I had a Christmas card all picked out and waiting for order in an online shopping cart. Our family of three, cracking up and being super silly at Disneyland last summer. I don’t know what kept me from pulling the trigger, but I didn’t order it.

And now that card doesn’t feel fitting.

Our family looks a little different today than it did three weeks and two days ago. We are still the Tredway Three in legal terms. We are still the Tredway Three in history and in permanency. But something else is going on that makes it, well, odd to send out a card with the three of us featured. We are the Tredway Five right now.

There are five seat belts in our car that get used every time we venture out as a family. Thank goodness for the larger sized sedan we purchased last July—we can just barely fit two carseats and a 9 year old in the back seat. There are five place settings at the table every time we eat a meal. Three normal size forks and two preschool-sized ones. Three Fiestaware plates and two Spiderman bowls. There are potty seats haphazardly tossed next to two toilets in the house. Boxes of diapers trip me as I walk into my office and piles of boy pajamas sit in the previously all-girl-all-the-time bathroom upstairs. Our house is again filled with blocks and board books, little puzzles and farm sets. An often grabbed-for Febreze has a twin upstairs in our vain attempts to mask the odors that come alongside diapered toddlers, and we’re still getting the rhythm of what goes in the indoor garbage can versus the outdoor garbage can.

Two precious faces have been entrusted to our care. For how long, we do not know.

Jeremy and I are Mommy and Daddy to two extra little people who already have a Mommy and Daddy. We drive home each evening to pronouncements of, “Here we are! We’re home!” and we say, “Yes! We’re home!” Because what else is this place if not home? Here you are safe, we say. You are fed, bathed, hugged, snuggled, disciplined, sung over, prayed over and loved in a million different ways. For however long you are here, this is your home.

So you see my predicament in blithely mailing out a Christmas card with three goofy (or Goofy) Tredways on the front. We are still those people, and yet we are not those people at all. For now, for this season, there are five of us. For better or for worse, the Tredway Five.

Pssst… Wanna see our Disney pic? Of course you do. I LOVE this shot. Makes me all happy inside.