Finally her 1st day

Well, miss Lydia finally had her first day of school today. She was suppose to go last week Thursday but woke up with a fever and stayed home both Thursday and Friday. By today she was ready! I was ready for her too, or so I thought...

We walked into her classroom found her cubby spot and coat hook. Her teacher met us at the door and gave her some instructions. She followed them just like the big girls she is. I told her it was time for me to go and she quickly gave me one of the fast squeeze hugs that said "I love you mom but I'm fine and need to get on with my day." I walked out and I was fine, really, I was. I was proud of her, I wasn't sappy, and really I didn't even think about it because after all we had been waiting 5 days for this, her first day of school. So we left and about half way down the hall way, Taneah stops looks up at me and says, "Want Lay-ah!" "Want Lay-ah!" She wanted her Lydia. All of a sudden it hit me I wanted Lydia too. I wanted my baby girl who seemed like it would be forever until she slept all night. I wanted my 2 yr old Lydia who used to throw such a fit she would pull her hair out. I wanted my 3 yr old Lydia who LOVEd dressing up like a princess and playing trucks at the same time, I wanted my baby girl!!!

All of the cliches of parenting started running through my mind, "time sure flies" "parenting is just one big lesson in letting go" "they don't stay babies forever" and on and on. But in that moment at my lip quivered and my eyes grew hot, I knew I just had to keep walking, away from my sweet Lydie's classroom. Afterall, I was leaving a stong, confident, beautiful, independant 5 year old. She was ready for kindergarten. And so after I made it to the van, kept reassuring Taneah that Lydia was in school and cried my eyes out all the way home, I decided I would be OK. And oh how blessed I am to get to be her mom, how blessed I am to get to watch her grow and learn and become the the girl God designed her to be.

I love you Lydiebug and can't wait to hear how your first day of school went!

Good Bye Summer

OK those of you who know me, know I hate when things come to an end. And even though I technically have a few more days of summer left, my 2nd grader and my main man start tomorrow, so as far as our house goes, summer is done. We took a little camping trip to finish out the summer and had some fun talks with the kids about what they liked best about summer and what they were looking forward to the most about school. Jonah is looking forward to math and gym. Good man.

This time of year I think a lot about where were at as a family where I'm at in my life and where I want to be. It's definetly our new year since we're all on the school calendar. I"ve been thinking about what my favorite things were about summer. I made a top 10 because I couldn't narrow it down to just 5 and they're not in any particular order. So here goes, good bye summer, thanks for the memories, we'll see you again next year.

-Watching Jonah play baseball.
-Watching Lyida play soccer
-Going camping at Maplewood State Park, watching Taneah catch her first fish and Jonah want to fish ALL day long, taking Lydia out in a canoe alone and seeing a beaver very close:)
-Walking on the beach at night
-Being in Atlanta again
-Taneah's Court Day! ( It was about as close a perfect day as I can think of )
-Going to the Beth Moore conference and being reminded and refocused on what God has for my life.
-Getting to know my nephews better. Now that they are little people and not babies anymore.
-Enjoying our neighbors and neighborhood.
-Watching my kids form deeper brother/sister bonds and get to know each other better.

Big fun in a little puddle.

I think these pictures speak for themselves. Just soaking up every last second of summer we have left.

Sand

I have a quick moment to jot down a thought or two. Today, I packed my kindergartener's school supplies in her brand new polk-a-dotted back pack. That in itself is enought to make me ponder...she's really old enough to go to school? It seems like yesterday she was throwing a 2 year old tantrum because she didn't get her way. Oh wait that was yesterday:) Anyway, yes my Liddy is goin to school next week!
The other thing is before I could pack the back pack I had to clean it out because we had used it on our vacation. I had to vacuum out the beach sand on the bottom. It seemed kind of symbolic as I sucked up each teeny, tiny piece of sand there went summer. Just like that. Gone. Goodbye summer and thanks for the memories.

Just a few pictures

Here are a few of our pictures from our vacation. It was such a fun time. As it finally feels like summer this week in ND it makes me miss the south and all the fun we had there. I would write more but we are trying to squeeze every once of summer for what it's worth and so that is why I'm so slow on getting pictures on here. Summer just takes priority to blogging these days:)

The ABC's of our vacation 2009

Our vacation isn't quite over yet but we were trying to make the time pass when we were driving today and so this is what we came up with.

A is for airplane and Atlanta
B is for beach
C is for crabs
D is for docks
E is for eels
F is for fish (lots of pretty ones)
G is for Georgia
H is for holes ( as in the ones the crabs live in and scurry to if you're not fast enough)
I is for Interstate
J is for jelly fish stings
K is for kites
L is for Lobster
M is for Miley Cyrus ( Yep we caught a quick glimpse)
N is for Northwoods golf course
O is for ocean
P is for palm trees and a pretty pier
Q is for quite a few alligators
R is for rivers
S is for sharks, stingray, sand and sunburn
T is for Tybee Island
U is for umbrellas
V is for vests as if life vests
W is for whale shark
X is for extras
Y is for y'all
Z is for ziti

I bet you can't wait for the pictures.