independent

Avett,

You have changed so much so fast this year.  I feel like with each passing week something in you matures just a little bit more.  I think you have found a new independence since Evie has gone to school.  I am so proud of how you can find one small thing and it can occupy you for hours!  When ever we go to Momomee's house you fill up cups with water and carry them to a bucket back and forth until you've filled the entire thing.  Some afternoons I'll send you and your sister outside to play so I can I finish the dishes or what ever house chore may be ailing me.  You find your spot right in the sand box and you talk to your self and play until you either have to pee or I call you back inside for a bath.  

You still love me so much.  I've grown accustomed to your clockwork smooches and hugs and snuggles.  You need them as much as I need them now.  Thank you for loving me like you do despite my flaws and shortcomings, I want to be more like you.   

bits of life I can't bare to forget

Avett and this frog may be one of my favorite pictures.  He is all boy, interested in creatues and curious and doesnt have a care in the world to get dirty...or peed on.  He discovered this little frog while we were at Herman C. Michael park for a playdate this week.  He was quite gentle and wanted terribly to bring it home as a pet.  The frog looks very unimpressed with the whole idea.

Today was the opening day for the Athens Farmers Market.  I don't know why I feel so fancy walking out of there with fresh pastries and cut flowers.  Today we went home with Poppies and Ranunculus.  I love the sense of community in Athens and it feels good to be apart of it.  

Just a little example of running errands with these two crazy ones.  They were giddy about these tiny carts.  I love that Evie's hair is getting longer.  She is so beautiful.  We bought orange chicken, which Avett thinks is too spicy, and some Indian food, and some cocoa batons which were all gone with in an hour.

This past week we went to my mother's and Evie came in baring this birds nest as a great outdoor prize.  She asked that we put it in a bag for her to bring home.  She copied "birds nest"  and I couldn't be more in love with the fact that some of her letters are backwards.

Playing in the barn, climbing hay bails, getting messy, my allergies are going crazy.

Rode BOB with mom across the street to return a shovel.  We stayed a while to look at the flowers and then rode BOB around with the perfect amount of wind in our hair and faces. I love big tulips.

Avett got the giggles SO hard for a good 10 minutes at Fresh Aire Barbeque when we went with our cousins last week.  I never figured out what it was but I suspect he thought it was funny that Mason was being a little naughty ransacking the restaurant.

Evie has been writing her fairy friend, Ella, through a door on the wall in her room.  They are great friends.  She anticipates every single correspondence.  That last letter she got (which took quite a while to get back to her, apparently fairy mail can take a lot of time)  Ella told her she was sorry it took her a while to respond and that she was busy preparing for a fairy ball!  Well Evie decided that we must make her a dress for the ball so she designed it, picked out the fabric, and then we sewed it right up!  I love her creative soul.

Well I just had no idea she loved this log so very much.  When she found out that part of it was going to be cut and given to a friend of ours to make some things she was devastated.  She went in to full on sobs and went and sat on the log in tears.  After Momomee gave her best shot to comfort her I went down and we hugged and she cried some more.  We decided to take a picture of the log and she took it.  Then we edited a picture where she circled the log, put a heart on it, and then pecked out every little letter to spell "This is Evie's favorite log."  

A very tender hearted soul.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

crumbs and chats

We spent the whole day at Stock Gap yesterday.  It was good for my heart.  Yesterday would have been my parents 31st anniversary.  I don't know that anyone thought of it except that I mentioned it to my sister in a whisper.  I don't suppose it should have even been mentioned anyway but still...it was interesting.  I feel so at peace and even happy for how things turned out for my parents.  I feel at peace with their new lives and how we all fit together in one crazy blended family now.  They are both remarried to great matches and my sister and I have come to accept and love them as have our husbands and children, although they never knew anything different. 

After the divorce some relationship dynamics changed for a while and I'm coming to terms with the fact that that's ok.  It's hard for families to split apart and then to find how they fit back together and where everyone lands and how.  I suppose it's like shaking up a bottle of soda, everything bubbles and is crazy for a bit and then it eventually settles down and you can see clearly again.

I've been praying for that clarity so often and I'm so grateful for the bits that come to me in time.

