I Miss My Blog :)

Several friends lately have either started blogs or have been sharing theirs...and frankly, I've begun to miss mine! I started this blog a while back when I realized that I just couldn't keep up with journaling or scrapbooking to hold our family memories. I do still scrapbook four or five times a year, but I haven't journaled in ages. When Abby and Isabella were small, I'd pore over a journal and write them the sweetest love letters while they napped...seriously I did. When Ali Kate came along, she got a few letters...and I don't believe I ever even bought a journal for Grant. People have joked that by the 3rd child they're lucky if Mom even has newborn photos of them. There's some wisdom in that! Especially if you have all 3 kids in just 3 years.

Needless to say, time has flown by over the last 3 years...and we are now a very different household than we were when I started blogging and stopped journaling. We've truly moved into the next phase of family life, and I really want to journal about this transition. To be honest, I've gone kicking and screaming into this phase because I absolutely loved being at home all day with my four little, tiny babies with no other cares in the world. For five years, I stayed home and just took care of my babies. Obviously, we did much in our days....but I had no schedule to keep, carpool to run, lunches to pack, homework to do, tickets to buy, game schedules to remember, playdates to shuttle, swim lessons to attend... our days were spent at home, at the park, having picnics, reading books, coloring, playing ball. We still do alot of those things, but those sweet "slow down" moments as I like to call them are few and far between. I've been hanging onto those memories for a while now. But last week at church I read a verse (which of course I can't recall exactly this precise moment) that said that it is foolish to look upon what we had in the past. I'll have to find the exact verse. This past year I've been trying to hold onto the slow pace of the past five years only to realize that it's really time to embrace and move into the "school years" as I'm going to have 2 kids in school in just a few weeks. Wow!

That said, I'm so excited to open this blog back up and to share/record the transition that our family is making as we move into this new stage of life. I already have so much that I want to journal about this past year...so I know there's going to be alot of "rewind" time as I go back over this past year. Yay!

Where I Wish I Was Right Now...

 

Taken on the beach in Destin in March...wishing I was there this very moment...I'll have to blog about this trip one day.

Making a Splash!

 

Abby's 1st grade class' end of the year pool party... Did she really just finish first grade?!?

Isabella's 6th Birthday

 

Isabella and her friends showing off their paintings! They painted owls that all matched her invitation. The girls all had lots of fun, and they all had great owl paintings to take home after the party!

Delight!

 

Absolutely delighted as everyone sings Happy Birthday to our sweet Isabella at her 6th birthday party!

I Think I Can, I Think I Can...

I think I can, I think I can....Jean Stockdale has taught us in MOMS for years that party of our job as moms is to slowly release our children into the adult world so that they're ready to be independent. I'm not good at that at all! If I could, I'd keep them all babies for a very, very long time and then ease them into toddlerhood. After that, to be quite honest, I'd fast forward from 2 until age 4....right now I have both a 2 and a 3 year old in the house as I've had for a few years now...and it's rough!

So what does this picture having to do with all of that?!? Today we threw out THE HIGHCHAIR! We purchased this when Abby was 4 months old and about to start rice cereal. I remember going with Matt to Babies R Us in Memphis and picking this one out because it was bright, had fun toys that could detach, and had 3 washable trays that snapped off. We had NO IDEA that we'd have this highchair for the next SEVEN years!!!! This high chair has sat all of our babies from their first bites of cereal to their last days when baby sister or brother needed to take over the throne. Well, Grant is 2 1/2 now, and there's no baby brother or sister waiting in line this time for the highchair. But it was time. It's been past time. He's needed to be in a big boy chair for a long, long time. But he's my last (unless God has a really great surprise in store for me one day)...and I've let him be a baby in every way much longer than I did with the girls. At his age, they were all in big kid seats, potty trained, way past the pacifier...but not Grant :) My little man isn't even thinking about a potty (except to flush Awana books and dolls in), nor is he even budging an inch on the pacifier issue. He's told me clearly before when we couldn't find a paci that I could go to Target and buy a new one. He's smart!

So today, while I didn't break down for Matt, I was silently grieving this visible reminder that our house is becoming one of big kids and not babies any longer. We once had two cribs, a pack n play, swings, bouncies, play yards, jumpers, changing tables, and even a highchair in our house. The other items have gone one by one to friends and to charity...but the highchair was one of the last remaining pieces of being a mom to a little bitty one.

So, I'm trying to tell myself that I can do this....I can start to teach them to grow up and to help them move from stage to stage....I just may have to rock babies at church more often now :)

Knocking Off A Little Dust

Tonight, for whatever reason, I sat down and read a mommy blog...and then another...and then another. Before long, I looked up and it's past 1 a.m.! My crew has been asleep for hours, and I should be resting too. We've been fighting the stomach virus again for a while, and I think I'm just so glad to not be scrubbing something or holding someone's head while they throw up. I've actually been relaxed as I sit at the computer.

All that to say...I realized just how much I missed blogging. In particular, about our family. I used my blog for a while to keep an account of the day-to-day happenings of our family. We've moved into a new stage of life where the day-to-day happenings oftentimes drain me of any energy to recount the day that just ended. But Matt made me a bound book that contained my blog entries from the past, and it's truly a treasure. The scrapbooks I make are cute (and dusty now too) but not as full of detail. When Abby and Isabella were very little, I kept individual journals and wrote them letters very, very often. Life with two girls just 18 months apart gave me lots of free time to write, journal, reflect. Add two more kids in a row...and that time is gone!

With no promises of everyday blogging or anything else pressureful, I am re-entering the blogging world. My kids have just got too many cute memories that tell our story for me not to record...