The Summer of Al...

This has for sure been the summer of Ali and all things wedding.  It was so fun and wonderful and busy and I can't say that I'm not a little sad it's all over!  To start things off in June we had Ali's bachlorette party in the city.  And being a suburban, married mom, I was a titch out of my comfort zone when I started planning this.  I am more of a jammies, glass of wine, girl talk kinda girl...but with a little help from Al and her friends we had a great night!  It was so fun to be out with Al and I got to bring my friend Erin too!  There were showers, a cooking class, a dispute with the hotel staff over use of a room, a limo ride, a club called the Underground (which Suz even attended), and lots of pretty girls celebrating Ali!  It was a BLAST!  Here's some pics...

Cousins

Two of my favorite girls

Sisters!

Hard at work on dinner

The final product was pork, salad, potatoes & crisp

She's the cutest!!

At "The Club"...

And me the day after...all tuckered out with Beanie Boy!

#7

Hey there G-   man.
You are 7.  I am so thrilled to have been blessed with 7 amazing years of you.  You are spunky & funny & adventurous.  You are smart & creative & chatty.  You are perfectly you.  I will tell you this for the rest of my life, but God has used you in just MAJOR ways to change my heart and increase my trust in him.  And you came in this adorable little curly haired package to do so.  I am forever thankful and indebted to you.  You are so precious my son & I love you so much!  Happy Birthday and to MANY MANY more!
xoxo
mom

For your birthday dad took you & some buddies to see a movie.  Then you all came home, we made individual pizzas and played outside till it was dark.  We also had a little family BBQ on your day.  You wanted Legos, Nerf guns & a Wii game...and we also got you some books (for good measure) and some BULLS clothes!  LOVED celebrating with all things Griffin.  We even got you your oun personal ring of shrimp and we literally had to cut you off, because you almost ate them all.  Ha ha!  Here's to many many more of sweet curly topped you!
xoxo
Mom

cake with Lego candles

partying with your buds

sleep over with your best buddy

More cake...obviously, 1 is not enough for any birthday!!! (you requested carrot!)

And Bulls gear and a bike helmet!

Such fun celebrating you Griffy boy!

Summer's A Brewin'

For summer to be starting, school had to end...and the transition for the kids has been smooth sailing! It's been a little rougher for me truth be told, haha but we are still paddling...it just feels uphill some days (wink, wink)!  I miss the few hours of quiet time to get dinner ready or a load of laundry done, but on the flip side I love the lazy mornings sitting with the kids eating and chatting and drinking my coffee for longer than 10 minutes!  Sawyer wrapped up a great year in the 3s at Gods Gifts!  We got his teachers a baking themed gift and the card said, "thanks for cooking up such a great year" because his 2 teachers both love to cook and did a lot of cooking with the kids.  They took extra time to make sure that it was all gluten free for Sawyer and we so appreciated that!!

Last Day smiles!

Then we celebrated 9 years of US on the 21st!  It was such a fun celebration because Ryan surprised me and got a sitter the night before so we could go to dinner & took our anniversary off.  Then my mom babysat the next night so we could go out for drinks!  I don't think we have ever had 2 nights in a row just us since Griffin, so it felt like such a fun luxury! 

Lucille is up to her normal shenanigans....

stealing bites of my yogurt and giving me ridiculously cute faces so I won't be mad!

Here she is at "dress like a princess day" for ballet class.  She LOVED her first dance class even though she did way more dancing in preparation to go and mostly just stared at everyone else once she got there!  She's a crack up in these ballet shoes!

Here she is in preparation to go to the lake for memorial day!  All ready to kick off Grand Beach for the summer!  (and in case you were wondering, these white pants didn't even make it to the car.  She fell on her way from the deck to the driveway in some mud and i had to change her before we left!  She was a cutie pie in that all American get up though!)

Griffin's last day was after we got back from a nice long holiday weekend at the lake!  I still can't believe how fast his kindergarten year flew by!  He's just made me so proud and excited to see where God takes him!

Waiting for the bus with the siblings and next door neighbor Teddy!

And the sweetest note from Ms. Pulsa in his class book!  

And I can't forget to mention (because I am certain this will pass) these two's obsession with holding hands.  She always holds out her little hand and says, " mee mee" (beanie) and he takes it with no hesitation and off they go.  It melts my heart!

Lastly our sweet friends, the Egly's, had their 4th boy Luke and we got to hold him the day he came home!  Nothing like a sweet fresh from God baby, is there??  Kathryn is beautiful as ever fresh from the hospital, and he is precious!  Congrats guys!

On change & motherhood.

