This is not a recent picture of my family, but it is one that I love.  The expressions on my boys' faces matches their personalities perfectly.  As the typical first-born, Drew is definitely the "pleaser."  In most all situations, he does what is expected of him.  Josh's mischievous smile makes you think he knows something you don't and he probably does.  Luke grinning and happily sitting close to his dad shows the loving and affectionate kid he is.

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     The challenge every parent faces is raising children who each are very different.  In the beginning, I truly believed having all boys might be a little crazy at times, but surely not that difficult. After all they each came from the same two people. I changed my way of thinking about a six months after Josh was born.

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     It is 2020, my boys are much older than this picture.  Drew is 27 and married to Katie and they have their first son.  Josh is 24 and married to Courtney.  Our youngest, Luke is 19.  Living in an all male house goes from one end of the chaos spectrum to the other.  One minute there is craziness and the next minute there is more craziness. There is no calm in a boy house, but it is the best kind of craziness in my opinion.  The "gardner gene" as we call it, runs deep.  Scott's father, Don was an only child.  Scott's parents had two sons and as you already know, Scott and I have three sons.  When my new daughters asked if they would only have boys, I told them smiling "more than likely." Katie and Drew now have their first son, Micah Evers Gardner.

 

     Thinking about our Katie raising Micah and my three very different sons has inspired me to write. All the good stuff, the bad stuff, the hard stuff, and crazy stuff that comes with seasons with sons.  This is a place for words of hope and encouragement as you raise your sons.  Scott and I were not perfect parents but we did lean on the Perfect One.  Sometimes we got it right and sometimes we were very wrong. This is a place where I plan to write about all that is "BOY."