Ben and I have been talking a lot in recent weeks about this season of our life. Out of diapers, no more nap schedules, and everyone (almost everyone) can wipe their own butts. It’s a great season, not better than those baby years, but just a different season. We’ve had the up and onward mentality and look forward to what comes next in these tween/teen years. I’ve started mentally making plans of going back to school to get my masters and joining the corporate workforce once Glow goes off to college, or envisioning what I’d love Wovenfolk to eventually become. I go back and forth between wanting to pursue something creative or joining the regular 9-5ers. I think I’d be happy with either, though Ben thinks I’d only be happy with a creative job. We’re also not in a rush for the next thing and trying our best to savor the here and now.

As much as we make plans, we don’t know exactly what the future holds either. All Ben and I can do with our plans is hold them with open hands. We’ve never felt that open hand faith as much as we do now in this season of life. Sometimes, when you think you have it all planned out, life (God) throws curve balls too. And though difficult at first, those curve balls end up making sense later (and we’re all the better because of them). When I look at Ben, I still see that young couple that fell in love working at the GAP, and I can’t believe how far we’ve come. We aren’t those same people, we’ve grown so much and it’s overflowed into 4 little ones. At 20 and 27, we were so blindly in love. After 16 years together, there’s a lot we’ve weathered and seen, and we still have yet to weather and see. At 36 and 43, we’re seasoned, but still new, and our love is far from blind. We’ve seen the ugly sins of both our hearts, but we both still choose to do this together. Together is how we will continue as we commit to God any plans we have, but still stay open to plot twists God may give.

These pictures of from my brother’s wedding day this past Sunday. I love seeing this picture of the girls and imagining one day they’ll be dressed up to support each other in their own weddings. They’re such (sometimes stubborn) sweethearts and I love them so much.

what i’m wearing: dress & shoes, vintage. on true and brave: eyelet dress, target. similar shoes, target. soul and glow: eyelet dress, old navy. shoes, old navy. I added a satin ribbon on each dress to dress it up a little. 

Growing up, my parents had an open door policy (they still do). We always had people at our house and people staying with us. My mom is the epitome of hospitality and serving others in her home is her love language. I loved it growing up because our home was the hang out place. I had friends over all the time and they would stay until the early hours of the morning hanging out. Not only that, my mom’s cooking is the best, so not only did everyone have a place to hang out, but she made sure everyone was fed. All the while, being a working mother (she’s a nurse), she definitely has multi-tasking down. And sometimes, when my friends had problems, my parents were their listening ears too. It’s something Ben and I have admired about my parents, but have never been able to adopt ourselves.

Part of it is that Ben and I are much more introverted than my parents. We are also much more routine. My parents are spontaneous people and rules and schedules confine them, whereas I can’t thrive without a plan or schedule. Also, it’s typically a cultural thing for Filipinos to be so open and community minded, and this is where we have a bit of culture clash.

I was at a party the other day, with my parents and friends, and one friend told my mom, “Auntie Lolet, anytime you want to invite me over, I’m free.”

My mom replied, “You know we have an open door policy, just come over.”

Laughing, my friend said, “What happened to Ruby? She didn’t get that.”

Lovingly, my mom responded, “She’s getting there.”

And it’s true. I’m slowly getting there. It looks a little different from how my parents practiced it, but Ben and I are getting there. About a year ago, Ben and I shared the load with some others in our church family and we rotated hosting a family of 4, who did not have a home, in our homes for a couple months. In the fall, my parents came to live with us a several weeks while their house was getting remodeled. Then, this past winter, we were so encouraged by another family that took in an elderly gentleman battling cancer, who we used to go to church with, and had him over for a couple weekends. Most recently, we took in a friend of a friend, who was struggling with some things, and they’re currently living with us. You might not be able to pop in our home and hang out until the wee hours, but God’s been slowly breaking down our walls and teaching us how to love others with what He’s given us (and ultimately all of what we have belongs to Him). We certainly can be generous because God’s been generous with us.

