Summer Recap

In short, we had fun!  

 At the end of last semester we all felt a great need to take a break.  We needed family time, we needed margin, we needed to get outside, to play hard, to find ourselves with more time than things to do.  Although our summer wasn't perfect in all of those, I think we came as close as we could with this many people and circumstances that are sometimes out of our control.

 We headed to South Dakota for our annual summer vacation.  It wasn't as long of a trip as we usually take (except the car ride...that never seems to change).  We spent some great time in the Black Hills and great time with extended family.

I think Aidan is doing an exceptionally good job pretending that he's concerned that the lawnmower didn't start.  In the end it did start, and he did have to mow.  Bummer for him. 

 We had a handful of visitors and got to play "tourist" a little bit too.  We live in such a great place and love getting to explore!

 We had a lot of rain this summer so our garden is maybe not quite as good as it was last year, but we're still getting plenty of produce to spend a few evenings canning.  Always a learning curve there, and always a great way to remind us that this good food comes from somewhere and it takes work to be able to enjoy it year round.

 The kids have soaked up a lot of sunshine this summer and it seems like they have grown in leaps and bounds because of it.  Lately they have been spending their days outside, running around barefoot, making a mud kitchen, hanging pretend laundry on a pretend clothesline (this was necessary after they tried "washing" clean clothes from the house and hanging it up on the real clothesline), reading, climbing trees, etc.  I had a great childhood, no complaints here, but is it okay to admit that I'm a bit jealous of theirs?

And so our summer ends.  School is right around the corner.  While I'm never fully ready to tackle all that will come my way during the school year I find solace in knowing that it doesn't all come at once (usually!).  The baby, who is growing faster than any baby we've ever had, is 100% mobile, the almost 3-year-old has been "3" for awhile and always has some adventure up her sleeve, and on top of that we have a Kindergartener, 2nd grader, 5/6th grader (I can never really remember), an 8th grader and a High Schooler!!!!  Let's do this thing!

Lovely delight

I interrupt the grief of the day to introduce a little joy.  Okay, a lot of joy.  Joy in the every day, the beauty, and truth of our beautiful world.  

All sweet 7 of them

Okay, not my kid, but a "kid".  This little friend prevented us from eating our lunch at an outdoor animal "park" one day. Seriously climbed up onto our table and helped himself to our picnic.  We went away amused, but hungry.

16 years and that guy still makes my heart leap! 

A HandFULL

As in..she's FIVE!!!

Oh, how we love spoiling this girl!  I love days when the "yeses" are continuous and I (almost) never have to tell the girl "no".  

This past year has been her best yet.  Another year of zero hospital visits (how I long for when that's not even something we count anymore), another year of growing, a year where her biggest joy was getting to be a big sister again.  

A tradition that I started years ago was hanging what we call "picture posters" all over the house for the birthday kid.  With Felicity this is especially important for me to do because although I do hang a couple of "NICU-baby" pictures I mainly try to find "normal-baby" pictures to hang up.  It's important for her to see, but it's equally, if not more, important for me to see those pictures.  So much of her life has been centered around what's "wrong" and trying to help her that seeing "normal" is so good for my mommy heart.  Maybe this summer when we head back to SD to visit the grandparents, when we pull into their downtown parking garage she won't say, "Oh, why are we at the hospital!". Maybe, just maybe. 

And Then There were 9

Isabella Magdalene Anne was born on Dec.1, 2015 at 4:04pm.  She weighed a whoppin' 8.5lbs and was 21.5" long...our largest by far.  I'll try to write down her birth story for those of you who are interested in that type of thing.

My pregnancy, her birth, and recovery was all a little more difficult.  Was it because I'm older, she's #7, or just because? Who knows.  I am happy to report that she's 6 weeks old and I'm finally feeling mostly back to normal.

Bella was baptized on New Year's Eve and we were so excited that her godparents were able to come all the way from Kansas City to attend!  We had a blast with them and really hardly noticed that there were 17 kids and 4 adults in the house for the whole weekend.  Tons of fun, I tell ya!  Tons of fun!!!!!

We hit the books again at the beginning of the week and I'm mostly pleased with how it's going.  I really just want to snuggle my sweet babe and let the kids run wild, but that's never good for any one. So, I snuggle the sweet babe and try to keep the others on track.  I think we were all ready to get back to work.

I'm not sure how often I'll get to this blog, but when I do, be warned that there will be plenty of baby pictures!

Warning! I'm baaaaack!

Hello there, remember me?  I have a blog.  This is it.  I sometimes forget to write anything on it.  Forgive me?  Thanks!  

I'm sure I have a lot to say since it's been a very long time since I've said anything in this space.  But, I'll wait.  I'll let you feast your eyes on pictures of my kids.  That's more fun anyway.  

Pretty soon this blog will be full of pictures of our new little bundle, who has not arrived just yet, but promises to make her entrance soon.  Promises I tell you! 

Wait, did I even announce on here that we did indeed find out what we're having and she's a she?!?!?!   Aidan has maintained his status as favorite brother to all these girls!  

Picture Post

Sooo...yeah.....um, hello!?  Remember me?  My name's Meghan and I used to blog here.  Not sure what happened to the past several months, but I guess that's what happens, right?  Living life, not blogging it.  But I wanted to be blogging it, I just wasn't. So, here are some pictures (okay, a lot of pictures....of the toddler, mainly) to get this blog back up and running.