Got tears. Hot, messy, free flown tears tonight.  The kind that just roll down your face and won't stop. The kind of tears that get triggered by something and then keep coming down without reason.  I told Ryan it was good and felt very cleansing.  He looked and me as said, "it really doesn't look like it feels good." Ha ha!  He's right. I look horrible and I just wiped my nose on the side of my robe. (*note to self, wash that sometime) At least it is easing the "pit of change" that sits there like a giant bolder hot glued to the bottom of my stomach, pleading with my head to go through memories like they are in a yearbook video being played to the tune of some sad but heartwarming Sarah McLachlan song.  And I can't say no to that scenario very good, I am sucker for those videos.  I am also kind of a sucker for melting down to change.  As a teenager I was a hot mess, God bless Wayne and Suz because there was a lot of crying wailing.  Thankfully, it gradually got easier for me to move through the seasons of my own life with grace-ish-ness.

Then I had babies.

And they are beautiful and oh so precious and growing at the speed of light and they are mine times 3!  So I am learning all over again about milestones and how to approach them and move through them and move on towards the next day.  Dwelling on the past gets me no where but a bigger puddle of tears and frankly I barely have time to pee without an "incident" (eh ehmmmm Sawyer, I know it was you who let that stolen fudge-sickle melt all over the carpet) much less find a spare half hour to Sarah McLachlan montage it up.  There's nothing I can do to change that time will, without a doubt keep moving faster than I'd like.  Plus, there's 3 of them, so I not only live through my stuff every year but multiple of theirs.  A lot of times "theirs" is harder on my heart than "mine".  3 times of starting a new school year and 3 times of ending the school year and 3 birthdays every year and all the other life that comes in-between.  How do I keep myself from crying all the time??!!??

I remember sitting in my dining room at the sweet little house we had just finished fixing up in Omaha staring through the front windows just rubbing my belly over and over again.  Imagining myself with a baby.  Me as mom.  Actually happening.  I just didn't feel ready.  It wasn't the timing I was thinking.  But there I was.  And I would I encourage myself by having little motivational talks in my head, "you with a baby...I can totally see that.  You can totally roll with a baby.  An elementary aged kid...that's for another time, another day, another lady.  But a baby, we can do that.  Just take this little surprise bundle one day at a time."  And just a thousand or so days at a time later, I've arrived.  Plus I have 2 more.  I am that lady.  (self high five)

And it's bittersweet.

Life is just plain ole bittersweet.

It makes it amazing though. Bitter makes the sweet, sweeter.  So here's my plan...instead of drawn out cry feasts and pits in my stomach for days and sad feelings invading my time and thoughts I am choosing something else.  A few hot mess tears...yes, for good measure.  I firmly believe you gotta grieve before you go forward.  But then I am cutting it off.  I am choosing thankfulness.  What a beautiful year I have had.  God saw fit for me to mother 3 kids through ages 6, 3 & 1 and now onto 7, 4, & 2.  I have got to hear the gorgeous sound of them making each other laugh everyday and even the sound of them making each other cry still means were here and figuring out this family thing.  My daughter went from baby to toddler, and I was there.  I watched through the glass at her first dance class and I get to slip on her ballet shoes to her emphatic giggles every time we go.  She not only crawls but now walks, dances and runs through life.  I have seen both of my sons grow in inches and in heart.  They both made huge strides academically and learned some life along the way too.  Sawyer potty trained  mostly is attempting to be potty trained and he's happy at school.  His teacher's even say he's a social little butterfly at that. Answers to things that weighed on my heart before he started.  Griffin made new friends and learned how to read and started to ask me questions about hard stuff...like why people would treat people who looked different meanly around MLK day.  My heart nearly broke trying to explain to him that the world is just broken but then we had this awesome moment where I got to talk to him in a tangible way about why God is so important and why we need him so much.

Heartbreaking to bigger HEART.
Valleys to mountain tops.

All the tired and messy and frustrating and hard and wonderfully wonderful stuff in-between, and I got to be there for it all.  I got to see my kids live it.  Isn't that the best???!!!?  I am going to take it.  Maybe not everyday will I get to this surge of joy from the mundane & frustrating parts of our life.  In fact I am probably tomorrow going to want to throw in the towel...or at the very least "throw the towel" at one of them.  But I guess what I am getting at is that milestones are for reflection and a moment of being sad, maybe.  But it is also cause for celebration of all that God has allowed to pass through my time.  And it's good to have set times to mark that thankfulness.

So thanks God.  For the great teachers and great kids and great friends that we pray for each night.  As I see this school year come to an end I can truly see such a sweet answer to those prayers.  Each part of this year, the good, bad and ugly has been part of something wonderful and I am so thankful.  I love getting to be the mom in this story and I couldn't have written it better if I had been picking the characters myself.