We used to tease my sister, Alisa, and her husband, Peter, that they were going to end up like the Duggers. They wanted lots of kids. And when they got pregnant and had their daughter Haddie in 2008, we had no doubt that their house would soon be bursting with babies.

But it didn’t happen. God said wait.

Months and months passed, months of raised hopes followed by negative pregnancy tests, tears and failed expectations. Alisa grew numb. She tried to ignore her cycles, pretend that it wasn’t time to take another test, pretend that her hopes hadn’t been crushed again.

But God said wait.

Peter and Alisa decided to adopt. They busied themselves in a flurry of paperwork, taking classes, attending trainings, dreaming of a baby before Christmas.

But God said wait.

My sister-in-law got pregnant, Alisa’s best friend got pregnant, I got pregnant, Alisa’s dear friend adopted a son, I got pregnant again, my sister-in-law got pregnant again, Alisa’s best friend god pregnant again.

But God said wait.

So Alisa put on a happy face, smiling through her tears as she attended baby showers, sip-and-sees, hospital visits and MOPS meetings. She cradled her new nieces and nephews, brought meals to her friends when they had babies, babysat as other moms went to prenatal appointments.

And God still said wait.

Then the news came: Peter and Alisa had been chosen to adopt a baby girl. They prepped their nursery, filling it with ribbons and bows and tiny pink socks. They visited the birth mom. They raised money for the adoption expenses and anxiously awaited the day that their new baby girl arrived.

But God said wait.

Sweet little Abby was born on July 7, 2011. As they raced up to the hospital, anxious to hold their new baby girl for the first time, they prayed jubilantly that their wait was finally over, that they finally had a baby to fill their empty arms.

But, God once again said wait.

Less than two days after Abby was born, her birth mom changed her mind. She decided to parent Abby. And Alisa and Peter left the hospital with bags full of brand-new baby clothes that would never be worn, with hearts heavy and hope lost.

And still, God said wait.

They went home, they shut the door to their nursery and tried to move on. They continued to pursue adoption, but also decided to pursue pregnancy once again. There were tests and needles and exorbitant hospital bills. There was a shocking infertility diagnoses that meant their first daughter was a miracle. There was a painful surgery and weeks of waiting as hopes rose, only to be dashed again.

Because God still told them to wait.

And then, just when all hope seemed lost. Just when we were starting to question whether God really had a plan for more children for them, whether he had been there speaking to them all along, God spoke through a whisper.

Now. Now is the moment that you have been waiting for.

The phone call came at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. A tiny baby boy needed a family, a home. He had been born with gastroschisis—his intestines had developed outside of his body. He was facing major surgery and weeks of recovery. A tiny soul who in just a few short hours of life had known pain, loneliness and fear, a child of God who was lying in the NICU by himself with a sign on his crib that said “Baby Boy.” No name. No family. No one.

But God had chosen this moment to show the depth of his love. Because while Peter and Alisa had waited and waited for a baby, God had been waiting for this baby. This child. This wonderful blessing. And now the long and lonely wait was over. Peter and Alisa have a son. And baby Asa has been chosen.

Get updates on Baby Asa on his Caringbridge website here.

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Advice from my mom: ”Your kids may be too young to learn about S-E-X, but they’re definitely old enough to learn about the birds and the bees.”

Her point? If kids start learning young about God’s plan for life—in an age-appropriate way—then when the time comes to have “the talk,” they won’t be surprised, but instead will be ready, haven been given a framework on which to hang these ideas.

Plus, she also says that as a parent, you have to become the “expert” to your kids—so that when they hear something at school, the first thing they’ll think is “Well, my mom knows a lot about this, so I’m going to go home and ask her.”

My mom’s pretty smart, isn’t she?

So, how do you teach preschoolers about the birds and bees? You teach them about life!

This spring, we’ve been growing our own patio herb garden. We started out by going to the store and buying pots and seeds. I let my kids pick the pots they liked and the seeds they wanted to grow (my daughter picked the packet that had the prettiest pictures, my son picked the biggest seeds).

When we got home, we talked about how God can take a tiny seed and with proper conditions, turn it into a plant. We planted and fertilized the seeds and diligently watered them. A few weeks later, the plants sprouted. More water, fertilizer and sunshine and they started to grow. And now, two months later, we have beautiful, thriving herbs—herbs that we can use for spaghetti sauce, salads, pizzas and more.

But the fresh herbs are just the added bonus. The best part of this little family project is the questions it has brought forth. Here are a few of the things my kids have asked:

From Kate (age 4): “Mommy, if I didn’t water my plants, they would die, wouldn’t they?”

From Joey (age 6): “Why does it take so long for God to make plants grow? Why can’t they just pop up overnight?”

