Because of God's ingenious design here we are today...
a young family of four, living in a small Midwest town outside a big city,
figuring out one day at a time (to be honest...lots of times it's more a moment to moment thing), playing, laughing at ourselves and each other, realizing everyday how much we need each other's forgiveness, love, encouragement and grace all while serving and
devoting our lives to God and each other.
We are the Eccleston Family
Griffin . Ryan . Abbi . Sawyer
Here is our story....
Well, these two kids met in 2001 at the University of Nebraska where they went to college. It was the typical boy meets girl and they go on a date. Girl decides they should just be friends but boy will not accept that and persists. Girl gives in and can't believe she ever thought otherwise. They date, they spend every waking minute with each other, they break up and get back together, they study and stay up late and play intramurals,
(Bikers & Babes A Phi Party 2004)
and go to parties in ridiculous attire their way through college. They grow up and grow together and so they do what any sensible yet naive crazy in love college graduates do....marry each other as soon as it's time to throw their caps and leave their old stomping grounds.
And so May 21, 2005 we became Mr. & Mrs.
We moved to Omaha bought our first dog & first house, started and left our first jobs (Ry worked for First National Bank of Omaha & I taught 2nd Grade in Ashland, NE), and just when we settled in to the sweet spot of "newly wedded bliss" God sent us one of those surprises that takes your breath away, because it was so ridiculously beautiful in the story of our life and because when the stick turned pink, it literally took our breath away (haha)...and some short months later we were a family of three...
(June 1st, 2007 my first look at Griffin Andrew Eccleston after a C-Section, I call this love at first sight)
and thus, our life is changed forever. Because of him our life took a radical turn from late nights out to up all night in...from long uncharted days with just each other to days filled gazing down at the 10 tiny fingers and 10 tiny toes that is part me & part him and again young and naive, we dove into parenthood.
This fresh faced little firework is the 3 year old who has given us the crash coarse on our biggest roles yet, Mom & Dad. When we say he is either on or off we literally mean he is either sleeping or on the move, sitting still is never an option. He loves Cars and all things Lighting McQueen, he lives to be outside or doing some "hip hop" when he hears the right tune, and is a boy after his momma's heart with his love for chocolate.
When he was 6 months old we left sweet Omaha and found a new place to rest our feet...and the rest of our worldly possessions. We call here HOME SWEET HOME, although our hearts do hold a few other spots still worthy of this title as well. We lived a lot of life since being here and God has asked us to do a lot more growing and we have met some great friends and found an inspiring church to belong to...and decided it was time to add some more spice to our life, so......
on July 10th, 2010 Sawyer Richard Eccleston, or to us Beanie, made his way into our arms and secured his spot in our hearts. THRILLED to have 2 healthy boys cannot begin to describe how we feel.
He came out a perfect red head, and is adored by the 3 of us equally.
Here is our fist pic as a family of 4, Sawyer is 4 days old.
and even though he is small, he already mighty. His smile and giggle light up our house and with him being on the verge of crawling we know the action around here is only bound to get more and more crazy. And just like that we have brothers.
And this is where God has brought us to date. We are blessed and humbled and thankful for the journey that we are are on, it has been an adventure to say the least. He has been faithful to us at each turn. This life that we share is full of beautiful laughter and noise that that fills our hearts with more joy and sorrow and reasons to feel alive than we could have ever dreamed for ourselves. The chance to document even a glimpse of it so we can look back and thank the Lord who receives credit for all of it, is why were writing...and so that the boys can see a peek into life "way back when" someday...and so that we can stay caught up with all the people we love.
Welcome to our family.
Thanks for being part of our story.