I share this not to boast (far from it), but to encourage that if you hospitality is an area you want to grow in (but are scared or don’t know what to do), don’t lose hope! Keep being open to what it really means to love others and let God do the work in your heart. I still wish I had my mom’s natural giftedness in this area, but I’m thankful that God keeps molding and growing me and Ben. I love this article “Would You Let a Stranger Live With You?” and its call to live out our faith with Christ as our prize.

Did you grow up with an open door policy? Do you have one now?

Parenting tweens means preparing them for all the body and skin changes. We’ve started noticing these changes for a couple years now, so we’ve been working on helping the girls develop good habits on how to care for themselves. We got the deodorant and hair washing thing down, and now we’ve been working on the skincare aspect. That’s where C’est Moi Beauty comes in. C’est Moi Beauty (pronounced, “say-mwah” – French for “It’s Me”) is specifically designed for young delicate skin types and made for tweens and teens ages 8 – 16 yrs. They’re all about cleaner, healthier and safer choices for their skin (and all their packaging is recyclable and sustainable!) , and since I’ve made the switch to clean product for my face, I’m glad my girls can do the same too.

Growing up, I had very dry skin, and Ben, had very oily skin. We both can see our skin types in True and Brave (True’s like Ben, while Brave is like me), and we’re both glad we can help prepare them on how to care for their own skin. We showed them how to wash their face with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Foaming Cleansing Gel (took them a bit of time to get the groove of gently massaging a small amount of gel in a circular motion). Also, when we need something quick, for when we’re on the go, the C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Cleansing wipes work wonderfully. After, they moisturized with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Moisture Lotion, and of course, they topped it off with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Mineral Sunscreen Lotion. I’ve always been big on sunscreen and started wearing it daily since the 6th grade, so of course, I’m making sure my girls protect their skin and do the same. Face wash (or wipe), moisturizing lotion, then sunscreen are the essential basics in good skincare for me since I was 10, so I’m hoping to pass it on to them too. I certainly value knowing exactly what I’m putting on and where it comes from, and all C’est Moi Beauty is made with natural and organic ingredients and made in the USA or Europe. Woot!

The girls aren’t big makeup wearers yet, but C’est Moi Beauty has that area covered too. The only time the girls wear makeup are for theater performances when they need a little color on their face while on stage, so we’ve been using the C’est Moi Beauty lip gloss and cheek palette to subtly enhance their color for those occasions. I’m glad there are gentle products that are made for their delicate skin. Their lip gloss and makeup offer healthy alternatives for those wanting to have fun expressing themselves with makeup, and I admit to using some of their lip crayons on myself (they’re so nice and creamy). All this tween stuff is new to us (read my post here). There’s so many areas that we are learning to navigate and skin care happens to be one of them. Skincare is important to me as I get older and I want them to learn the importance of taking care of their skin too. To get your hands on some C’est Moi Beauty products for your tween/teens, head to Target or C’est Moi.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of C’est Moi. The opinions and text are all mine.

Parenting tweens means preparing them for all the body and skin changes. We’ve started noticing these changes for a couple years now, so we’ve been working on helping the girls develop good habits on how to care for themselves. We got the deodorant and hair washing thing down, and now we’ve been working on the skincare aspect. That’s where C’est Moi Beauty comes in. C’est Moi Beauty (pronounced, “say-mwah” – French for “It’s Me”) is specifically designed for young delicate skin types and made for tweens and teens ages 8 – 16 yrs. They’re all about cleaner, healthier and safer choices for their skin, and since I’ve made the switch to clean products for my face, I’m glad my girls can do the same too.

Growing up, I had very dry skin, and Ben, had very oily skin. We both can see our skin types in True and Brave (True’s like Ben, while Brave is like me), and we’re both glad we can help prepare them on how to care for their own skin. We showed them how to wash their face with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Foaming Cleansing Gel (took them a bit of time to get the groove of gently massaging a small amount of gel in a circular motion). Then, they moisturized with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Moisture Lotion, and of course, they topped it off with C’est Moi Beauty Gentle Mineral Sunscreen Lotion. I’ve always been big on sunscreen and started wearing it daily since the 6th grade, so of course, I’m making sure my girls protect their skin and do the same. Face wash (or wipe), moisturizing lotion, then sunscreen are the essential basics in good skincare for me since I was 10, so I’m hoping to pass it on to them too.