Yesterday after a big meal everyone scattered to do different things while mom and I had some time to ourselves to clean the kitchen.  I don't know why in sharing that mundane task and exchanging conversation amidst it all I felt like a piece of my heart flew back and a crack was filled.  After I mentioned that we won't all fit around the dining room table much longer I was listening to her tell me about how a long time ago Grandmother Virginia Shepherd offered her a huge table that sat 14 or 16 and that she is now sad she didn't take it. I felt happy hearing her share that simple story.  I walked around collecting crumbs and and clearing the table and it just felt good to be two women at work.  A mother and a daughter doing something that mothers and daughters have done millions of times together.  I'm not quite sure why yet, but I cherished it.  I'm grateful for her wisdom and her experience and I want to learn from it.  

The rest of our time was filled with crying babies, happy messy dirty children, and sporadic conversation mingled with requests from toddlers and kids.  It was good for me, so good.

Easter weekend

Our Easter weekend was so packed. 

Friday we went to mom and Michaels and played around the house and property and mom made a meal and we ate by candlelight.  That afternoon Michael taught Avett how to hit the carpenter bees drilling holes in the barn with a stick.  Then we all took a turn and it was so fun! Then we had a little Easter egg hunt and the kids loved it. 

Saturday john had to work but E and A and I went to my dad and Jen's.  Dad brought us each back a little something from his recent Europe trip. Evaleigh a porcelain doll, Avett a soccer ball, and a delftware vase for me.   Evaleigh fell in love with her doll right away. The kids played dress up and that lead to an Easter egg hunt outside in their dress ups.  A ninja and a queen bobbled around the backyard to find their eggs.  Avett was all over the place and very in to it! Evie was carefully walking around since she was resolved to hunt in plastic high heeled slippers. 

Saturday night I got to go to the General Women's Session Broadcast with mom.  It was so great to sit with her and hold her hand.  She brought me a notebook to write in and I took notes of all of the ways I could be more patient and loving to my children. 

Sunday we had church and I taught Sunday school. When we came home we are pork tenderloin and some waaaayyyy too salty sweet potatoes.  John was kind to even get seconds.  Then we did the resurrection eggs that I grew up doing as a child and then watched the easer story on Mormon Channel.  Whenever Jesus was being crucified Avett would go up to the tv and say, "Bye bye Jesus, I love you Jesus."

I'm so grateful for my Savior.  I'm grateful because ever good thing I have in my life is because of His grace and love for me. He means everything to me. 

Nature walk

Sometimes you just need a good fun day out in the muggy weather and soaking wet ground because it's the first break from rain in days!  I let the children lead the way on our nature walk and we weaved in and out of the woods.  I couldn't keep up with how many dozens of times they tripped in the rain boots that are several sizes too big for their little feet but they were so happy and determined and right in their element that nothing could keep them down. We help "spidy sticks" and whacked them in front of us while we walked so that we wouldn't run in to spider webs, because that is the WPRST feeling! 

We found ourselves down at the creek where they waded for over 30 minutes and walked up and down the descending water rock slides.  They were soaking up every bit of it that I dared not to speak but only observe.  Except when Evie yelled "snake " and we had a quick conversation about how I only want her to tell animals that couldn't be in our woods like Elephant and Alligator.  That way if there really was a snake I would know it wasn't pretend play.

Such a sweet and simple afternoon I got to share with my curious nature loving children.  We are soaking up Stock Gap all we can before we move to Athens at the end of this year. It will be so very missed by us.

magic

Recently my mind has been taken back to our early days as a family here on Stock Gap Road.  I remember how carefully and thoughtfully I put together Evaleigh's nursery, every item shifted dozens of times so they were perched in just the right position.  I remember countless hours of back breaking work with my selfless mother recovering And refurbishing my great grandmothers couch for Evie's nursery while chatting and dreaming about my little Evie and what she would be like.  I remember the day we brought her home from the hospital and how proud I was to show her the small space I had created just for her, even if she slept through the whole tour.  I remember foggy middle of the night feedings rocking back and forth in the old blue recliner while peering through the nursery French doors observing my John sleeping away on our bed in a messy tangle of sheets and blankets.  

My memories here at Stock Gap are rich and run deep: being a young girl running in the yard (many times with no clothes on),  giggling evenings with my sister as young girls, warm homemade cauliflower soup made by my mother during cold months, talks on the porch with my father about goal making and life plans, bringing John here the first time during Christmas of 09' to meet my family for the first time, my first pregnancy while living here the first time again after my parents divorce, bringing my 5 day old son here when we moved back in the second time. And oh so much more.

This is home to me.  It is the place my children know as home. Today Evaleigh told me, out of the blue "Mom, I love our home."  She knows nothing different. 

