Who are we really?

Not in an introspective sense. I just mean generally, who are we?

I recently (well, over the past few weeks) read back over my entire blog, from the very first entry to now. It's funny how it's evolved over the past 3 years: not to mention that I have changed the name 3 (or maybe only 2?) times, and the whole entire URL once (so far), when I began, it was 98% pictures and stories of the children and our family life, 1% funny pictures, and 1% serious stuff.

The ratio has sort of changed, hasn't it?

Partly that's because my time is a little more scarce. I use our family blog to record things, and recently that's been mostly what I feel like the Lord is teaching me in any given season of our lives. And so the posts with pics...are severely lacking. As are stories and photos of us, since I mostly do that on facebook now, especially since even my Mama has joined. (And pictures are ridiculously easier to load on facebook than blogger, sheesh.) But for those who are not on facebook, or don't know much about us from the archives of ye olde blog, I wanted to catch up. Without further ado, here's a recap with some of the most recent pics. I said I was only going to put - my very favorite - of each of us, but I just couldn't choose. :)

First up: the Love of my life, Husband.

The phrase "love of my life" was invented for men like him. He is...beyond description. Loves Jesus. The best daddy. Romantic. Funny. Strong. Hard-working. Encouraging. I could go on, but it's all just mushy love stuff. Husband is a pediatrician in a group practice and he works his tail off. He also helps to lead a Bible study for medical students and disciples young men throughout their medical education. And also, he's incredible. Okay, I'll stop, seriously this time.

And lets me take lots...and lots of pictures of him. This is his "I'm humoring you, but I'm not going to let you take a serious picture yet again" face.

Next up is our first born, known here as Wild Man.

Wild Man is around 5 years old and he is totally in love with his daddy. (Above, fishing at the beach.)

He's a pretty typical first-born perfectionist. ;) He's really careful and deliberate about most things. He's in kindergarten in our homeschool journey and excels at memory work and mathematical reasoning type stuff.

But he's also goofy and silly, just like a little boy should be. He's an amazing big brother and so helpful to all of us.

He loves Georgia football, and he's a pretty fun kid to have around. ;)

Now we come to Little Lady, who is around 3.

My Little Lady is a sweetheart of a girl, and pretty much a girly-girl with an older brother. As in, she'll take you down with a light saber, and then go lovey on her baby dolls.

Little Lady loves having school at home with her big brother and me and is happy as long as I keep her busy. No just sitting and coloring for this girl! She flies through everything I give her and immediately asks, "What can I do next, Mama?"

So really, she's sort of fearless, and a little bit of a troublemaker. I love this about her, knowing and trusting in faith that as we shepherd her little heart, God is going to make her so stinkin' stubborn for His Kingdom purposes.

And she loves her baby sister more than words can say.

Third down the line we come to Little Man, who is about 18 months old. And always smiling.

He is such a sweet little boy (or "Leetle Boy" as his daddy calls him) and is a rough and tumble all boy kind of dude. By far our snuggliest babe yet. He jabbers a lot, and the best we can tell, he's fluent in some language that's a hybrid of Vietnamese and Ewok. Think that will count on college applications?

And so in love with his Daddy. Little Man is pretty independent; when we're out in public he requires man-to-man coverage, because he will flat out take off and never look back. However, at home, he usually just wants to be wherever his big kids are. He's an awesome eater, although he sometimes likes to tease you and play like he's not going to take a bite.

Unless there's funnel cake at stake.

Finally, we come to the newest arrival, our sweet Girly Whirl, who arrived in the summer of 2011 (before we hit the awful July and August heat, praise the Lord).

Girly Whirl is sweet, snuggly, and oh so precious. She is too cute for words in her little winter hat.

And she will melt your heart into a big goopy puddle when she makes this face at you just before busting out a million dollar grin. She's snuggly and chatty, and sugar and spice and everything nice.

Girly Whirl has been a really easy baby thus far. The best word to describe her is content: loves to be held, loves to sit in her bouncy/bumbo, loves to lie down and play, eats well, sleeps well. It's been a huge showering of God's mercy in giving us such an easy-tempered baby in this crazy season of 4 five and under.

Her newest love is her exersaucer (thanks GiGi and Pop!) and she's kind of unbelievably active in it for such a young age; I have a feeling she will keep us on our toes when she becomes mobile!

Finally, we get to me, the Mama, the only one with my real name on the blog. Oh, which is Lauren, not Mama, although you'd never know it if you hung around our house.

I almost never look like this:

The above pic was taken when Husband whisked me away to the mountains for a long weekend in October. I slept a lot. :) And had time for crazy extravagant things, like curling my hair.

There are around 11,000 pictures on our computer, and about 7 of them are of me. Most often, those pics (and I in real life) look like this:

Or some other variation of the same. I love babywearing; it's so sweet to have either Girly Whirl or Little Man (or sometimes even Little Lady) snuggled up to me, and during GW's first few months it was 100% necessary in order for me to continue life as normal-as-possible for the other children. I like baking and sewing, both of which are precious luxuries to me these days, but I get lots of creative kicks having fun with art and cooking with the kids in homeschool. I am a bookworm, and (to Husband's chagrin) read in bed every night before falling asleep. And I love, love, love Jesus, and I am so in love with my crazy busy and sometimes challenging life.

Well, there we are in a nutshell. If nutshells have lots of pictures, anyway. To cap it off, here's the most recent pic of all 6 of us that someone snapped for us when we went to the county fair a few weeks ago. (You can't see GW, but I promise she's in the ride-mama, as the kids call my carriers.)