A Thousand Gifts

Just before Asher was born, I decided I was going to try to read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. That idea came and went because Asher was born the next day so I have been reading bit by bit as I find a little time here and there! The major point I have taken from the read so far is to be thankful for the little things in your life each day.


I have decided to start my own list of a thousand gifts God has given me. Each week, I am going to attempt to post a few of the most memorable ones for me. Although this is a challenging time in my life to find the time to sit and think about these things, I think that it's even more important to cherish the little moments of beauty.

1. Morning sun peeking through the bedroom window
2. Taking the time to live fully in a moment
3. Levi's excited squeal "Daddy's home!"
4. Little hugs on an elevator
5. My Bible and morning coffee
6. Our parents prioritizing spending time with us and their grandchildren
7. My husband's call to check on my after a long sleepless night.
8. Peaceful morning walks with my boys.
9. Snuggling with Asher
10. Meals from gracious friends

Graduation Day

Happy Graduation!

Today was a wonderful day of memories but also a little sad. I had a graduation party for the boys today. My daycare closes next Friday. It has been wonderful to have the same little guys the whole time. I have loved watching them grow up and it is so hard for me to imagine not seeing their little smiles everyday. What a time I will cherish! My hope is that we can keep their little friendships strong by getting together for play dates!!



We started our party with a little awards ceremony.

Rowen was awarded for having the largest
vocabulary and the most inventive playing ideas

Elias was awarded for having the best
smile and ability to make everyone
laugh with him.

Levi was awarded for having a never
ending energy supply and the ability
to maintain extreme focus.

Chase was awarded for having the best
belly laugh and sweetest "bye-bye"

After awards, they opened their graduation presents.

Levi's zebra backpack

Elias's penguin backpack

Chase's frog backpack

Rowen's dog backpack

And we had to finish the party off with some artwork. We made little handprint shirts.

Words cannot express how greatful I am that I have gotten to know each of these little guys and their families so well. As we go into the next chapter of life becoming a family of four and myself being a stay at home mommy, I will take all that I have learned from these little guys for sure!

Showered with Love

This past Saturday my sister and mom put on a wonderful Diapers and Dinos Brunch to celebrate my second baby boy, Asher Thomas DeJong. His due date is August 30th and I sure am getting excited as our preparations are becoming complete!

Matt and I just decided on his name as of last week. We had this name in mind for a while but were thinking about all our options first! I love the name Asher because it's not a name you hear everyday and it means happy blessing, which he most certainly is!

Here are some pictures from the shower.

My mom sewed these adorable dino pennants for people to write notes to Asher. They will all be threaded onto a white rope and hung in the boys dinosaur room.

Dinosaur decorations :)



Little dinosaur feet leading to Beka's door

Baby carriage fruit salad

One of the games...pin the baby on mommy. Too funny!

I want to say a big THANK YOU to my sister and mom for all their hardwork and love that went into making the dinos and diapers brunch fantastic. Love to you both. And, thank you to all who came and celebrated with us!

Mystery Christmas Angel

I will preface this little story with a little recap of my day up to this point. Matt, Levi and I all got sick over the holiday weekend and decided to stay home from church on Sunday and watch our service on live stream. As I listened to the service I was struck by how I was being reminded that I am ultimately not the one in control of my life. I can say this MUCH more easily than I live it. I am a planner, I make lists, I check things off and then I make new lists. I have a today plan, a tomorrow plan and a 5 year plan. It really is a little bit ridiculous!! I took some time in the morning to reflect and think about how to make life changes so to speak to show God that I know he is in control of my life.

Not 6 hours later Matt and I are rushing through Walmart trying to get a little artificial Christmas tree and I revert back to listing off what we needed to when we got home and "being the boss" all over again. Levi was throwing quite a fit the whole time we were at Walmart because he had to have this giant candy cane we passed at the beginning of the store. Matt and I were a little bit distracted because of his screaming, etc. Matt told me he would pay and I should just take Levi out to the car.

After everything was in the car we drove home and I continued to think about everything I "needed" to do before the Monday morning came. We pulled in the driveway and went through our routine of Matt emptying the car and me getting Levi unbuckled and grabbing the diaper bag. Well...to my surprise there was no diaper bag.

My blood pressure immediately sky rocketted. I use the diaper bag like it's my purse. It had my car and house keys, my wallet, and obviously all of Levi's stuff for when we are on the go. Matt and I started rushing around calling and putting a hold on our credit cards and trying to figure out what to do.

