everyday Ann

living the ordinary seeing the extraordinary

The News…..

…………coming October 1st!!!!

We are beyond excited to be adding to the Everts’ crew and incredibly grateful to God and humbled by His faithfulness!! I know I have said this before, but never did I imagine this would be us. Five years ago I wouldn’t have believed we would be maxing out capacity in our minivan and have more than tripled the occupancy of our house.

I am thankful to have made it through the first trimester (officially 15 weeks!!) and to be feeling much better. Morning sickness hit with vengeance right at 6 weeks and was not just in the morning, but all day long with about every food aversion to go with it. I am excited to finally be able to enjoy the taste of coffee again.

Kolbe and Ethan basically knew since I was 5 weeks, since Grace told them I was getting shots and going for blood draws. They easily put two and two together, knowing that I only do that when I am pregnant. I neither confirmed nor denied until around 9 weeks. Upon finding out they exclaimed they were going to tell the entire school. They are very excited, just a little disappointed there aren’t twins.

Grace is positively convinced, absolutely certain, no telling her otherwise that the baby is a girl. She denies any love or affection she will give the baby if it happens to be a boy, although she dotes on Caden constantly.

Caden is still trying to figure everything out. Occasionally patting my stomach saying “ooh baby”, but also patting my behind saying the same thing. He will also touch his stomach and Grace’s and say “baby”. Eventually he will figure things out.

Along with sharing our news I am also thinking and praying for all of you women wanting and waiting. Don’t ever give up hope. God is at work in the silence and has not abandoned you in your pain and longing.

Moms and Lent

It is practically here, are you ready? I know I will be fine tuning my Lenten commitment right until midnight tonight along with enjoying a large bowl of ice cream. I set up the sacrifice jar today and we each wrote down our Lenten commitments on a note card last night. The boys are already thinking of ways to fill the jar, because they know the coffee beans will turn to jelly beans come Easter.

Writing over at Catholic Mom as we prepare to enter the Lenten journey. Let’s be honest, simply by being a mom we are daily met with situations that challenge us and we don’t have to look far for opportunities to make a sacrifice. All in this together!

Remembering Our Babies

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October marks Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month and while I see great changes in awareness since I had my first miscarriage almost ten years ago I still think there is a long ways to go, especially in our personal and faith communities. Over the years we have honored our babies in different ways during the month of October. This year we will be doing a balloon release with our children.

I am writing at Catholic Mom today sharing five ways that have helped me find healing after the loss of my babies to  miscarriage. What has helped you find healing? I would love to hear your story, none of us are in this alone.

Mom Life


Throwback picture to 2015 when we had just landed in the U.S. from Ghana. Finally with my boys, the ones who began my mom life!

1.  It is Friday, yippee!!! A four day week that turned into ten, with a few sleepless nights sprinkled in. We have all had those moments, days and weeks when our brains seem as if they turned to mush and our toddler can complete a task more successfully than us.

2.  When you sweep the entire floor and have enough food in the dust pan for a meal, but for some reason mistakenly throw it on top of a box of granola bars sitting in the pantry instead of in the garbage.

3.  After heating up the baby’s bottle you try to give it to the toddler. Her response,”Mama I am not a baby, I am a big girl. Silly mama!!”

4.  A weekend full of social events planned including Caden’s first birthday party and everything gets cancelled, because the poor little man came down with a severe case of hand, foot and mouth.

5.  You walk downstairs to get something and the moment you reach the last step you begin to wonder why you are downstairs.

6.  Reaching for the perfume you grab the hairspray instead, spraying it as if it was your body mist.

7.  Brewing a fully caffeinated extra strong cup of coffee you hand it to your seven year old instead of his hot chocolate. He doesn’t say anything until almost the entire cup is gone.

A side note…loving these cooler days of low 70s. May have to venture out and find some mums this weekend. Join Kelly for writing that is more coherent and well thought out.

As Our Hearts Ponder

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School day number 4 in the books and we still seem to be adjusting to the new routine, not to mention that on day 3 I was already late for pick-up. I am also finding the need to come up with coping strategies come 3:45 when are are all together again and chaos seems to hit. Yesterday every single child was in tears between 4:00 and 5:00. Working on adjusting to everything being new again.

Writing at Catholic Mom this week for all of our mama hearts as we send our children back to school. Keeping all of you mothers in prayer as sometimes the transition is so much harder on us.