My lovely and talented sister in law Abby recently took our pictures while down visiting family in the Schroon Lake area. Maybe you saw them. They are all over facebook seeing as that is how she advertises her business on the side to first being a wife to my brother (she is a very special girl ) and then a mother to their four children.

Family pics. It is something I have wanted to have done for a while, and yet something I am OK putting off. Every summer I make a mental note and every summer seems more  busy than the last. It just does not happen. That is OK. Life happens and that is way better than pictures if you ask me. Current family pictures do not last real long around here anyways! It is not too long before ‘someone’ is missing from the latest family portrait and another more updated ‘something’ is needed. Still, the thought of knowing someday I will be thankful we put forth the little bit of effort to capture life as it is right now prompted me to help make it happen.

A big thank you to Abby!

Now, the inside scoop on family pictures:

Gabe did not look THAT good for the shoot. He had a huge gash on his chin that needed to be ‘touched up’ in every one where he is looking at the camera. I kinda liked his wound but not really once in 7 years family pics kind of worthy! I was annoyed I had forgotten the boys nicer dress sandals. Camouflage Croc wanna-be’s!? “Now I’m just being proud!” I had to tell myself.

 Mid photo shoot was when it seemed as good a time as any for the stomach bug to find its first victim, Asher! Gabe and I had been in what appears la la land (it really felt like wedding pics and poses all over again yet with someone I hadn’t really ‘seen’ much come the tail end of vacation. Funny how that happens. “Oh hi.” “Who are you?” “Remember me?” “Get over here.”) all while Boaz napped, therefore NO kid or group family pics had been taken yet. A mad rush for Asher to make it through as many as he could handle was then the focus. We ended early and called it a day. HE WAS A TROOPER! I was hot, sweaty, and tired. The baby was starting to fuss. Another 7 years and we’re good, right?!

Would you have guessed any of that? Of course not! We look our best (deceiving seeing as Asher was puking in between shots!) AND you don’t live with us. Uncle Matt needs honorable mentions for simply being the funniest person I know and making any tears turn to smiles.

It is only fitting as I browse through each one to note that our family is by the grace of God. My marriage is a walking talking breathing testimony of His grace. Every day I see through Gabe a tangible kind of Christ. By God’s grace I can give and receive forgiveness and boom the gospel is as crystal clear and thick in the air as it can get. I am the most selfish and impatient person that I know. Husbands, children, matching/coordinating clothes etc… are not to be idolized. Oh, but our world will tell you otherwise. I have what I have and I am who I am because there is a God. My kids need Jesus. Gabe needs Jesus. I am pretty sure I need Him most of all.

God is present to give His grace away. He has given much away to us and I am thankful! Gabe has given much grace to me. I have been able to give grace to Gabe. Our children need lots of grace. My children give me grace beyond what I think one mother should ever be allowed.

That is what I want our pictures to represent.

Whatever the situation, whatever the circumstance, HIS grace goes deeper still!

God is really really good. Those pictures give glory to Him and serve as a testimony of His faithfulness.

That is what they are to me.

We have a new member to the Ockrin household. His name is Brady and he has fit into our family rather effortlessly. That probably has much to do with the fact that he is one and trained as well as the few days we got to get acquainted with him while the older three spent some time between the grandparents. Gabe and I deemed it a date weekend staycation until last night. It was SO fun and peaceful! Who says you have to go anywhere to get some R&R?! This will definitely be in the running for future get-a-ways. It’s official! We are old and we love our OWN bed.

Brady LOVES Gabe! He was with a female owner for a year but his first owner/trainer was a male. Those early weeks of bonding play a big part in their lives so as a result he tends to favor Gabe. I think it’s absolutely adorable! I can tell Gabe likes it and feels rather special.

We had just Boaz on our staycation. It was special. It was a treat. This kid is such a peach!

And a HAM!

Staycation was fun but we are happy to have life back to normal. We missed our other kids! I am glad to have them back. They keep us on our toes and make life interesting that is for sure! I can’t imagine this world without them. They really are blessings, each and every one of them!

Running to check wild blackberries and get an apple snack.

It is good to all be home and under one roof again.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, Grammy and Grampy for helping to make such fun memories with our children. They are blessed to call you grandparents! THANK YOU FOR THE R&R!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New tricks all the time.

