Home

Where we love is home-

Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. --Oliver Wendell Holmes

Shortly after welcoming Judah home, we found a house, or shall I say The House, that we knew was what we were looking for in our forever home. We like to say this is the home we will die in, or the home we will live in until our children force us out. It's not huge, it's not updated, and moving certainly wasn't on our summer to-do list, but it's exactly right for us--both now and in the future.

Except we have two 3 year olds, one who doesn't like change and another who faced an incredible amount of change in a very short period of time.

Explaining that we were moving to a new house, driving past the new house, even going on the inspection of the new house still didn't prepare them for what moving from one house to another would be like. Even now, if I'm out with them running errands, one of them will still ask "Are we going to the new house?" as if the old house is still an option.

Then we went on a couple vacations, had a couple hospital stays/trips, and had some family stuff come up, and Derek and I would make the mistake of saying "We're going to head home", meaning "We're going to head back to wherever we're sleeping."

Again, our two 3 year olds don't understand that, and assume we are headed home to the house we live in.

So we did some quick thinking, and now when we are out of town or not sleeping in our house, and say we are headed home, we ask just these three questions if they are confused:

Are you a part of a family?
Are we a family?
Are we your family?

Once their answers are yes, always yes, our next sentence is "Home is wherever our family is."

It's simple, it's basic, it's age appropriate...but it is also true.

Whether we are in our house, on vacation, in a hotel room or in a hospital room, we are a family. We are together, and that means we're home. Family is home, and home is family.

But sometimes, because of circumstances we can't control, families aren't together. Sometimes a family member is sick and in the hospital, whether for a quick or extended stay. Sometimes, a beloved family member, no matter the age, has passed on, going Home to where they are healed and whole. And sometimes, someone's family is working hard, waiting, praying for them to come home and to be a part of a family, to be a part of their family.

I think we can all relate to at least one of those instances. That's what inspired the design of these shirts. For us, a member of our family isn't home yet. For a little person on the other side of the world, he or she is still waiting for a home and a family.

If you would like to purchase a shirt that says Home is where Family is, you can click here, the photo of the t-shirt above, or the t-shirt photo on the blog's homepage. By doing so, you'll help us bring home our newest and youngest--and yet unknown--family member.

We have set a high goal of selling 100 shirts, and we hope and pray we can meet that goal. We have a variety of colors and options available, for children and adults. If you've made a purchase, you should have your new shirts by the middle of November. Thank you, very much, to each of you who has bought a shirt so far, and to those of you who have donated on top of purchasing a shirt. Thanks for being a part of our family.