The girls aren’t big makeup wearers yet, but C’est Moi Beauty has that area covered too. The only time the girls wear makeup are for theater performances when they need a little color on their face while on stage, so we’ve been using the C’est Moi Beauty lip gloss and cheek palette to subtly enhance their color for those occasions. I’m glad there are gentle products that are made for their delicate skin. All this tween stuff is new to us (read my post here). There’s so many areas that we are learning to navigate and skin care happens to be one of them. Skincare is important to me as I get older and I want them to learn the importance of taking care of their skin too.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of C’est Moi. The opinions and text are all mine. I appreciate the time you spend in this space, the support you give me, and the brands I partner with.

I’m an introvert, but an extroverted introvert. Ben, on the other hand, is an introverted introvert. Over the years, we’ve learned how to come out of introverted-ness to love others. We know we need people in our lives… speaking truth, sharing burdens, serving others, confessing struggles, so you can’t really do that in isolation. I help pull Ben over to being an extroverted introvert sometimes, and if you met us in person, you’d for sure be surprised that we are introverts, especially me. We love people and are thankful for the community of people in our lives, but after spending time with people, we need to recharge by ourselves. It’s funny how that works. We also find our extroverted friends curious because they draw energy from being with people, and that’s just something we can’t relate to.

We’re also thankful we’re the same, so we don’t really have that tension of being opposites. I can imagine it would be a struggle to have those two opposites in a relationship, and while I’m sure it works, I’m sure there’s some squabbles that come along with it. We have our own squabbles too, but it doesn’t relate to being opposites. Our fights usually come up in our culture clashes, but that’s another post for another day.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert? As far as we can tell, we have 4 little introverts on our hands. I wonder if that will change with time.

I’m thankful for this family of mine. We’ve been weathering a lot lately, and learning to go with the plot twists that God’s been throwing at us (and more that are sure to come). The girls have been so gracious with some of recent changes going on in our home, and with all the busyness of the past few weeks too. I think we’ve all been going 100 mph, but I’m hoping we get to slow it down a bit this coming week.

These are our photo booth pictures from our family day to the Date Festival a few weeks ago. I love that we can still all squeeze into the booth (and will keep doing so for as long as we can), and I especially love the second photo on the strip of Ben and me. If I could, I would gladly give him googly eyes all day long, so I think that photo captures how much I’m still enamored by him. Believe it or not, almost every day I make him retell me the story of how we met (or I’m the one that does the retelling). I really love being married to that guy. Marriage and family life is definitely full of happy chaos, and we happen to be a pretty thick season right now, but there’s so much grace. We are very thankful for the abundance of grace that God has lavished on us, despite how undeserving we are.

This week our world sort of shook; our lives turned upside down. Ben and I are fine, the girls are okay, and we are all still enjoying our (temporary) good health, but I’ll have to do a bit of vague blogging about this because it’s a part of our lives that will continue to unfold and only time will tell how it all ends up (so please excuse me for now). I share though because I realize in the 11 years I’ve been writing this blog, I’m sure many of you have had your world rocked in big ways too. Blogs are fun, frivolous places, but I know the people reading have real stories and go through deep pains, and right now it’s our season to ride this storm.

While my heart has been so heavy, God’s truth has been so sweet. This particular hymn has been in my heart all week…

“His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.”

God always has a purpose and I know it’s always for our good.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I hope these things encourage you too, as it does for me because it really shines light in our current situation. It refocuses me to be kingdom-minded. Jesus died for me, so I no longer have to be a slave to trusting myself, but I can trust God and His word. And if you’re going through something dark too, I’m praying you do the same.