“Whoa Mom!”

“I know this means ‘jail’ now Mom so you can get some things done around the house, and I don’t appreciate it one little bit! I am SO over this silly thing and I look absolutely ridiculous in it!”

Cool mornings

Sunshining Asher, always.

Jesus is really working on this one’s heart and making it beautiful!

The one I get to do all this with!

Sometimes I think, “Somebody PINCH me!” I really am living my dream from the time I was a little girl. Thankful today for my life, my marriage, and my kids because of Him.

On a Friday we set out to Harrisburg, PA to join family and walk out just part of the journey that our dear loved ones were facing. We made it as far as Watertown (a mere 1.5 hours from home!) as a bathroom brake was already in order. I stopped to nurse the baby while the free access allowed.

It was then I got word from my mom, “Yesterday Grandma was in a lot of pain with her back, so around 8pm last night she was so uncomfortable that Grandpa wanted her to go to the ER. So we called the ambulance, and dad drove Grandpa down. They all were home by 2am. Grandma is not good. They did a cscan and her cancer is everywhere and in everything…liver, kidneys, lungs, bones. We have to get her on a routine pain maintenance thing, and then hospice. Just have to keep her comfortable for now.”

That next Thursday we dropped all plans and drove the little way to Grandma’s bed side to sit with Grandpa. I will never forget the state of her room and the presence surrounding it. It was sad but there was peace. Grandpa was either in a state of tears or chuckling about a quirk of hers that often led to more tears. He talked about her love for Jesus. It was a comfort to us all. She lay in a state of sleep, in complete peace.

She lived 91 years and although that is a ripe old age, as she lay there her life still really embodied the ‘life is but a vapor’. It goes really fast even when you do live to be old. She had 90 years to do what she wanted with her life and she chose to live it not for herself, not seeking after selfish ambitions, or dead end religions.

She chose Jesus and the good in her was because of Him. Some people who knew my Grandma called her an angel.  I’ll admit I think she had hair like one! It was beautiful and part of her crowning glory for sure.  What people may not have pieced together was that they were witnessing the very fruits of the Spirit in her. Gentleness, patience, and meekness were just a part of who she was because of the work He did in her. What she allowed Him to do in her.

What I treasured most of my time by her bed side was recognizing that although she couldn’t at that moment talk or open her eyes, she didn’t have to. She didn’t have to tie up loose ends with her maker or wonder or worry if what she thought or believed and did all her life was enough. At that moment there was no physical way she could have. I was thankful she chose what she chose while she still had the chance to. Grandpa wasn’t left to wonder either. What a gift she gave to him! Her life reflected her choice to worship the Creator and not the created.

“So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32

 It’s never a question of ‘will we worship?’ it is always a question of ‘what will we worship?’ That thing in us to worship was put there by God himself. It became twisted with the fall of man and ever since we’ve been looking else where to fulfill it, seeking our own way, or going so far as to take an opinion or idea of yet just another flawed human being and believe it as truth without ever asking the real tough questions ourselves. Which quite frankly is right where the enemy wants, has, and keeps us. Because as long as the devil can keep us from facing ourselves and our own need for change and holiness, he keeps the very one thing we were designed for from us. Fellowship with God. Restoration and redemption for our sin is never experienced.

“You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:3

Again, I was over taken with thankfulness that my Grandma had put her trust and faith in the truth and thankful for the same God who made a way for us made a way personally for her. I loved my grandma and at that moment it was about her.

Yesterday a tragic accident happened on Rt 11 and 6 people were killed. My heart grieves for those families. They have great loss. How much to them ‘life is but a vapor’ rings loud and clear? Today it is tangible to them just how precious and short life really is.

Live it serving that someone worth your praise and worship. Live it serving that someone who knows you because He made you in His own image. We represent the one true God himself. He knows our inner most darkest secrets and the depth of who we really are and loves us with abandon anyways because it was while we were yet sinners (mocking the very face of Jesus, denying who he really was, and spitting in his face) that He died for us. Romans 5:8

There is no other love like this. And my grandmother was just another who got to bask in it.

Our summer started out much differently than we originally planned. We keep things generally low key so that when unexpected or spontaneous things come up, it’s then the main focus. It becomes our plan. We are never too busy and I like that.