And, the doozy, from Joey: “Do animals and people grow from seeds just like plants do?”

I admit I had to call my mom before I answered this one . . . but I did come back to Joey and tell him that yes, in fact, God does take a seed from a man and a seed from a female and join them together to create a life. Glad my mom helped me with that one!

Anyway, this has been such a great project that has helped my kids to ask great questions . . . and has started great conversations.

Question for you: What do you do to teach your kids about God’s creation of life?

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It’s been beautiful here in Texas lately!

We’re making the most of our time outside right now because we know what Texas summers are like . . . and we know that come June we’re going to have to hole up in the air conditioning. Anyway, here are 20 fun things you can do to get out in the lovely spring weather.

1. Pick wildflowers. If you’re feeling really creative, press them between the pages of books to glue onto cards.

2. Go on an insect hunt and see how many types of insects you can find. Later, draw pictures of your favorites.

3. Roll down a hill in the grass.

4. Plant a garden. Or if you don’t have space, plant a pot of fresh herbs.

5. Make an obstacle course and see how fast you can go through it. (Don’t have “obstacles”? Just tell your kids to jump 10 times, do two cartwheels, run around the house, and then give you a hug. Then time them.)

6. Make your own Survivorkids movie and film your kids showing the world how to hike, backpack, build a (fake) campfire, fight off a (stuffed) bear attack, etc.

7. See how high you can get on the swings.

8. Go bird watching.

9. Draw on the driveway or patio with sidewalk chalk. (I’ve actually seen someone make their own sidewalk chalk, but I’m a slacker and chalk costs like a dollar, so I just buy it.)

10. Play soccer.

11. Make mud pies without worrying about your kids getting dirty.

12. Lay out beach towels on the grass and pretend you’re at the beach. Sunscreen required, juicy novel optional.

13. Make a rock garden. See how many types of rocks you can find to put in it.

14. Play croquet. Or bocce ball.

15. See how many different shapes of leaves you can find.

16. Get a magnifying glass and look really close at the grass and see what (ants? sticks? caterpillars?) you see.

17. Make homemade lemonade. Bring a whole bowl full of cut lemons outside then let your kids do the sticky work of squeezing them. Add ice, simple syrup, water and fresh mint if you have it. (For those of you who are recipe people, the ratio is 1 cup simple syrup made from 1 part water and 1 part sugar, 4 cups water, 1 cup lemonade)

18. Do “outdoor aerobics” and walk your kids through an “exercise class” including jumping jacks, push ups and dance moves. (Leg warmers optional.)

19. Play fetch with your dog.

20. Go on a scavenger hunt to see if your kids can find one thing from every color in the rainbow. Or one thing that starts with every letter in the alphabet.

Question for you: What do you do with your kids outside?

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The year 2012 is all about intentionality at the MacPherson house . . . and this month, we’re focusing on intentional doing. And that means instead of just being, I’m going to focus on intentionally doing things all month.

Playing.

Talking.

Reading.

Cooking. Working.

Doing things together. So, as part of Doing month, I’m going to be putting together a series of lists that give you easy ideas on how to intentionally do things. Enjoy!

Here are the 15 things your preschoolers can do to help in the kitchen:

1. Cut and chop. Yes, I let my kids use knives. My 4-year-old cuts strawberries using a plastic cake knife, and my 6-year-old cuts things like green beans and tomatoes using a regular paring knife.

2. Fetch ingredients. Send your kids to the fridge to get milk or to the pantry to get sugar.

3. Read recipes. If they can’t read yet, have them find letters, point out numbers, and guess at what ingredients the dish calls for.

4. Grow herbs. Plant basil, oregano, parsley and cilantro in small pots and let your kids grow and water their own herbs. Then send them to go pick what you need for recipes.

5. Crack eggs. Yes, it can be precarious to let little hands crack eggs, but if you have them practice in a separate bowl from your other ingredients . . . and are okay with throwing away a few eggs if there’s an accident, cracking eggs can be a lot of fun for preschoolers.

6. Empty the dishwasher. Let them sort silverware or put away everything that’s unbreakable.

7. Add spices. Who cares if there’s a little extra cinnamon in your Snickerdoodles or vanilla in your pancakes? Let your kids add spices at their own discretion.

8. Decide on optional ingredients. Let them decide if you add mushrooms to the soup or corn to the salsa.

9. Wash produce. Pull a chair up to the sink and let your kids help you rinse lettuce or wash apples.

10. Choose menus. Give your kids cookbooks with photos and let them pick recipes that they’d like to have for dinner.

11. Put away the groceries. Have your kids arrange the cereal on a low shelf or put all of their snacks in an easy-to-reach snack basket.

