Amazement Never Ceases

So this week we are on Fall Break, and I am doing our seasonal wardrobe swap. (And yes, this will take a full week for 7 people!) 

Incase you are not familiar with how this works for a large family, let me explain a little so it will make more sense. We save all the clothes our kids grow out of and hand them down to their same-sex siblings when they grow into them. I have finally mastered a systematic means of storing these clothes that makes for an easier swap. At the beginning of Fall (or Spring), each person's current wardrobe goes into storage. Kids get labeled by size and season and get moved to the basement closet while my husband's and mine are stored in separate bins in our closet. This keeps it simple and keeps clothes from getting all mixed up. Then I grab the appropriate size clothes box/bag from the basement and load up the drawers and closets. It works best to do one person per day. I make a list of any missing items (socks, shoes, outfits, or whatever) so I can go shopping the upcoming weekend and complete these Fall wardrobes.

I also use this time to pull out items that need to be donated or trashed so we don't hang in to things we don't "love".  I call each child down to the basement on their day to try on clothes and shoes. This has worked well for us the past 2 years (when I finally got organized!) and the only person we have to buy a whole lot for is Kolbe since he's the oldest and gets the fewest hand-me-downs. He only has one cousin older than him.  Marija never goes wanting because #1) girls hand-down way more clothes simply because they are girls and #2) two different families hand their girl's clothes down to her. 

Well, we have never had a problem with this until today. I decided to switch out Theresa's clothes first and made an astonishing discovery.  We have absolutely no 2T Fall/Winter clothes in the basement!! How could this be?!  Was Marija not 2 years old during the Winter at some point?!! And then it hit me.  No, she wasn't.  Well, not exactly.  Of course her age was 2, but she never wore size 2T in the winter because she had a huge growth spurt that summer and went straight from 2T Summer clothes to 3T Winter clothes.  Since then, she has generally been a size above her age number until this year (age 6), but even now we are pulling out the 7's for Winter. Thus, the reality that we own not one single Fall/Winter appropriate outfit for a 2T sized girl.  

Luckily, Theresa also fits in the 3T Winter clothes since she is actually 2 1/2 and has grown a lot this summer.  The real issue will come when Livvy turns 2 three days before the end of July and needs Fall/Winter clothes.  I figured we'd just cross that bridge when we get there and sadly shrugged it out of my thoughts for a while.  

Then, I came upstairs and realized something!  Our neighbor brought over 2 huge bags of 2T Fall/Winter clothes before Livvy was born that I haven't gone through yet!!  God provides what we need before we even know we need it sometimes.  I think that is pretty cool: )

God never ceases to amaze me in how he takes care of us! 

Matthew 6:25-34:

²⁵“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ ³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today."

I've been striving to live by this Scripture for many years.  It makes me smile when I see concrete examples of this promise our Savior gave us: )