Happy Friday

We're heading into a fun weekend. Today we're headed to the Marble Factory in the KC area with Calvin's class for a field trip. Charlotte gets to go too and is so excited to hang with the big kids. Tomorrow is Calvin's 7th birthday! We have some fun family things planned and he's been discussing all week where he wants to go to lunch because he gets to pick. He actually has a friends birthday party on his birthday. Fun for him but a little strange for me to have him away for a few hours on his birthday! He also gets to go to the KU basketball game on Saturday night with daddy. Fun!
We'll have his birthday party with a couple of friends on Monday since the boys don't have school on President's Day.

Hope you have a fun and/or relaxing weekend planned. I'll leave you with a picture. I'll never catch up on the months I didn't blog but here's a picture of us all from Christmas.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! I saw this cute idea on a favorite blog of mine (http://www.designmom.com/) and I think they turned out so cute. It took about 5 minutes to upload the photos to Walgreens.com, add the border and message, and order them. I picked them up later that night. Assembly and adding messages on the back with the boys took about 15 minutes. Easy! That's my kind of project.
One of the reasons I love my boys small, Christian, school? Small class sizes!! In years past it was like I was running a sweat shop trying to get the boys to put together and add names to all their valentines. 60 valentines versus 20 valentines? I'll take it!





Our Valentines plans were foiled a bit but it was still a great day. Tyler and I had plans to go to my brother-in-law's fabulous restaurant in KC, but instead I ended up supporting a mom in labor. In my line of work when a baby decides to come everything else goes out the window. It's easy to keep things in perspective though when your job involves watching the miracle of birth.

34 Years

What not to do on your 34th birthday:
Do not drink a venti latte with an extra shot of espresso (thanks Starbucks for the free drink) and then work out for the first time in 6 months. 3 things will happen.
1. You will pee your pants (especially if you've birthed 4 children)
2. You will feel like throwing up and passing out at the same time.
3. You will feel very OLD.

I'm feeling very reflective today and hope to be back later with some much deeper thoughts.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The scene: Kids building Legos. Brennan working on an semi-truck and Charlotte asking him a million questions.

Brennan: "Mom, isn't that right? You don't have to hold the steering wheel when you're driving at night and you need a nap or something?"

Me: "No way, you always have to hold the steering wheel. You don't ever sleep while driving."

Brennan: "Well why do semi-trucks have beds in the cab?"

Glad we got that one straightened out!

Just Because

What do you do when you've inadvertently taken a 6 week blogging break and you're not sure how to come back?

You post of a picture of your 19 (!) month old eating an apple. Margo's favorite food right now is an apple. She insists on eating it whole, skin and all. She takes it over to the fireplace hearth, climbs up, sits and proceeds to eat the entire thing. Literally. The other day I caught her too late and she had already consumed most of the seeds.

1st Day of School, Take 2

I'm not done with the back to school posts yet! Not to be outdone by her big brothers, Charlotte had her 1st day of preschool yesterday. She's going to The Giving Tree 3 afternoons a week. It's the same preschool Calvin went to so she's very familiar. She always went with us to drop off and pick up Calvin so the teachers already know her. She was so excited about having Ms. Kathy and Ms. Donna.

In an exuberant act of 4 year old independence she did NOT want to have her picture taken. This sweet girl can sure stand her ground!


Margo didn't mind having her picture taken!


I stole a shot at a stoplight on the way to school.


I also stole one during "circle time". Despite the very serious look on her face she was very excited for school. This may be her reaction to Ms. Kathy's "singing" :)


Charlotte seems so much older than the boys did when they started preschool. The differences in boys and girls astound me. When the boys went to preschool my highest hopes were that they would learn to sit in a circle and listen. But with Charlotte I think she might even learn letters and numbers! She will love the learning, the creating and the time with friends. As a third child, I'm really excited for her to experience her "own" thing.

1st Day of School

I know you'd think after a 2 month blog hiatus that I'd come back with some sort of wrap up of the summer. But nope, I'm jumping right to the first day of school. I'll do some summer catch up eventually, but today I'm feeling awfully proud of my boys on their first day of school.

Aren't they handsome?


We changed schools this year. It was a big decision. As in BIG decision. Maybe the hardest we've had to make so far in this parenting journey. I think it took us the better part of 6 months to come to this decision. But we're very happy, and the boys are too.

They did so great this morning! They were both a little nervous, but neither cried (I'll revisit this topic of crying in a moment). They were both just very quiet. Even though they are the "new kids" in school, they both know several kids in their class so that helps a ton. Oh and when there are only 8 or 11 other kids in your class it's definitely easier to get to know people! This won't be the first time you hear me singing the praises of small class sizes.

This is Calvin's first year of all day school (1st grade). Here he is getting fist bumps from daddy.


So yeah, the crying. I did a lot of it once I left the parking lot. Man I love those boys. I take on every feeling they could possibly be experiencing and probably a few they're not. It's so hard to put them into the hands of someone else for 7 hours a day. A great friend came over to stay with our sleeping girls so that Tyler and I could take the boys to school without looking like a circus. Afterwards we went to Munchers because, well, there's not much a chocolate croissant can't fix.


Do you see that group of people in the background of the picture above? There were about 15 of them and not one looked to be under 75 years old. I'm sure they were looking at us wondering what we were doing and why I was crying. But I looked at them and thought, in no time at all I'll be there. Sitting with my friends drinking coffee, children grown. Part of that seems like a myth, sometimes I don't believe my children will ever leave the house. I'm looking forward to those years but wanting to milk the years I'm in for all they're worth.

I'm incredibly grateful today. Grateful that God has paved a way for us to change schools and grateful that He, ultimately, holds my children in His hands. Grateful for healthy, growing kids who bring me to the cross daily. And grateful for a wonderful husband to walk this road with.