12. Make sandwiches. Let them spread peanut butter or stack their favorite toppings on a sandwich.

13. Toss salads. Give your kid the official title of “salad tosser” and you’ll be assured a well-mixed salad.

14. Clear the table. Again, it can be a bit risky to put your dishes in the hands of a four-year-old, but if you coach them on how to be careful, they can become excellent at moving dishes from table to sink.

15. Wrapping things up. Let your kids wrap corn in tin foil before you put it on the grill or put leftover fruit salad into baggies after dinner is over.

Question for you: How do your kids help in the kitchen?

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I am not good at praying.

There. I said it. I’m a bit embarrassed to even throw that out there, but it’s true.

I want to be good at praying. I mean, if I really sit down and think about it, I am awestruck by the fact that God—the same God who powerfully created the entire universe and delicately knit my children together in my womb—cares to listen to small and insignificant me. But He does. It says so over and over again in the bible.

I want to pray. I know prayer is powerful. I’ll even go as far as to say that I believe it’s life changing. Yet I don’t do it nearly enough.

Why? I don’t have a good answer. My bad answer is that I am distracted. I am busy. I even have a little reminder on my phone that pops up every morning to remind me to pray and I find myself hitting “dismiss” over and over and over. I fill my time with other things. Other less important things.

But this month, I’m working on changing that. Here’s what I’m doing:

1. Journaling. I’ve always been a journaler, but this month, I’m intentionally journaling my prayers. Yep, I’m writing them down, raw, ineloquent and real.

2. Scripture. I’ve been inspired by Kathi Lipp and her upcoming book Praying God’s Word for Your Husband to use Scripture when I pray. So, I’m working to dig into God’s word as I pray for my family—allowing His truths to help me to build a relationship with God.

3. Specificity. I’m giving myself assignments. I know that really takes away from the spontaneity of crying out to God with what he lays on my heart, but like I said before, I get distracted. And when I have a mission, I tend to stay on track. So, I’ve been spending one day each week specifically praying for each of my children and an additional day praying for my husband. That doesn’t mean I don’t ONLY pray for that one child during that day, but simply that I focus on him or her through my prayers.

4. Grace. I used to get really upset if my prayer time was interrupted by a crying child or a phone call from work. I felt like if I stopped praying mid-prayer, the rhythm was broken and it was over (perfectionist, much?). But now I’m giving myself grace. If my prayer time is interrupted, that’s okay. I can always pick it up later. If I don’t get a full 30 minutes to pray in the morning, that’s okay. I can pray throughout the day.

Question for you: How are you intentional about praying?

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I’ve had one of those days.

Let’s just say that the nurse at my doctor’s office now recognizes my phone number when it comes through on the caller ID.

And that I lost my car keys and after waking all three of my kids up from much-needed naps and loading them into the car, had to cancel three much-needed doctor’s appointments.

And now I’m sitting here with exhausted, worn-out and sick kids and no car and no idea what to do.

I’m a mess. How come motherhood can be so overwhelming? I want to sit down and have a toddler-style meltdown and scream and moan about how my day has just not gone how I planned.

But God is reminded me again that I am not in control—He is. And that the little things that seem so massively frustrating today are insignificant in the whole scheme of things.

God promises us peace.

The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace. (Psalm 29:11)

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. (John 14:27)

And, today, I pray that He fills my cup.

With peace.

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Next up on my intentional conversations agenda: the car.

I tend to think of driving time as my time. I chat on my phone (I know, I know, that’s bad in and of itself), I listen to the radio, I think, I pray, I watch the road and try to ignore the whining/fighting/chatter in the backseat.

But not anymore. I’m not sure why this has never crossed my mind before, but when my kids are in the car, I have a captive audience. They are strapped in. And I am strapped in. And while I’m focused on the road, I also can use the opportunity to engage them in conversation.

I admit: It’s harder than I thought. I guess I’ve gotten so used to doing my own thing in the car that my kids have gotten in the habit of doing their own things. So, today, when I engaged my son in a conversation as we drove home from school, he kinda looked at me funny. Isn’t that terrible?! Poor little Joey was actually surprised that I was talking to him on our way home from school. Sigh.

Anyway, we actually had a good conversation—about his day and his friends and even about how he prayed that Jesus would help him to stay calm and in his seat during calendar time. It was good.

I’ve decided I’m putting my cell phone in my bag when I’m driving from now on. Not only is it dangerous, but it’s also distracting me from my ability to have intentional conversations with my kids.

Question for you: What do you do while you drive?

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Sooo, I’ve been working really hard at having intentional conversations with my kids. I’ve (mostly) made breakfast a time for conversation and not rushing. I’ve used my car time for talk time.

But here’s a confession: When my husband gets home from work, we eat dinner while talking to the kids, put the kids down, and then plop down in front of our laptops to work or in front of the TV to watch Parenthood. Not only do we not have intentional conversations, but often, we don’t have conversations at all.

