First Week of School...A New Normal

Well this was a big week in our house. Bryce started first grade and Ella started preschool. It has been such a strange week for me to go from 3 kids at home all of the time down to sometimes only one at home. There are many reasons why it will be great for the two of them to go to school. For instance grocery shopping and cleaning bathrooms and not having to referee every moment of every day. There is also the quietness factor. One kid is so much less noise than three. Have I told you all that I love quiet? I actually crave quiet. I could roll around and eat up quiet. (Okay, so enough about quiet.) I love the new found one on one time also. It feels like with this new schedule I can actually pay individual attention to each of them and not just to the gang of them. Walking to school has been fun and all of the conversations that have evolved from that new time. I also love to be able browse a store and actually see what I am looking at because there are not three voices talking to me and three bodies trying to preform acrobatic stunts in the grocery cart. So there are many reasons why it is great.

But there are also reasons why it is terribly sad. It seems like I just gave birth to each of them and here they are ready and willing to leave me and go out into the world without me. I can't help but feel like time can be such a cruel thing because the days that are so hard and unfun, that you want to sprint by you, seem to stand still and yet the years that you want to hold onto, seem to fly from your grasp. I guess that I am just not quite ready to let go of them yet, and yet it is time. Dropping off Bryce just seems wrong. I can't believe that I am just supposed to leave him there without even a teacher knowing that he is there, so that he has to just fend for himself on the playground until the bell rings. What is he like 6 or something? Oh that's right he is. It just seems different without him around and it makes me realize what a big kid he is becoming. I know that I will miss him and yet I know that it is time for him to go and learn and become more and more of who the Lord created him to be. It will be a learning process for me about how I will fit into his school days. I want mornings to be great and yet there has already been mornings that I have lost my patience with the bunch of them. I want afternoons to be great and yet they just seem normal too. We need a new routine, a new normal. So we are working on it. It is also sad to be without my Ella, who I haven't spent much time away from at all so far in her little life. I can't help but be so happy for her though. She has waited so long for this day to be like Bryce and go to school. I know that she is already waiting for kindergarten. Look out world here she comes, all 29 pounds of her.

So we are finding our new normal. And my heart soars because of it and breaks because of it. This whole parent thing, man who knew it would be so hard.

Me and Halle left to eachother. Well Hall, there is no one I would rather be left with!

My Baby Turned 2 Today

These are just a few pictures that I took of Halle tonight. She had such a fun day. She figured out about an hour into today that something was special about today and that she was the star. She probably thinks that biwday (as she says it) means that everyone pays a lot of attention to you and that you get extra sugar. And those are two of her most favorite things.

She is two today and 24 pounds. She can't say L's very good so she says things like "wook it" and she calls herself "Hade" and calls Ella "Eya". She also says peeky boo instead of peek a boo. She calls Mason "Fason". She also tells me she "wuvs me" which melts my heart.

I love her so much. There is not much that is better in this world than Halle when she is happy. Her laugh is heavenly. To be very honest she is sometimes a very hard kid. And there are days that I want to ship her off. But when she is happy she is amazing. And of course I love her even on her most screamy days. Is screamy a word? Well it is in Halle's world anyway.

The fact that she is already two is very disturbing to me, but I am trying to cope.

My Little Angel Fan

Bryce is cracking us up lately with his love for the Angels. There are quite a few Dodger fans in our family I won't mention any names (Jared, Jason, James...) and Bryce will totally stand up to their heckling and give it right back. Last night he was teaching Kaitlyn to say "Go Angels" much to her Dodger loving fathers dismay. He got an Angels shirt when he went back to school shopping so now he can proudly display his team colors in first grade.

And by the way Bryce I am a fan of you.

Cousin Love

Have I Told You Today That I Love Being an Aunt

Adalyn Update.

I still love her.

She is seven weeks old.

She is beautiful.

I am loving her more by the second.

She smiles a lot now.

She has great hair.

I still love her.

Jared and Tiffany Got Married Too...

I don't know if I have mentioned this lately, but we had a weddintanstic summer. Yes we have been doing weddings. I love weddings. I also love my little cousin Tiffany. She is like one of those people that is so adorable all of the time, that you just want to squeeze them constantly. I adore her and I am so happy that she has fallen in love with this very lucky man Jared. I am also so happy that she wanted two of my litter to walk down the aisle with her. I am so excited to see how God will use Tiff and Jared. We are so happy for you guys. We love you and thank you for making us a part of your, oh so special day.

These two are getting ready to make their very professional walk down the aisle.

Daddy's Girls

There are some moments that I just want to file away and revisit later, again and again. These are some of those.

Jason and Meeko's Big Day

Jarrod's brother and my brother in-law married Meeko my now sister in-law. They were married in June on the 2oth. They had a beautiful wedding on a boat in Newport. Bryce Ella and Halle and Jarrod were all honored to be in the wedding. Everyone looked beautiful. I was smart and wore a dress with pockets so I was able to get lots of great pictures. (Of course mostly of the kids.)

We have been able to be a part of so many weddings this summer that it has made me reflect on weddings more than normal. These weddings are really an amazing event. It is this moment in our lives where we pause and celebrate and promise some really big stuff. We promise to love this person that we are marrying for the rest of our lives. Through whatever comes good and bad, beautiful and ugly, heart wrenching or heart warming. As we stand there at the altar we stand at a door way for the rest of our lives. We mostly look at the doorway which is happy and bright (as a wedding should be), because even if we wanted to we cannot see past it. But what is beyond the doorway is life and now after this day we have a partner to walk with the rest of the way. We have someone to hold us up at times, we have someone to hold up at times, we have someone that we will want to get lost along some other trail at times, we have someone to lay down and cry with at times, we have someone to keep our secrets at times, we have someone to roll around on the ground in laughter at times. No matter what comes we have a partner and we have made a covenant before God to love them and stay with them. What an amazing and beautiful thing a wedding is! And may we do what we set out to do. May we do what we promised to do.

Congratulations to Jason and Meeks. We wish you a beautiful life and an amazing journey together.

Introducing Adalyn Joy

I want to officially introduce the world (okay really just my ten blog readers,) to my neice Adalyn. She was born on June 18 2009. She weighed 7lbs and 13ozs and was 18.5 inches long. She was 9 days late. She is adorable. She is six weeks now. She has dimples when she smiles and she loves to cuddle. My kids love her more than I thought that they would. They talk about her all of the time and love to hold and kiss her. Bryce doesn't love it when she cries and gets really worried that she isn't okay. Halle loves to help her with her passy and to buckle her car seat. We all are overwhelmed with how she blesses us. Thank you Addy for coming into our lives. We will love you always.

Courtney's Big Day

My Sister made the most beautiful bride. I am still trying to process the whole event. It is too much emotion to get a hold of. Eventually I will. And then maybe I will write about it.