Life Unexpected

Last Thursday I had one of those "mommy moments," and when I say "mommy moments," I'm not talking about when your child pees on the potty for the first time, brings you a bouquet of flowers he's picked in the yard, or eats everything on his plate.  I'm talking about one of those moments that leaves you in the parking lot of Target, bawling your eyes out, with a kid screaming at the top of his lungs, as you pray that no one "notices" the unbelievable scene that is being played out for all to see.  Thursday was not a good night. A couple of weeks ago Nate's mom had come to visit and this past Thursday he had decided to take her to a Southern Gospel Concert.  I was actually excited, because it opened up this awesome opportunity for a Mommy/Son date night.  I had it all planned out.  Biruk and I would go to see some of our teens play in their lacrosse game, we'd head to Coldstone for ice-cream (thank you gift cards), and drop by the s

This morning, my sisters and I had the time of our life taking part in a Mother's Day Photo shoot with our kiddos.  As I held Biruk on my lap, I couldn't help but think about the journey that we have taken to get to this place in our life.  This weekend marked 5 years since we signed our very first paper work to begin the adoption process for a little boy who at the time wasn't even born.  We had no idea what the years to follow would look like, but we knew deep down in our hearts, life was going to change in so many ways. We knew late night waffle house runs would no longer exist unless Grammy or Nan were around for the night.  We knew our living room would probably look like a toy box exploded in the center of it and the likelihood of us not stepping on a matchbox car at least once a day was probably slim to none.  We knew we were going to love family get togethers even more than we already did and that adding an additional child to the "Long" shenanigans woul

Several months back, my 8 year old niece Emma was asked to answer a prompt for a writing piece at school.  The prompt stated, "The World Would Be A Better Place If..."  When I was 8 years old I am pretty sure that my response would have included something along the lines of, "The world would be a better place if it was covered in cotton candy, or if every kid could ride their bike all day long, or if we could all have pet monkeys in our house."  Emma's response was far more thoughtful than anything I couldn't have come up with at 8.   In fact, her response was so thoughtful, it won an award for excellence at her school and in the county and eventually made it to the state level.  While I am beyond proud that Emma was chosen to represent her school for her writing, I am even more proud that I have a niece who is developing a compassionate heart for Jesus and a love for orphans and can't wait to see how God will continue to use her to make a difference i