We’re in a slump. We’ve gotten into a bad habit. And honestly, it’s really hard to break when we’re exhausted and worn out and it feels exhausting to have yet another intentional conversation. Anyway, since I’m in no way an expert (or even competent) at this, I took to my good friend Google to get some tips. Here’s what I found out and here’s what we’re going to work on:

1. Set aside five-to-ten minutes to talk right when your husband gets home from work. Sure, all you want to do is hand him the baby and grab yourself a hot cup of peppermint tea, but before you unwind, give yourselves a few minutes to connect and tell each other about your days.

2. Schedule one TV and laptop-free night per week. I know it sounds hard, but that’s what DVRs are for. Instead, grab yourself a glass of wine, light a fire, snuggle on the couch, and just talk.

3. Over-share. I have a tendency to under-share because I assume my husband has enough on his mind to add my thoughts and feelings on top of it. But if I don’t tell him what I’m thinking—however unimportant it seems—I’m not giving him a chance to connect with me.

4. Give yourself a break. As parents of young kids, our lives are crazy. We don’t have time—or money, energy, stamina, brainpower, wherewithal—to have crazy romantic date nights or intense, hours-long conversations. And that’s okay. Just talking about your day or what you want to do next summer is better than nothing at all.

Question for you:

How do you make sure you connect with your husband on an intentional level?

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Here’s how breakfast went at my house this morning:

“Joooey,” I screamed up the stairs and I frantically spread just peanut butter, no jelly onto crustless bread for his lunch. “Five minutes to get dressed and get down here.”

He glugged down the stairs with a sigh, throwing his T-shirt on as he walked into the kitchen and sat down at the counter. I tossed a banana at him.

He ate it. Slllllllooooooooowwwwwly. As I said “eat quickly.” Over and over. And over. Toast was tossed on his plate. And a heap of scrambled eggs. And our entire conversation was a chorus of “hurry” and “eat faster” and “finish your eggs” and . . . well, I can imagine the poor boy was stressed by the time he went to school.

And, my goal for intentional conversations in January officially failed.

So, here’s what I’m doing tomorrow.

1. I’m going to call Joey down for breakfast 10 minutes earlier so I don’t have to rush him. And, when I call him down, I’m going to be done with making his lunch, cleaning up the kitchen, etc. so I can focus on him and only him.

2. I’m going to sit down with him while he eats.

3. I’m going to have an intentional conversation with him . . . not just nag at him to eat fast. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about his feelings at going back to school after three weeks off . . . and explain to him how I feel because truthfully, I’ve really enjoyed having him home and after one day, I’ve really missed him.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

What do you talk about at the breakfast table?

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Last year, I was in survival mode.

I had a good excuse. Make that excuses. A new job. A new book. A new house. A horrendous pregnancy. A new baby. Sleepless nights. Relationship struggles.

But excuses aside, I’m now realizing that I let things slide. I let my relationships move to the back burner because I was so busy carpooling and sleep training and breastfeeding to notice. I let my parenting slide because I was too exhausted to be intentional. I let my writing slide because I was too busy to focus.

But this year, I’m going to change that.

This year, I’m going to be intentional. As a parent. As a wife. As a writer.

And with that in mind, here are my blogging resolutions for this year.

1. I resolve to be real. There are days that my life is a mess. There are days that I yell at my kids when they don’t deserve it. Days when my husband and I fight. Days when I find myself sitting on the stairs with tears streaming down my face wondering how I’m going to manage even five more minutes.

But last year, I never blogged about those times. Because for some reason I felt like I had to portray myself as put together, sane, perfect. As if the world would like me better if they thought I was the perfect mom, perfect housekeeper, perfect wife. But it’s not true. And this year, I want to be real.

2. I resolve to be intentional. I’ve decided to focus on intentionality this year—which means I’m going to intentionally focus on an intentional topic each month. Sounds intentional, right? It is! Glad you’re getting it.

One caveat: I haven’t figured out what I’m going to be intentional about each month . . . yet . . . but I promise to do so before each month begins. For January, I’m going to be intentional in my conversations with my kids. Which means instead of spending breakfast each day nagging my kids to eat quickly and finish their bananas, I’m going to engage them in conversation that (hopefully) will get them thinking, growing and learning.

3. I resolve to be a good blogging friend. I’ve been horrible about this recently (see: excuses). I rarely visit any of y’alls blogs anymore ,and that’s a horrible, sad thing. I love reading your thoughts, goals and stories—and I relish the camaraderie I have with other bloggers.

So, no more slacker blogger anymore! This year, I’m going to be out there . . . and I’m going to be reading and commenting on what you have to say.

That’s it.

What are your blogging resolutions this year?

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