It's a wonderful life.

When a family's adoption story grows silent, I always wonder how things are. If everything turned out okay. Now that we've been absent here for over a year, I thought I'd return with a quick update, just in case someone else delving into the adoption world, looking for any information they can, happens upon this space.

Our Christmas cards last year read, "It's a wonderful life." That's really an accurate summary. Of course there are hard moments and days and weeks, and there are tears shed and raised voices and frequent need for forgiveness, for all of us. But more than that, there is joy and fun and togetherness and adventure and celebrating. There is love and grace and more good things than we can count.

We're homeschooling again this year, as it continues to be such a good (if sometimes difficult) fit for our family. We have two independent readers and two boys eager to learn, and are filling many of our days with many good books, as everyone in this house loves a good story more than almost anything.

We are happily awaiting the arrival of baby number six (!), another little sister, who we're expecting in the next few weeks. We're also enjoying the last few weeks before James's first deployment. This year holds big, new things for all of us, that is for sure. If there's one thing we know, it's how little we know of what God has planned for us in the days and months to come!