It’s been a few very full weeks! Here’s a tiny peek into them…
Kaitlynn made the decision to quit figure skating — something she had been contemplating for awhile and felt the time had come when she found out two of her coaches would be moving this summer. She finished out her testing that she wanted to do and then skated her last session the last week of school.
She has learned and grown so much through figure skating and we will always be grateful for how it has played such a significant role in her life. But we’re also excited for her to have a lot more time and space in her senior year to be able to pursue other things that she’s not been able to because skating has taken so much of her extra time.
We went to Starbucks after skating and then sat in the car and celebrated and recounted all the gifts and blessings of skating these past many years. It was a special way to mark this moment for her. We can’t wait to see what this next year holds!
Kierstyn continues to really enjoy swimming lessons!
Working on the photo board for Kathrynne’s graduation. I’m so grateful that Kaitlynn and Kathrynne helped me pick which pictures to include and then helped me create the board.
Trying on her cap and gown the day before the big day!
We were so blessed to have so many family members in town for Kathrynne’s graduation. It was fun for them to get to enjoy our little kids!
All dressed up for the graduation and not super happy about it. 🙂 Don’t worry, he only cried for about one minute — of course the minute I was trying to take this photo — and then was happy as can be as soon as we got into the car!
It’s official! She’s all done with high school!
One of the special parts of graduation day was seeing Kierstyn go around and interact with multiple seniors she has come to know and love. I love that our younger ones can bring so much joy to so many teenagers!
Not the best family pic we took, but I had to share this one because David’s expression is priceless!
I had to recreate this photo that we took last year with Kathrynne and her best friend, Isabel, at her graduation. I can’t believe Kaitlynn will be a senior this year!
I didn’t get many pictures of the party or the food table set up, but here’s what the beautiful balloons looked like before we set this table with Chipotle!
My hope was that the graduation and party would be deeply meaningful for Kathrynne — and it was! From the the special time with extended family, to dear friends who showed up for her party (almost 70 people came!), to the amazing party decor and food (thanks to @graceemayberry and @roseandplumliving + Chipotle)… she just felt so loved and celebrated!
Kathrynne and I sat in our room at the end of the day (Jesse was gone with David all night at a sleep study… because of course it had gotten scheduled months before on the day of graduation!), and we recounted so many special memories, funny moments, encouraging conversations, and just the goodness of God throughout the whole day.
Everything came together so beautifully even though there were hundreds of moving parts for the day. While I was bone tired at the end, it was the kind of exhaustion that comes with so much joy and fulfillment!
One high school graduation down, five to go!
We got to watch my friend’s 10-week-old baby for the weekend. He was a trooper and slept through most of the graduation party and then came with us to Silas’ out-of-town baseball tournament!
Micah is growing up so much!! He just started walking (see the video here) and is talking a lot and wants to try to do everything his older siblings do plus eat all the things all the time!
Our screened-in porch is getting hours and hours of use these days. The weather has been so beautiful and the shade is just perfect that it’s almost always a nice temperature out here!
Jesse and I have also been going on long walks many evenings. It’s good exercise and fresh air, we get to have some focused time to talk while pushing little ones in the strollers.
Jesse snapped this picture of me one morning recently. I love it so much because this is my life right now!
I posted the above picture on Instagram with this caption: “Will he ever talk?” “When will he get his feeding tube out?” “What do you think his future will look like?”
I get questions like this almost daily. And I so appreciate how much people care about our David and his future.
The truth is: I don’t have answers. I don’t know if he’ll have a full vocabulary some day. I don’t know if he’ll get his feeding tube out. And I have no idea what the future holds.
But I know this: he teaches me daily that our society puts a lot of value on what we see outwardly. That talking and walking and eating and interacting socially are the markers of success and the definition of progress.
There’s not a clear linear progressive trajectory for David. There are many unknowns for the future. But he’s forging his own path and he’s excelling at it.
Do we hope he learns to communicate with words? Honestly, instead of making that the goal, I’m celebrating that he has gained so many pre-verbal skills, that he’s rarely frustrated with communication, and that he’s learning more and more ways and cues and verbal sounds to indicate what he wants.
Yes, the hope is that he eventually gets his feeding tube out and eats 100% orally, but for now, we’re insanely proud of his progress in deciding he is interested in food, that he often wants to eat now, and many days is consuming 120+ calories orally. That’s HUGE!
Most of all, we celebrate the gift he is to our home and lives and how much he loves life. He doesn’t care about the goals others set for him or whether he’s hitting them. He’s just happy to sit and play with a ball for an hour. He doesn’t know that some people feel sorry for him or that he’s labeled “developmentally delayed”; he’s just thrilled to sit in our laps, hug us repeatedly, and play peek-a-boo and have dance parties.
