Brandon gives me a book from the Anne of Green Gables series every year for Christmas. This year it was Anne of Ingleside. I've been reading a chapter or two from it every night for the past few weeks. The other night I read a part where Anne reflects on how her children are growing up. She thinks:
Well, that was life. Gladness and pain . . . hope and fear . . . and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let the old go and take the new into your heart . . . learn to love it and then let it go in turn. (page 212)
I've been thinking about that a lot the past few days. These years with the kids all little and home from school really aren't that long. They seem long. Sometimes it seems like the kids will never get older. But deep down I know this time is fleeting. It wont be long before our lives change and this time is just a memory.
So here are some pictures that I can look back at when the kids are in school and I'm back on the career track again. These are of the moments that will make me say, "I LOVED being a stay at home mom!"
We still do Family Home Evening but it's a lot more abbreviated these days. We are together all day long so there isn't a point to staying up past bedtime in order to hang out some more. Instead of making cookies we usually do some sort of activity. One night we made volcanoes with baking soda and vinegar. The girls kids loved them.
Charlotte and Lydia play together constantly. They are always pretending something. One of the things they like to do is play movie night in my room. They move their little couch and the cushion in there. They bring all their babies to watch the movie. They even borrow the "little remote" from the stereo and use that.
I love that we have a park right across the street from us. When it is warm we will go there in the morning and then again in the evening. On Tuesday I had the door open while I hurried to grab the bathroom garbages to take them out. Next thing I knew Derrick was across the street and halfway to the park. He loves going there and sliding.
Veronica has graduated from the front pack and into the stroller. A lot of times we'll be at the park and little girls will volunteer to push her around. It is so nice.
Here are the girls hiding from Derrick while he slides down. He loves to slide down and then climb right back up the slide.
Charlotte is very attached to her dog Hundley. He goes every where with her. She loves to pull him around while she walks. She does this at home, at the park, at the store, at story time, and anywhere else we go. People always smile when they see her "walking" Hundley.
Lydia likes to push Veronica, "ALL BY
MYSELF!" She blows on my hands if I try to help steer.
We've had some very nice days. As in 75 degrees perfect weather days. It's the kind of weather that makes you happy to be alive. I make sure we spend lots of time outside on those days. We really like spending time on the patio. My goal for this year is to not let the fire ants take over.
Charlotte and Lydia have finally made it past that awful transition period between needing a nap and not needing a nap every day. They can stay awake all day without any grumpiness taking over. But some days they still fall asleep randomly. One day I found Lydia asleep in a pillow case in my room.
Before Brandon left he went to the USO where they recorded him reading some books to the kids. The recordings and the books showed up last week. The kids didn't really care about the recordings (other than they were happy to see Daddy) but they were really excited about the books. We received "The Cat in the Hat," "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish," and "10 apples up on top."
Sometimes I feel like I am raising myself when I see Charlotte. Aside from her curly hair she looks just like me. She also acts just like me. For example, she is always building little houses. That's something I did constantly as a kid.
Last week we went to McDonalds so we could hang out with my friend Kelly and her kids. Everyone loved the play place.
As usual, Hundley came too.
Movie night is still one of our favorite things to do. I really don't know how I could motivate the kids to take a bath and let me comb out their tangle without it. The girls love to make popcorn for movie night. They keep track of who's turn it is to push the buttons that week.
Here is another picture of a house that Charlotte build out of books.
Along with trying to keep the fireants at bay I'm also trying to make the back yard a nice place to play. That means trying to get rid of the weeds before they get all pokey. I asked Elder Coombs to come spray weed killer on our yard, but first we had to rake up the leafs that were on the lawn. I borrowed rakes from two neighbors and went to work. I didn't think we had that many leafs back there, but there were enough to make a pretty decent pile for the girls to play in.
They called it their nest and played in it for a long time. It felt a little odd to be raking leafs in February, but hey the leafs didn't fall until December so I guess that's the way it goes around here.
I'm in the process of re-arranging Veronica's room so it is less of a storage room. I'm moving a lot of stuff from the shelves in there onto the shelves our actual storage room. (funny how it took me a year to figure that out.) Charlotte and Lydia like to play in the big empty space in the big shelf. They call it an elevator. Charlotte pretends to be the Doorman from Curious George. Lydia is the man in the Yellow Hat. Curious George is imaginary, but Hundley is Hundley.
My neighbor Ange and I were planning to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go camping together on Friday night. But then the weather turned cold and the forecast said it would be 37 degrees on Friday night. So instead we stayed home and roasted hotdogs in her outdoor fire pit. The kids loved jumping on Ange's trampoline.
Derrick was a little unsure at first. But then he got really into jumping.
I don't know how cold it was during the night on Friday night, but Saturday day turned out to be warm and gorgeous. I took all the kids to "the Lion Park." We pass the park on the way to church and the kids always want to go play there.
No one else was at the park at first so we had a picnic up on the playground instead of the picnic benches. It was really fun. I held Veronica in front of me and she sat for the first time.
Here are Charlotte and Lydia playing in the cupboards. Like I said they are always playing together. Three is a very fun age.
Yesterday we received 4 Daddy Dolls from our FRG (Family Readiness Group) people. The girls were especially happy to have these. They slept with them and took them to church today. I'm so grateful for all the resources available to help us out while Brandon is away.
As much as I would love to have Brandon here right now, I'm doing okay without him. I think I've even learned to love this phase of my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment
What do you think?