Matt went back to Walmart to check the parking lot, the carts, and then scouring the aisles to find our "thief". Even though I was rushing around panicking somehow God's calm and quiet presence asked me "Do you think I am big enough to fix this? Do you believe that I am the God of your life? The big things? The little things?" My initial response was to push those thoughts out and say this isn't something God would really care about. It's not life or death. And then I stopped myself and just fell on my knees in our living room. I said God, I can see this is your wake up call to me. A little diaper bag can completely stop me in my tracks. I need you. Our family needs your protection and hand over us.

Now you hear these stories and think, oh that's cute but I am sure it didn't really happen that way. I can assure you it did for me. As I was still on my knees, my doorbell rang. I peeked out and saw a man holding my diaper bag. I was a little nervous thinking about what he was doing at my door but I called Matt quickly and just held onto my phone as I answered the door.

My Christmas Angel stood at the door speaking very broken English. He said "Are you Alexandra Dehong? I said yes and you brought my diaper bag to me. Thank you so much. He responded with these simple words "God bless you." Then he just turned and walked away. I wish I could repay him in some way. Not so much for the "things" in my bag but the undeniable gift from God he gave me. I am sitting in a new light today. I am reminded of the awesome power and grace my God has over my life.

Thank you God for sending my my mystery Christmas angel.

The Teacher in Me

First I would like to welcome myself back to the blogging world. It sure has been a while. Life was and is busy but I want to get back into blogging again. I always enjoy reading everyone else's story so I figure I should write again for anyone that is interested in my life :)

The past few months have had many life changes. I am so blessed to be able to stay home with Levi by opening my home up as a daycare back in January. It has been such a wonderful experience to be with Levi and the other babies in my home and I love it!

I am starting to find ways to bring let the teacher out again. Each month I am starting to pick a theme. This month is family. We made family photo albums and have been practicting everyone's names. Today we finger painted a giant tree that will hang in the playroom for our "daycare family tree". This weekend we will have a daycare family bbq and I hope to take pictures of everyone's family to hang on our tree.

Last month our theme was animals. The babies were all exposed to many animal words and the sounds they make. The youngest baby is 8 months old and the oldest is just about 20 months. (Levi is second oldest at 17 months) So they are young and I always feel quite accomplished after getting an art project accomplished...it's a BIG moment for me everytime :) It's funny because I recently went to a workshop where I was told at this age art is "all about the process, not the product!) but I usually have one they can go wild on and then we have our "teacher led" version to hang or go home!

It's been so much more of a challenge than I thought it would be to go from teaching to home. I have to remind myself in the moments of scrambling to get lunch ready, feed them all, and clean it up that I am still a teacher. I teach them about life and even though I don't have state standards to measure up to anymore, I hope the standards I set for myself and the kids are still "measuring up".

It's a boy!

We found out yesterday that we are having a little baby boy! He is growing as he should be and was moving quite a bit during the ultrasound. So much that Matt was amazed I couldn't feel him yet. The ultrasouns tech told us that usually they have to be about a pound before you can actually feel their movements which is around 20 - 22 weeks. That's only 2 weeks away, I think that will be an exciting experience to feel the baby move for the first time. We have decided on his name. It is Levi which means "united". We are still working on the middle name at this point. I wouldn't want to just post pictures of us without highlighting little Levi since this is all about him. Here they are.

All the New Beginnings

I am now about a month into the fourth year of my teaching career. My classes are really large this year with at least 30 kids in each class. I teach four classes of 6th grade science. This year is going really well in our beautiful new building and my huge science lab classroom. It feels bigger than some of my college science lab classes! My little sixth graders are finally adjusting to using lockers and getting to class on time. They are adorable...I love them:)

Matt just got back from a trip to New York for business. He has been working hard and still enjoying Pepsi very much. He is starting to look into the process of starting grad school next fall. While he has been busy with this, I have started the giant process of working on my national board certification.

My sister moved down to NC again and I am SO excited. We have been spending some good quality time together. We are sad that her husband, Bart, already had to leave for military training though. We will be excited when he returns again.

Today we (Matt, Beka, and I) went to a church called Vintage 21. We went to a concert there a while ago with our good friends the Bennetts but now returned for our first Sunday. We really liked it and are going to continue. We have missed having a close church family and it feels like there are so many ways to get involved and connected there.

The most exciting new beginning for us is that we are ecstatic to say that we are expecting a baby, due March 26th. I am now in my 13th week, nearing the end of the first trimester. We are hoping that the symptoms of the first trimester soon too shall pass. I have been able to work through it until this week, I had to cave and get some prescription anti-nausea medicine this week. It seems to help a little bit but it wasn't the magical pill I was expecting it to be...haha. All of this is overlooked when I think about all the joy to come with our little one. We plan on finding out whether we are having a boy or girl and will post it as we find out. I know I can hardly wait to find out :)