Every day, David teaches me that what we often place so much value on (checking things off a list, hitting goals, outward progress) isn’t the be all end all of life. Loving people, living in the present, and fully soaking up the here and now are some of the most important things we can spend our time doing. And let me tell you, David is off-the-charts successful at those three things!
Kaitlynn and Kierstyn made cake pops one day recently.
On an evening walk!
We had an unexpected surprise happen a few weeks ago: we got to start babysitting for the little boy we fostered for 8 1/2 months back in 2020. We had been regularly babysitting him the past two years after he reunified with his mom. But then she had gotten consistent childcare and so we hadn’t seen him for almost 6 months.
Well, some things changed with his childcare and she asked if we could help out again. We were thrilled to do so!
So we’ve had him for 30-40 hours a week the past few weeks and it’s been such a gift. He’s 3 and full of energy, but also the sweetest child!
And he ADORES Micah!
I took this pictures of the two boys the other day! I just love how more and more they are becoming such buddies!
Baseball tournaments with four little ones (since we’ve been babysitting for C at most of them recently) mean you bring a LOT of extra stuff!
We brought spray bottles with water at last weekend’s baseball tournament and it was a HIT!
There you have it: a little peek into the past few weeks! If you made it through all those pictures, whew! Thank you for being here and being such cheerleaders for our family! We are grateful for this life — even on the really tiring days! — and we are grateful for each of you!
Tracy S says
Love this post. I’ve followed off and on since Biblical Womanhood when our oldest kids were babies and now they’ve graduated. I think mine is a week older than Katherine. He just left home on new adventures this week. And I’m now due with our 5th in September. 😳🤪 I love seeing that we aren’t the only family still growing when that’s not the societal norm. I don’t feel quite so crazy. Hahaha
May you continue to be as blessed as you have been a blessing to me all these years. 😍
Kate says
Love your kids so proud of her and the accomplishments she has achieved
Crystal Paine says
Thank you!
Beth says
Congratulations to all your children and their successes!
I’d be curious to know your family’s thoughts on committing so whole heartedly to a sport (figure skating/baseball). My four are still young, but I can’t imagine spending that much time supporting a sport. I’d like to know what you feel are the pros and cons and also how you decide whether to commit. Is it a family decision (assuming the child wants it) or is it just based on the child’s interest and somehow you make it work as a family? I think I’m somewhat prejudiced against sports (I’m not sure it’s good for young peoples’ bodies to heavily play one sport). But I think my primary concern is whether it’s worth the time and resources. Is it worth being that committed to something that they’ll eventually walk away from (maybe forever, because they’re burned out)? I think being super committed to a sport hoping that a child will go pro or even get a scholarship is a waste for 99.9% of people. But is it worth it if the child is really interested in coaching? Or just for the self-confidence? I’m asking myself if I would feel the same way about debate or robotics or a musical instrument.
I hope my comment doesn’t sound too negative. I’d really like to know. I have four boys with at least two of them interested in sports. None of my siblings or I were interested in sports so this is new territory for me. And I’m specifically talking about heavy involvement (like traveling leagues or hiring coaches with early morning practices), not just participating in sports in general. I feel like I’d want to say, spend that time getting a job or an internship. How did you decide it was worth the time?
Crystal Paine says
It’s been SUCH a good thing on so many levels and the character and life lessons they learn from all of the time and effort committed will be something they carry with them for the rest of their lives. Both Kaitlynn and Silas are highly, highly motivated and it’s something that has brought so much joy and fulfillment to their lives — and our lives, in turn. Plus, it’s taught them life skills like interacting with/listening to/learning from different coaches, interacting with team mates, taking ownership for what you need to take ownership of, learning to get along with people you might not like very well, showing up when you don’t feel like it, pushing through when it’s hard, having a good attitude even when you lose, setting goals and working hard toward them.
I don’t think being highly committed to a sport is for everyone (Kathrynne decided a few years ago that she wanted to focus on academics and her jobs and we fully support her in that), but for Kaitlynn and Silas, it’s been a fantastic thing and they would both list off dozens of lifelong lessons they’ve learned from it + the joy they’ve gotten from it!
Csandst1 says
Sports amongst multiple children separate families. We knew more than one family who rarely spent time together because of traveling, practices and private coaching sessions. It’s also extremely expensive—even basketball and soccer are expensive. By the time your child is in 9th grade, you will know if they need to give up the sport they’ve been playing since 9th grade.Unless the family commits to staying together to support a child’s sport, I do not believe it makes financial sense and is an extreme detriment to the family unit.
