The Crafts

 Several sports wrapped up recently for the Craft girls. Kate has two friends running in the state cross country meet on Friday. Claudia finished volleyball a week ago and has already started middle school basketball. While Natalie and Maddie played their final soccer games of the fall season this past Saturday. Beyond sports (which is a pretty regular conversation topic in this house) here are some pics of other recent events... Leading up to homecoming this year, the Union Cross Country team raised almost $12,000 for University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital to benefit pediatric brain cancer research. Each year the cross country team runs the football from Dysart to the high school in La Porte for the start of the homecoming football game. Kate was selected to run the football around the track and into the hands of the evening's referee.  We visited Hanson's Halloween on a gorgeous fall day to find a few pumpkins and gourds. We even met up with Grandma Craft, Be...

Life gives each of us plenty of opportunities to look inward. Many of these situations lead us to make one of two choices; keep trying or give up. Kate spent years working on her basketball skill set. She played travel basketball, saw a personal trainer, worked out with her various basketball teams... Kate would eat, sleep, dream basketball. She has handmade drawings of her favorite NBA player on her bedroom wall. She carries a Houston Rockets backpack and named her cat after the Rockets. All of her time, energy, work, focus was aimed at starting her high school basketball career. Excitement doesn't begin to describe her feelings about playing high school ball. So a month after 8th grade when her health trauma began, her hopes and dreams ended.  We talk about miracles in our house. What is a miracle. We read about miracles in the Bible but maybe not all miracles are quite so noticeable as a leper being instantly cured. Maybe we are living a miracle right now. Kate was very close to...

These photos are completely random. I just didn't want to take the time to load new pics. I will get to that eventually. Kate is doing well right now after finishing spine radiation this summer and is enjoying being a manager/team member of the high school cross country team. Claudia wrapped up her first year of middle school volleyball where she played on the red team a.k.a. the "A" team. Natalie and Maddie have two more games of soccer to wrap up the fall season.  The leaves and walnuts are dropping like crazy. We have our annual church pork chop supper tonight. The girls' favorite part is the dessert, of course. We are volunteering to package and serve meals, and some are excited to help out - some more than others.  Basketball season is about to begin. And not unlike volunteering at the pork chop supper, some girls are more excited than others for that. I will let your mind wander here. At Kate's insistence (read serious begging) we caved and got a second cat....

The entire state of Iowa is waiting for the weather to turn the page on cold, windy, and grey. I am particularly excited for all things summer including hot sun, zinnias, flip flops, swimming, coconut beverages, and ice cream. We are also planning for a spring family photo session. Below is one of our fall family photos. I need to start outfit planning for fall and hope that we will have some green outside to go with the spring vibes we are aching for.  In early April, Matt and the Union Knights youth girls basketball team hosted a camp with former Iowa State Cyclone and WNBA player, Chelsea Poppens, and current Iowa State Cyclone, Ashley Joens. The girls LOVED meeting ISU celebrities.  Also in early April we celebrated Maddie turning SEVEN! Crazy how the baby of the family (minus Nacho, of course) can be this old. Maddie is an absolute firecracker who loves socializing, having fun with friends, and generally expending energy at all moments of her day. We were fortunate enough...

 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 whatev...

This weekend we said farewell to spring with the last soccer games for the older three girls. Kate is done with soccer for good unless she decides to play in high school. And Maddie will start soccer this falls. CJ and Natalie have many more years of soccer ahead of them - if they so choose. We never force them to sign-up; it's always been their own decision. They have always gravitated toward soccer whereas Matt and I never played a day in our life. To welcome in summer we set up the backyard pool. The water temperature is the same as the hose so you find me in the pool for awhile but eventually... Maddie was so excited she sat in the pool with her clothes on. That's better. Swimming in a bathing suit > clothes.