upon the second name, a bit more modern, and a recent addition to my name list. bonus: jarod loved… {LOVES}… it. and because he loved it, i prayed for wisdom & that we’d be unified.

and we are.

so when the ultrasound tech placed the wand on my tummy & immediately revealed the gender, we had only one name in mind…

still affectionately referred to as “baby sprout” but clearly loved as our son, shepherd zane.

as you now know, I take this naming business serious.

understatement of the year.