fall, wonderful fall

when i hung out with my friends emma and jamie (in an airport) (after not seeing emma for 2 and jamie for 3 years), jamie said i should update my blog. she also said "oh my gosh, you have kids!" which was amazing. :) so, here's a little update..

the end of the summer brought unexpected travel -- we were saddened to lose my dad's mother and jeremy's uncle in august. indeed the Lord showed us a silver lining in experiencing these sad deaths in getting to have time with our families that we wouldn't have had otherwise, and so we are thankful for that! here are some pictures from our flight home from steamboat springs, where jeremy's uncle lived. joseph was so excited for the airplane, sorry, "JETplane, mama" trip. he fell asleep on the last flight home, but on the other three flights we took, he shared his (extensive) knowledge of airplane travel the entire flight. in between checking to make sure i had my seatbelt fastened.

we returned to louisville to discover that it's september, which means fall, wonderful fall. in the linneman family, we fancy fall. we are welcoming fall with corduroys, pumpkin cornbread, and second cups of hot coffee. and flannel shirts. like on this handsome :

we celebrate jude's first birthday in a week and a half. i know. one year. how did that happen? i'm not sure. these days jude is saying "oh, cool..," stacking blocks, pointing at his friends in brown bear brown bear, what do you see, and (almost) walking! we're convinced if he could forget he was walking, he would. for now, he drops to his knees immediately upon seeing our excited faces. we're planning a "things that growl" birthday party for him, as one of his favorite things is telling us how a dinosaur, lion, dog, (cat, cow, horse, etc.) growls. :)

jude's birthday party may be slightly delayed due to another major development -- moving! yep. :) the Lord gave us the house we've been looking for at a price lower than we've been hoping for with the down payment assistance we've been praying for. and then in what our realtor described as a one in a million turn of events, the man selling us his house committed suicide. it is a horrible tragedy. it's been so weird and so heavy on our hearts that we don't actually know this man but we feel this loss. it's had some time to settle and now it seems that strangely, we can see the Lord's hand in even that part of this buying a house story. we want to love our neighbors and i can't help but think about how knowing about this tragedy will help us to do that. there are huge trees in the front and back yard and a front porch to watch cars drive by and an attic bedroom for joseph until jude's big enough to share it with him. i think it will be good. we're really excited about our new home, and it's heavy at the same time.

more pictures to come after we are moved in, but for now, here's one of our beautiful trees.

i've read this over and over the past couple of weeks, so i wanted to share it:

"every new duty calls for more grace than i now possess,
but not more than is found in thee,
the divine Treasury in whom all fullness dwells.
to thee i repair for grace upon grace,
until every void made by sin be replenished
and i am filled with all thy fullness.
may my desires be enlarged and my hopes emboldened,
that i may honour thee by my entire dependency
and the greatness of my expectation." (grace active, valley of vision)

i just love it because at first it feels discouraging, like wait, the duties call for more grace than i have, but then not more than is in the Lord. and i want my desires to be enlarged and my hopes emboldened. lately i've been seeing how small my desires can be, like spending a whole day desiring a clean home and folded laundry and not even venturing into imagining a life bursting with friendships and shared life.

i'm off to pretend i understand football with my sweet, who just said, "the highlight of my day.. was my socks. because they're fall socks." see? we love fall. :)