{"id":1872,"date":"2015-10-13T02:12:27","date_gmt":"2015-10-13T02:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.com\/?p=1872"},"modified":"2015-10-13T02:12:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T02:12:27","slug":"starting-a-new-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/?p=1872","title":{"rendered":"Starting a New Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years, I have been blessed with amazing kiddos (those I birthed and those on loan temporarily from their families).\u00a0 We are planning our annual family photo, and I got to thinking the other day how there are two photos that I really want.\u00a0 One would be similar to the one buzzing on social media where shadows would be in place of our children who reside with Jesus.\u00a0 I am proud to be a mom of seven, even though only three share the earth with us today.\u00a0 As long as I live the most difficult question to answer will always be, “How many children do you have?”<\/p>\n

Every fiber of my being wants to yell “SEVEN”, but sometimes I don’t because I don’t always know how invested in the inquisitor I will eventually be.<\/p>\n

Yet to pull off a picture of that significance means having to coordinate schedules with the three children who have busy lives. It will be a cherished treasure when we finally coordinate it all.\u00a0 The other photo I hope to organize is one with all of our children, including our “adopted” ones – who call me Mom, but only in the “God put us all together” sense of the word.\u00a0 These sons have never lived in my home and all have families who love them.\u00a0For a period of time, we have had the joy of calling them one of our own.\u00a0 Now if I thought the first\u00a0picture was going to be a challenge to coordinate, imagine adding one son (and family)\u00a0in Africa, one son (and family) just up the road, two additional college student sons, and two other sons from our school days.\u00a0If you didn’t\u00a0notice a pattern here, our\u00a0daughters are really outnumbered. Yep, I love each of extra sons as if they were my own, and once upon a time one of them surprised me one of the greatest honors I have ever received.\u00a0 I wrote more about it on the Minnesota Bridging the Gap ministry\u00a0blog page, and I am sharing it here<\/a>.\u00a0 But let’s just say the little girl in the tutu stole my heart from the moment she was born.<\/p>\n

\"Future<\/a><\/p>\n

Adding a grandbaby into the mix helped start a new tradition – which is a really BIG thing around Team Stevens Headquarters.\u00a0From cookies and cocoa on the first snow to tracing our handprints on Thanksgiving, we excel at celebrating the every day. To the world\u00a0our celebrations\u00a0may look to revere the ordinary, but to us, it is the reminder of who we are and what we cherish. The little stuff truly matters.<\/p>\n

Families are incredibly unique.\u00a0Birth families, adopted families, blended families, or family of your own creation. God loves them all. However you define family, and whatever traditions (old and new) you celebrate, be blessed in knowing that God loves the things that bring families closer together!<\/p>\n

Now here’s hoping those schedules will work out for those photos!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years, I have been blessed with amazing kiddos (those I birthed and those on loan temporarily from their families).\u00a0 We are planning our annual family photo, and I got to thinking the other day how there are two photos that I really want.\u00a0 One would be similar to the one buzzing on social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}