Sometimes I look around I know that we won't be here forever but to me the library will always be my first baby's nursery, the place where we loved and learned about each other for the first time.  The place where I first cultivated the mother love I feel every day now.  The kitchen will always be the place I learned that Evaleigh doesn't like beans or peanut butter.  It is the place where Avett learned to exert the strength of his little body by carrying whole gallons of milk to me for a drink.  The place where I filled my families bellies, maybe not always of the healthiest food but I will remember that we never went without. The master bedroom will always be mine and johns room,  the place where we conceived our first baby.  The place where we had a tiny Christmas tree just for our selves.  The place where I fell asleep pregnant and watching The Cosby's while John played with my hair or rubbed my feet or back. The place where we talked and talked and talked about the future and what all we hoped it would hold.  And the bathroom just through the double doors was where I nonchalantly took a pregnancy test that changed our whole lives.  The dining room will always be our joy school room. The place where we learned and created and dirty little hands left prints on the windows and sometimes walls.  The place where I couldn't keep Avett from eating the sticky tack off the back of our art work hanging on the windows.  The halls will never just be places to walk or travel from room to room.  They will always be race tracks that my children ran round and round with cars and strollers.  The place where the sweetest sounds of little feet pounded that memory in to my heart.   The living room will always be that in every sense of the word.  The place where we lived and lived good and hard. The place where my husband would sprawl across the floor and toss the children about in the air and tickle them relentlessly only for them to cry out "again!" Or "more!"  The place where my husband and I retired to every night to connect at the end of the long full days.

This house is our house.  It is where we share in life and love and though day in and day out we go through our routines and schedules I know we are living out our future memories. And they are good ones, filled with what I hope I will only recall as magic.

bob

Tonight after John got home from school we all piled up on the gator to take salt licks out to the cows.  Evaleigh sat in the back with her green slushie from Sonic and My dear Avett was in his rightful spot, my lap...always my lap.

I was johns gate girl and we drove in to the pastures running over the overgrown weeds that are starting to grow to a more tree like state.

It was slightly cool and there was a breeze and I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming gratitude for this beautiful family I've been given.

Life is so good and we are immensely blessed.  I am so happy to be living here in the south and sharing life with my perfect husband. I never dreamed it would be this easy and wonderful and natural. 

Joy school

Now that we are settling in to the school year it's time to add yet another thing in to our crazy schedules.  We will be starting joy school with evaleigh the first week of September. I completely took down the dining room table and carried each piece down to the basement.  The children used my extra tools to "help" disassemble.  I love their little willing and helpful spirits.  Just tonight as Deb and the kids and I were getting out of the car to eat a quick dinner at sonic Evie reached over to Avett's seat and said, "don't worry I'll get Avett out." Something so simple made me so proud.

We printed out rules for our classroom and have already been singing the songs all over the place! Evaleigh put her own special twist on one, "we do not hit or kick or spit." Close enough my dear.

I drug down (all by my self against the will of my bad back) the cube storage from Evies room and then promptly replaced it with my mother's childhood dresser that was collecting dust in the garage.  I can't stand for things to be out of place too long. So how our joy school room looks crisp and organized.

I look forward to teaching her about the joy of life and living.  And I can tell she is looking so forward to it too!

a southern summer saturday

A couple of weekends ago my sister was here with her babies and my father came to the house to see everyone. It was one of the most charming and perfect Saturday's I've had.  

Ma father came in with Chic-fil-a for everyone and it was a lifesaver as my sister and I are learning that cooking, serving, feeding, and cleaning up after 4 children and 4 adults is quite the commitment!

Afterward we all went to the living room where Evaleigh and Parker took turns alternating putting on ballerina shows and ninja shows.  It was one of the first times our children have ever performed for us like that and all of the sudden I just felt like such a mom beaming at Evaleighs every move.  The had the perfect flick of her wrists and her movements were just so natural.  She got up on her tip toes, in her hand me down ballet slippers from ruby, as good as I've ever seen any ballerina do!  She extended her arms and looked over her should with drama and poise. I was so proud to be seeing this for the first time and to watch my father take it all in with his laughter about it all.

Then the children got restless and antsy inside so we moved the concert out doors. We drug out the patio furniture, plugged in the sound system and it was the perfect back drop for the rest of the sunny breezy afternoon.  

Everyone just played their part perfectly, john threw discs around the yard and the children went in and out of running the find them and following him around. Evaleigh continued to dance on the porch.  Joe slept on the couch inside. Avett fed the cows.  Rebekah and I talked while dad pulled the kids in the wagon, drove them around in his car, and just simply observed the memories in the making. The kids all had Popsicles on the porch and was just as summer Saturday's should be.

I'll always cherish that day.