Little People, Big Style.

If this isn't the most stylish, fun family you have seen in awhile, then...well, just take a look.

I normally don't post so many photos, but they are just so ridiculously cute! So much love in these seven Tisdales!

Beauty from Ashes

I'm always humbled when we visit our friends in Cincinnati. They all live quite intentionally in neighborhoods ridden with crime and drugs, believing meanwhile God has called them to redeem the brokenness that surrounds them. Every time I visit these dear friends, I do so with excitement over all that God is doing and a sort of heaviness at all of the sadness they are faced with daily as it pertains to watching six year-olds look after their one year-old sisters and brothers at the park, walking by drug deals, receiving cat-calls and pleas for money from drunk men, and the list goes on.

And yet, there is so much beauty. Old buildings being rehabbed. Colorful murals on old brick walls. People with homemade wine and gingerbread, offering up their songs on the banjo, sung by children, to neighbors in order to celebrate Jesus' birth. Old diners that still play "I Love Lucy" all day long. Diversity. Passion. And yes, that list goes on too.

Seven

I always wanted a girl and on December 28th, God gave me the most perfect one. She is the sunshine of our family and I am so thankful for all that I learn (when I alas stop to listen) through the awe-struck eyes of my Keziah Psalter.

We did her birthday American Girl style this year. She loved the carriage ride and her favorite food: naked vegetarian burrito from Qdoba. And a sleepover with her cousins to top it off!

Sunshine Boy

Alex Anthony was adopted by my sister and brother-in-law when he was around eighteen months-old. Our whole family went to meet Alex at the airport the night his daddy brought him home from China. Sucking intently on a pacifier, his chocolate eyes met our family of blue eyes with curiosity and fear. He spent the first few months learning to trust these new adults in his life, some of the most loving parents I know. And he alas began to call them Daddy and Mommy.

It wasn't until coming home after being gone a year and a half in Italy that I noticed the incredible progress that had taken place in this little guy. He is almost four and is the happiest pre-schooler I've ever known. His smile lights up a room and overwhelms my heart. Perhaps I am overwhelmed because I remember that timid, fear-ridden toddler who would cry whenever his mommy left the room, out of angst that she might not return. As cliche' as it sounds, Alex's life reminds me of the difference one family can make in one child's life.

I cannot imagine our family without him. I love you Alex!!!

I can see a lot of light in you...

Pretty sure I could write a whole book about these two beauties. When my mom gave birth to Kaitlyn when I was ten, I was ecstatic. When Alison came along, I was beginning to be swallowed up by training bras and Truth or Dare and sort of lost the sentiment. But it returned in my high school years...and into college. And they were like a trial run of parenting. No baggage. Well, except that one time I dragged Ali across the carpet because she was throwing a fit.

They have turned out to be everything I ever thought and told them they were and would be: Smart, talented, beautiful, amazing, amazing, amazing. And now, the irony: I am finding myself much more often the learner, the lesser, the apprentice in a world of fresh perspective and big dreams, of fearless living and boundless confidence.

Kait and Ali: Iwuvyou.

Nine years later...

I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge, when telling the story of how Thomas and I met and married, that God’s grace through the life of Elias, growing and kicking and hiccupping in my womb, is to thank for keeping us together that first year of marriage.

I remember the day I found out I was pregnant. I was working the 5:00 a.m. shift at a maternity home in Bloomington, Indiana. It was three weeks after our spontaneous marriage ceremony, performed by a big black judge in downtown Indianapolis, 15 minutes before the courthouse closed on New Year’s Eve.

I walked out of the maternity home into the cold January air and threw the hood of my sweatshirt over my head of curly hair. Fumbling for the keys to the Crisis Pregnancy Center next door, I turned the handle and made my way to the little room where many a woman found herself in the same circumstance I would soon find myself in.

I opened the cabinet and grabbed a pregnancy test, assuming that the random thought of being pregnant was just my imagination. The test would prove that for sure.

I walked back over to the old Victorian home with its brass handles and paisley wallpaper and cold floors. Making my way into the office bathroom, where I would have many a meltdown over my marriage that year, I unwrapped the test and peed on the stick and waited all of ten seconds before a little blue line appeared. Surely the line meant negative. I re-read the instructions.

A collision of excitement and complete fear filled my gut.

And months passed. And I fell in love with the baby growing inside of me.

And on the night he was born, October 8, 2002 at 10:10 p.m., I couldn’t believe that he was so perfect. His eyes were big and round, the way that are now, and he made his way to my breast.

And I would never be the same.

The next day, Thomas crowded in bed with me as we lay on our sides watching Elias James Shophet sleep next to us on the crisp white hospital sheets. We began to cry simultaneously, as if on cue. I think we cried for what this moment represented: Hope. For our marriage. Our future. Our love.

Or maybe we just cried because he was so perfect. So beautiful. Because we were so evidently a family.

Elias James: I love you sweet boy. Nine years ago, you changed my world. I love what you teach me everyday. You have grown me up and made me understand God’s grace in tangible ways, ways that leave me humbled daily. Happy Birthday!