Friends!

Our family said "see you later" to very dear friends this month. In the eighteen months that we've lived in the Richmond area, we really have grown close with this like-minded family. We both home school. We both have six children (now!). Our children line up in ages, some within days of each other. We have loved doing life with this family and today I'm giving thanks for some of the many ways they touched our lives.

They were driving a race car.

Sweet E (3) with G (2 mo). She prays for him a lot!

Boys that are best friends.

Girlfriends. Thankfully, the twins are from another family we enjoy and still live in Richmond!

Mrs J and H. We've watched her grow up! She was G's age when we met them.

Children during family worship time.

1102- Family worship nights- in all their chaos (children whining, playing with toys, rolling on the floor...) and their quiet goodness (children reading Scripture, asking good questions, edifying one another).

1103- Boys building fires and forts. . .

1104-and boys wearing face paint and camouflage. With this family, our boys could really be appreciated as rough, outdoorsy, athletic young men.

1105- Girls to be sisters to my girl. They introduced her to paper dolls and sewing camp and lots of crafts (that we don't do at our house!).

1106- Breaking bread together. Loved that with this family we could have meals and they could be as simple as oranges and popcorn and no one minded a bit. It was so easy to have them over, so easy to linger in their home. The fellowship was so good that the food didn't matter.

1107- Without pretense we could get together. We saw each other's messy houses. We stopped in just to say HI and it didn't matter the state things were in.

1108- Praying together. So encouraged by times of praying together- on the phone, in a playroom with toddlers around us, outside, in a van. . .

1109- Adventures. This family has a pulse on the fun (and free!) things that are going on and would often clue us in to the adventures we could experience.

1110- Solidarity. It just feels good to not feel weird sometimes and with this family. . . we felt completely accepted for our size, for our quirks, for our noise and mess.

1111- Iron sharpens iron. We were also challenged by their faith and their service to others and their commitments to family worship and a family mission. We were challenged by their generosity.

1112- They cared for us. Even though they said they didn't enjoy having other children over, they had our children over for DAYS after G was born and blessed me with time to rest.