The end of May caught the whole Ockrin family in a bit of a whirl wind. Life seemed to go on hold as we waited news of any kind from Gabe’s youngest brother and his pregnant wife great with child. She was told at her 38 week check up that the heart beat could not be detected. An ultrasound the next day confirmed it. Death.

By the grace of God she carried that baby for yet another month and all the while we prayed labor would start naturally and that grace would be upon her. Time went by. We prayed and even believed for a miracle. Labor was finally induced and she bought forth her first son. They went home with no baby.

We gathered. We remembered. We mourned with family. And we hugged our kids a little tighter as the reality of even their lives before they even enter this world serve a greater purpose than just filling our hopes and dreams, a newly decorated nursery, or freshly washed and prepared Moses basket. I don’t think I will look at my own pregnancies, labors, and deliveries to come quite the same again.

It still hurts when we see them. I know we will always feel the very real loss that is was, that it is. They were left with shattered pieces, hopes, and dreams. I can’t fathom the depths their despair took them. But they aren’t staying there and they aren’t picking the pieces up alone. They weren’t the moment she was told they couldn’t find the heart beat. In fact, her journal (from months in advance before this was even known) in times spent with the Lord showed Him preparing her heart, revealing His goodness and close affection to her without her even knowing it. She had her journal at the service and thereafter so that when I found a spare moment I soaked in His goodness. I soaked in their pain but it was covered with grace so thick. It was unbelievable. So real. There in writing and she didn’t at the time even know it. His presence. Despite the outcome to come, His hand was holding hers. She was even writing it all down and she attests to it this day.

I cried  a lot. I cried because yes it was sad. No one wants to lose a baby full term. But I cried because I really love Jesus. Our lives don’t start and stop on earth. We aren’t left to walk these roads, whatever they may be, alone. Things happen. Really really sad things. You don’t have to look far. Your own home or marriage is enough to reveal there is something wrong. There is something vying for our very lives, our joy, our health, our relationships. And it’s very real, and yet the grace of God is bigger. His hand was with my sister in law despite the road they unknowingly set out upon.Yes God allowed it, but He was not the result of it.

It is our sin. Not even personally at times, but corporately. And we all contribute to it.

That God in our frailness would look upon us and have compassion to deal with us out of love and an uncontrollable ache that moves Him to then pick up the broken and even ugly pieces at times with us, binding them together stronger than before and administering healing and grace and change if need be, is so much beyond me these days. Though I have known of God since I was a little girl, I am knowing Him now in ways maybe life just didn’t allow for before, but rather experience. He is still faithful. And He is unchanging. He is not mocked. And He is not surprised. He still loves me. And goodness is written all over His face no matter what trials I go through or see happen to others. He is the good factor in it all. He is the only thing that is good.

It’s an indescribable feeling to know just how God is good and good personally to others. He reveals himself to those that love Him and it’s faith building when you hear of it from others. To have experienced that with Hannah and John Paul through their trial is something I will never forget. It’s one more thing I get to give Him praise for. My soul can find one more reason among 10,000 to bless His name, and so I do.

“We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

These entire ‘months’! in between postings really do carry a reason. Life has been full and we have just been going right along with it. I have had a lot on my heart. Maybe when I am able to process and then articulate it all I’ll be sharing some thoughts before they slip away too with these baby and lazy summer days.

Until then the calendar DOES tell me it’s the 13th of the month and so I snap a few pictures and celebrate this chub of love and his first year of life with us.

No longer do I worry when someone grabs him to wrestle or swing him onto their hip. He is fitting more into his size these days with his age. He is no longer 2 months going on 7. He is indeed 7 months now! and able to hold his head and back up now. Phew!

Whose child is this? Because, “I just had my first home birth!”

Friends

Trouble!

5 years difference, a special relationship nonetheless.

I am hugging my kids a little longer these days. I am reminded I am only ‘part’ of the picture for their lives, and it is a very small one in the grand scheme of what they are called to do. I am thankful for the parts I have been given. I will cherish what I have today and release them to a plan and purpose better then I could ever dream up for them.

It is what they were created for.

- A 5 month old baby, who JUST today graduated to the play-station! This baby likes to be tickled and likes to ‘wrestle’. I LOVE when they enter that stage!

-Our first year (journey/endeavor/adventure!) home schooling, pretty much DONE! What a perfect fit for our family.

