When I think back to our long winter, I think of a ridiculous night that I decided I couldn’t take the cold/sickness/loss we were walking through one minute longer. So I put on my bikini, because gosh darn-it if I had to disinfect my house one more time, I would just pretend like it was summer. In the middle of my cleaning session, our friend, Brenda, stopped by with some food for our family and caught me red handed right in the smack dab completion of going CRAZY. Ha, she might still think I am a bit nuts : )

Some summers, God leads us across the country and one day He will probably lead us around the world to a Summer Project with college students. This summer, Josh is in training for his new position and God let us stay home. Ahhh. He is refreshing us through and through.

Last week when we saw July 4th was coming, we had feelings of joy mixed with sorrow. July 4th was our baby Macy’s due date. Of course, our baby wouldn’t be coming this July 4th. Instead, he or she is celebrating with Jesus. Some wise people had spoken into our lives and told us that the due date may bring up new and different feelings of grief that we shouldn’t be surprised by. We began praying God would ready us for that day and wanted to celebrate our family in a significant way this year. Ruth and Lydia are just too young to understand what all of this means so, for now, we just shared with them that we were going to have a really special family day on July 4th this year. In future years, we are excited to share with them why it is that the Fieleke’s celebrate like whoa on July 4th: We are celebrating our family God has given us on this side of eternity and the next. We are remembering Macy and celebrating the joy having a baby growing in Mommy’s belly brought all of us. And you better believe we asked Jesus lots of times yesterday to come back and get His people. We love watching for Him in the clouds.

To be quite honest the view of celebrating family yesterday in light of the fact that I will never quit missing that little baby felt a little like climbing a mountain, so I maybe went a little nuts crafting for some therapy. Lets be honest, I went fully nuts for a few days and sewed completely unnecessary but adorable matching outfits for the girls. I love it when Jesus meets me in my crazy.

Complete with a trip to West Bottoms, Happy Gilli’s, Grammy and Grandpa joining in the fun, and illegal sparklers in the backyard, here are our July 4th Family Celebration pictures:

Thanks for stopping by! Hope your family July 4th was sweet and full of celebrating too!