The Crafts

 Long ago when I posted more often, I'd regularly title my posts "ordinary days." There is a lot of overlooked joy in an ordinary day and intentionally looking for those moments in repeat days of child rearing and food prep allowed me to feel fulfilled. During my hiatus from blogging our family has experienced a lot with an unfortunate amount of "bad" in those experiences... bad experiences but also some good. And now because of the last 10 months of difficulty, I feel that ordinary days are more than overlooked joy. Ordinary days are an absolute gift from the heavens. And I'm here for it. Give me all of the most ordinary days imaginable.   All aboard the hug train! I was lucky enough to take a couple of the girls to Florida in early April. Kate, Natalie, my parents, and I flew down for six great days of sun and fun. While I hated leaving the other three Crafts behind, it was an amazing trip away. I shall now begin plans to take CJ and Maddie south - it only

One month after my last blog post nearly everything in our lives changed. Our family was living a normal life filled with normal busyness. We had normal family disagreements over kids not eating supper, or which parent was driving which kid to which activity. A couple of weeks before we stopped being normal Matt and I sat together talking about what a great life we have with our four amazing daughters who challenge us but are smart, successful, driven - all of those seemingly important key words...they met them all. And they still do but now with a heavy layer of heartache and uncertainty and disbelief.  In the late afternoon of June 27, 2021 our 14-year old, Kate, had a raging headache and experienced some blurred vision during a basketball scrimmage. She had been napping more often and complaining of occasional headaches and back muscle tightness. We had a doctor appointment scheduled for June 28th but plans changed. We debated sending Kate to bed really early to sleep off whatever h