Mira's passing and our family.

As most of you know, our daughter, Mira Grace passed away earlier in May due to a drowning accident.  It was a shock, and emotionally destroying time the week of the hospital, funeral, and everything surrounding it.  We were overwhelmed by love from friends, family, and the community throughout it all and were well taken care of by everyone.

Since then, life, sadly, continues on.

We are doing our best to keep this summer fun and energetic for the boys so they aren't compounding grief and depression on a summer-long grief and depression spiral.  They struggle daily with missing their sister, and Ezekiel still asks about her every day because he wants her to come back from visiting heaven.  He's only three and doesn't understand why she's gone.  The other two are depressed and are getting through.

We were blessed earlier this month with Sea World tickets for FREE to all Veterans (before July 4th).  This was an amazing fun getaway as a family and a few extra friends. :)

Ezekiel is learning how to ride "big boy" bikes with training wheels, and is doing great!  Elijah is still the same as usual, and loves to day dream and read, and overall depends strongly on Samuel.  Samuel is working on painting and developing his artistry skills.

We are SO happy to be back to homeschooling!!  Because we do year-round school, we are already starting back into it slowly, and it is helping us keep order and balance in our home.  Heat of the day in summer is the BEST time to sit in the air conditioning and do school as a family.

I am also back in school!  I've been doing online classes since November, and am doing great.  Now that I"m home full-time with the kids, I'm able to focus more on classes, and focus more on my family.  It is a refreshing change of pace to all be back home again as a family.  It is a great way for us to heal and bond as a family though all of this time.

People keep asking "how are you doing so great during all of this!?".  The truth is, God's grace has given AMAZING peace to our family.  I spent the last two years getting closer than ever to God, and through the loss of our twins, and our health, and numerous other trials, God has always carried us through.  The days I thought I could no longer go on and wanted to collapse, God always brought us through.  Even though this most recent loss of our daughter has been catastrophic in some ways, God is still there to help us heal and love and grow more.  I don't know why this happened, nor do we ever know "why" God allows things to happen.  But I do know that He always provides for us.  We have been amazingly blessed with our church family, our friends, our new house, our children, and our marriage.  Through thick and thin, good and bad, God never stops loving us and being amazing.

Does it still hurt?  Yes.  Does that mean we stop life and fail to keep serving and loving, and doing what we do? No!

Even through our grief and trials we need to love others, and do what we can for each other as a family.

I'm forever thankful to each and every person that has been there for us and continues to love and pray for us!