Back to School!

Evan often comes up next to me to measure how tall he is and tells me how he's catching up to me in height. I have no doubt that he'll outgrow me sooner than later and it's going to be a sad day! That said, another school year has come around and they're another year older, another grade smarter. These boys of mine are growing so fast and in so many ways! It's true that babies don't keep, we now have a third and first grader in the house. In the words of DJ Tanner-oh my lanta!

Since we've adopted the year round calendar the bigs and I have been back at school for a bit now, but our homeschool co-op has just begun AND Asher started preschool this week, so the traditional back to school pictures are in order! Here are my little men on campus...

And I can't very well leave out my girl, who is her brother's biggest cheerleader and the apple of their eyes. :-)

I'm so thankful that homeschooling affords us the opportunity to be together. I know I'm waxing sentimental here, but what a gift it is to see my kids know and love one another. While they do of course have their fair share of those normal "sibling moments," we have a unique opportunity to spend our days together in a way that many families do not. The time, the time, the time-the purposeful, the stressful, the fun, the loud and quiet times, the unplanned and restful times-it's all invaluable.  I jokingly say that one of the reasons we homeschool is because I want my boys to do the "Amazing Race" together one day. Meaning simply that I want them to have the type of relationship where they'd WANT to something amazing together like travel the world and have the skills to succeed side by side -and have fun doing it of course! All that to say, it's really cool to see the endearing, every changing-always growing relationships my kids have with each other. I'm so deeply thankful for these days-it's worth paper plates and cold coffee and so much more.

And so, back to school we go!

Summertime!

***EDITORS NOTE-As life goes, this post has been sitting unpublished in my "draft" file and is now woefully overdue! In any case, better late than never-let's get caught up!***

And just like that, it's mid July and we've already plowed thru the summer! Here are some highlights so far...

To celebrate another school year in the books we drove to Asheboro for a visit to the NC Zoo. While the weather was a little unpredictable to start, it ended up being a beautiful day!

The unanimous highlight of this visit was the "Birds of flight" show.  Worth every penny! The show was so engaging, and seeing those colorful sun conures right in front of you is awe inspiring-especially through a child's eyes. Not to mention the vast variety of birds had quite the arsenal of impressive hat tricks. We talk often about God as our creator, and how good He is to have made this world full of dynamic and beautiful colors(and sights and sounds) for us to enjoy. What an awesome day it was to soak in God's intricate, intelligent design as we observed these amazing animals up close and personal.

My sister(auntie Sami as she's affectionally called now) came to NC for a visit. The cousins enjoyed their reunion and we spent lots of time in the water and on the playground between here and Goldsboro. We also had a special visit from Grammy Jane-so fun to see 4 generations side by side!

 

We said our goodbyes after a spectacular fourth of July fireworks show on the air force base. I couldn't be more excited for all the adventures that lie before her in Germany. Thanks to modern day social media, she's but a FaceTime call away. :-)

In other summer headlines, the boys have been swimming the afternoons away on our local neighborhood swim team. To be honest it's been more of a commitment than we anticipated, but I can't express enough how much those boys look forward to practice everyday-Bennett usually has on his swim trunks after lunch!  Yesterday we wrapped up the season with a final swim meet, and we couldn't be more proud of our big fish.

 

Miss Amelia is 7 and a half months old now(not that I'm counting the days) and is a perfect slice of pie. Really, I thank the Lord everyday for such a content baby! She's just started to put the whole crawling puzzle together and I think she's going to take off anyway -or any minute. She loves toast with strawberry jam for breakfast, and much to mommy's dismay has started pulling bows down from her pretty little head haha!

Not to be overlooked, we spent the week of the fourth seaside with Chris' family at Topsail. But since this post has already gone long, I'll save our beach getaway for next time!

PS-We FINALLY broke out the popsicle mold Evan got for his birthday. We made watermelon lemonade pops and they were sweet, sticky success!