Crystal Paine says
I would just encourage you to not make such sweeping generalizations that come across as judgmental, because that’s absolutely not always the case at all. We actually choose to make it a family affair — we all go to almost every single sporting event all together. It’s something we love and look forward to so much and we have so many, many special family memories from games we traveled to together. Also, some sports opportunities are very, very inexpensive. It just depends upon what you choose to do. There are so many options. I think each family needs to decide what is best for their own family. For us, it’s been such a fun family thing and we LOVE all going to the games together and cheering our kids on and are so thankful for the amazing life lessons our kids have learned from sports that have challenged and changed them in such profoundly positive ways.
Beth says
Thank you for your reply! I had a bit of an “aha” moment when reading your reply. Like the above commenter, most of my observation of families that have invested heavily in sports have not done it well. I thought about the two families I know who did do it well. Both of the fathers are college level coaches. And then I remembered you talking about your family doing mud runs and cross fit and other sports or similar activities. I can’t imagine spending that much time on a kids sport because our family is not a “sports family”. The families that have done it well are “sports families”. I’d probably label my family as an “academic family” or “history and science family”. We spent our last vacation touring Williamsburg and Antietam. Yesterday we spent the morning checking out a fossil and gemstone museum. So it’s natural to encourage my eldest love of dinosaurs.
So I guess that shifts my question away from sports specifically and instead to “is it good to invest so much time and money into a specific interest for my child (and how do I balance the whole family’s needs)?” And then, “what if my child’s interest doesn’t fit the family culture?” I think often it will, but not always. Your family highly values physical activity. What if you have a child that really wants to be a programmer or an artist?
I think you answered the first question – that for the child at least it can be very good for them and if it fits the family culture already it’s not as much of a burden to support it. Thank you so much! Maybe this would be a good podcast topic.
Crystal Paine says
Honestly: I would NOT at all be someone people would have thought of as a sports-minded person. I’ve learned to become one because that’s something that’s super important to Silas. So many of my kids’ interests aren’t something I’m naturally interested in, but because my kids are important to me, what’s important to them becomes important to me.
When Jesse and I got married, we were much more of a history-buff, politically-minded couple. We only have one child somewhat interested in politics right now and one child semi interested in history, so those haven’t been big priorities because we try to really follow what our kids’ natural bents and passions are.
We never set out to be a sports family, but because that was something Silas was super passionate about, we have invested a lot of time and effort and energy and resources into it and we currently are a “sports family” but in 10 years from now, when our younger three are older, we may be a very different type of family based upon their own interests. I think there can be negative things by pigeon-holing our younger kids into a model that our older kids followed.
I knew almost nothing about ice skating, but I learned a TON the past 10 years, because it was something really important to Kaitlynn and something she was passionate about. I knew nothing about special needs and cleft lip/palate, but I’ve learned all I can and continue to learn so I can advocate for David. Kathrynne isn’t really into sports and her love is business and math and helping people. She and I have spent hours talking about her entrepreneurial ideas, her future, and how she can combine her loves. We’ve helped her start businesses. We’ve invested a lot of time/resources into giving her opportunities to pursue those passions and are excited to see what the future holds for her!
Beth says
Thank you again for your replies! They’ve given me something to think about.
Rachel R. says
Such a beautiful & encouraging post about what really matters!
Crystal Paine says
Thank you for your encouragement!
Wendy says
You had me in “happy” tears. I love your heart and the goodness you are giving to your family and the sweet kids that can’t help themselves. I am a mom of a “developmental delayed girl” she is 12 now. I have followed your blog for years, but I haven’t seen it for the past 2 years I think….WOW!!!! Your life has changed a bit… and what a blessing it is and continues 💗. I am truly happy for you and pray that God keep you all healthy and always doing well according to his will. Love, Wendy Jahns
Crystal Paine says
Thank you so much! David is such a gift to our family and we can’t imagine life without him! He brings so much joy to our home… though our hearts break that he can’t be with his mama and siblings, but I’m grateful I can regularly keep her updated on him and how he’s doing!
Diane says
Congratulations to Kathrynne! And good job to Kaitlynn for making the decision about skating. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision but will be good to have more time for other things, too.
Crystal Paine says
I am so happy with how happy and excited she is about life!
Chris says
Congratulations to Kathrynne on her graduation and I wanted to say that I was touched by your sharing about David this time. You have a very full life, and so different than when I first started following you all those years ago. Thanks for continuing to share with us.
Crystal Paine says
Thanks for still being here years later!
Wendi says
Thanks for the glimpse into your life! What a gift & encouragement to all of us!
Crystal Paine says
You are so welcome!
Jeanie says
You’re pouring your lives into people and it’s such an inspiration!
Crystal Paine says
Thank you for your encouragement!
Patti says
Such wonderful photos of your full life! Congrats on the graduation 👩🎓! Loved all the beautiful pictures, thanks for sharing 😊
Crystal Paine says
You are so welcome!