Delight

I've heard numerous people pick a word or a verse for the year.  As I was thinking about what word I would choose for 2014, the word "delight" kept popping into my head.  Some time ago I heard someone say that they had tried to live their lives as a mother with the words "delight in them"---finding joy in raising her children.

Delight in them---a wonderful way to look at our time with our children.  Ages ago I read a great book called Kids, Parents and Power Struggles.  In it, the author said that every interaction with our children gives us an opportunity to connect or disconnect.  I really try to spend my time with our kids connecting, something I know will be even more important with S and V.  Sometimes that means stepping back from  how I feel like responding and choosing a different path.  Delighting in them--finding pleasure and joy in each child, the unique way they are created, their way of being the individual God created them as, the ways that they are different from me.  Delighting in the stage of life each is in---not comparing them to any one else but truly loving them for who they are, right at this moment in time.  What a blessing He has given us in our children!

Delighting in the morning view out the kitchen windows---
if only pictures could show you how cold it is!

Delight--- to take great pleasure or joy

In the process of waiting
In seeing the ways our older three continue to mature and grow
In seeing the progress Nate is making
In absorbing the energy Ellie has

Delighting in many wonderful memories from the last couple of months of 2013--

Always a delight to spend time as a family at Okoboji Bible Camp--

The true delight of driving the go cart with Dad---

The delight of rolling on the dead dryer's drum (yes, we are officially crazy!)----

Delighting in our dear friends' new two sons---

 What a delight to help Dad paint the girls' room---

Pure delight at the zoo with Grandma--

Old World Delight--

How delightful a sleepover can be--

Delighting in our beautiful Jenny's graduation--

God's creation---delight.......

 Delight in learning--  

And we are all delighting in the addition to our family, the sisters who we all long to meet and yearn to have incorporated into our lives.  Two beautiful girls who we love so much even though we haven't met them yet.

Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Psalm 37:4

Delighting in Him--