family night with our life group!

A few months ago we started a life group with the intention that our kids would be with us and connecting with us as adults as well as with each other.  With everyone in the group, we have 12 adults and 17 kiddos 9 years old and under.  It's crazy at our house o Tuesday nights but it has also become such a sweet part of our family rhythm as well.  This last Tuesday, we decided to do our first intentional family night, with a large croup activity, response time craft and family prayer.

We took the theme from Spiritual Parenting and focused on the environment of "faith community". 

Prayer time and game time:

Then we took our craft from Home Front:

The parents helped their kiddos and we wrote things we couldbe praying for on each of the feathers and then we broke up into families all over the house and prayed over those feathers and prayed blessings on our children.

It was such a special night and I am so thankful for this group, not only how they love on Kit and I, but also how they are speaking into the lives our Ryder and Eden in very intentional ways.  How full our hearts are after evening like these!❤︎

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When we moved into our house, we had hoped that we would be able to open it for things like this and now, to sit back and watch nights like these happen, in our living room and around our table makes me realize what an incredible blessing this house is for us!

These two...

...they just put a smile on my face and fill my heart with joy.  How thankful I am for their lives and that I get to be their mom! 

a chicken coop...

This last weekend, Kit's parents came into town to watch Ryder's soccer game, to spend the night and to have some fun hanging out.  We also decided to build a chicken coop.  I may have mentioned that we have THE BEST contractor EVER and we bring him in on ALL of our projects!

(Ryder LOVES to help is Papa with ANY project he can!)

Kit's dad spent so much time and love helping to make all of our chicken coop plans come to fruition... 

He is just so talented!

Also, here is how big our chickens are now:

 They needed a much bigger place!

Kit's brother Andrew was there for awhile too!  

The Rae's are a force to be reckoned with when we have ANY type of project planned.

There was so much love that went into creating this place for our chickens and we are so thankful for our family that worked so hard to make it happen!

There are still some little detail touches, but it feels so great to look out our window and see this beautiful structure!

17 years

On October 17, 1998, Kit asked me to be his girlfriend, and we have been together ever since.  So this last Saturday marked 17 years together...

Our first photo together:

(September 1998 at a Biola dorm event...)

October 1998, a week or two after he asked me to be his girlfriend, I took him home to meet my family, because I knew this was something really special.  Yep, it was just that crazy fast!

We left that weekend with two realizations:

1.  This was who we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with and proceeded intentionally toward marriage for the next 4 1/2 years and 

2.  If this didn't work out, my family would choose Kit over me.

I then got to hang out with his family that January of 1999 and that sealed the deal:

In those first months of college, Kit had quickly become my best friend and I realized even faster how much I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.  He loves me so well and I am so thankful for who he is: in the silly and the serious, in the joy and the sorrow, this man remains my favorite of all time...❤︎

Pumpkin patch time!

We recently went to the Tanaka Farms pumpkin patch to see the pumpkins, take some photos, and to walk the corn maze.  It's become a family tradition over the last few years!

It has really become a special place for us.  We went at the end of the day after Kit got off work and ended up pushing it a little bit before they closed, but we had fun.  The kids want to go back again SOON and we were able to capture those sweet memories, keep family traditions, and have fun as a family!

It may feel like it's over 100 degrees...

... but we finally decided to decorate the outside of our house with the hopes that Fall will EVENTUALLY get here.  One can only hope...

So while Ryder was at school and Kit was at work, we decided to surprise them and decorate our front porch and walk way.

We pulled out the scarecrow and felt crows from last year:

Eden told me where they should go and was very proud of the finished product!

Then we put our metal candle holders out with our pumpkins:

We are ready for those trick-or-treaters!