-Specific ways God continues to reveal His hand upon our lives and our family. We are blessed. And it has nothing to do with us.

-Gabe. Mowing the grass. 4 TIMES ALREADY! SPRING ISN’T EVEN OVER!

-Our first stay at a B&B! I’m not sure we ever would have chosen to do this on our own. We are not really the B&B type. Thanks to my in laws and their X-mas gift to all the couples with an over night stay at a local to them B&B provided with watching our kids, we teamed up with Gabe’s sister and her husband and made a double date out of it. It was HILARIOUS! Not the B&B. It was perfectly quaint just like a B&B is supposed to be? She obviously liked birds! Fake ones. Not real. Time with J & Z is always a treat. We laugh A LOT! How fun that they plan to come visit us this weekend where we can do more of that!

-A Mother’s Day Weekend (as Gabe termed it!) that left me feeling entirely blessed. I even have a couple new ‘things’ for my perennial garden to show for it and the energy this spring/summer to tend to them! Last spring I spent it on the couch with a baby Bo growing inside. That was OK. I’m so glad I have that baby! He’s sleeping all squishy up on my bed right now and the thought of him makes me smile.

-The start of needing a bath or at least some sort of ‘sponge bath’ every night for little ones. You can guess what our days look like!

-A tick on the back of Asher’s neck. Note to self: Next time don’t scream. It’s really hard to work your way out of that one! I’ll rephrase that. It’s IMPOSSIBLE!

-Talk about a first ‘real’ family vacation. Just the 6 of us. For us that means other than a “stay-cation” (time off going nowhere other than…HOME!) as well as something besides a night or two at a hotel (with a pool of course!), which honestly up until this point has been absolutely fabulous! I know it still would be. What this really means is we are feeling ready to brave the storm and do what our parents did. A time of utter chaos (hopefully somewhat organized)! Dealing with bad attitudes other than the comforts of your own home. Probably poor sleep. But memories that will last a LIFETIME! Where are we going you ask? We have no idea. If you have any good ideas please pass them along! We want to go camping and we want to be by the water. The shorter the car trip the better. One-two ‘real’ nights of camping will suffice, and then something to offer some modern amenities but still the private wooded feel is all we are looking for. Camping is something we enjoyed doing growing up. Some of my first memories are of my family’s camping adventures. We even spent a large portion of our honeymoon doing so in order to hike several High Peaks in the Adk’s. I look forward to time away together doing nothing but enjoying each other and the great outdoors.

-Enjoying life as it is. Crazy. Busy. Ready for bed when the kids go down but needing time to just unwind and sit in the quiet (usually a recipe for staying up too late, but enjoyed nonetheless!) Blessed. Challenged. Stretched. “These ‘little ones’ won’t be little all the time” is something I have to continually tell myself. They will be men. She will be a woman. What a humbling and daunting at times responsibility to be their mom. I will always be their mom. I will remember nights spent up with them. I will remember how they played so hard all day long only to fall asleep moments after heads hit their pillows. I will remember lunches made and served outside on the picnic table, our own little oasis in the back yard. Glimpses of who these men and this woman will be are enough to form that lump in the back of my throat accompanied by the whole water thing in my eyes as well. Just as quickly as I’m struck to depths of my core of time gone by, of how big this task really is, I’m comforted. I’m told to, “Just enjoy them!”. “They are mine. You can relax a bit and JUST ENJOY.” And so…I do. I really really do!

Boaz hit the 4 month mark several days ago. I know. I know. Who cares right? Well, I do. This is absolutely for me in every selfish way. Life with little ones can get so busy! It’s a treat to stop, reflect, be thankful, and simply cherish what I’ve been given today in a healthy happy baby boy.

Even though he’s number 4, I’m just as amazed how fast it is going. I wish I could slow down time, or make it stop at times altogether. That’s when we nurse a little longer. I don’t hurry to lay him down in his basket long after he’s asleep. We linger. I carry him around during the day as long as I can stand for it. And I love it!

This baby is such a gift here. He is completely and utterly adored from sun up until sun down. It’s touching as a mother to see I’m not the only one who thinks the world of him.

I say this of each baby (as if I’m really stating anything new!) but God really knew what He was doing when he made our Boaz!

What’s not to love ~ curled toes and a couple chins! Nearly 20 pounds of love I get to hug every day.