The morning routine is gradually becoming less chaotic. We read scriptures together from 6:30-6:40 and have breakfast. Elle and Grace are out the door by 7:05. They back out of the driveway with the sun slanting behind them. Sometimes it’s with a slam and a huff, and sometimes it’s with “I love you’s,” you never quite know what you’re gonna get.
Then the little girls and I are alone (sometimes with Dave but often he’s off for a meeting right away and it’s just us). They do their jobs, we hang in their bathroom, baths every other morning and braiding wet hair or curls, and spilling out the beans on who’s doing what at recess and sometimes they finish homework as I do hair.
Sometimes I’m frustrated during those moments. Why can they not put away the stuff on the counter two inches lower where there are drawers carefully laid out with a “home” for everything? “Why didn’t you tell me you needed to finish that project yesterday when I could have helped you instead of right now?” “Did you make your bed?” “Will you sign my agenda??” (sadly sometimes asked five times because I’m too distracted). BUT, other mornings…most mornings, none of us are stressed. All of us are happy. And love fills up the air around us.
Sometimes these little girls of mine even match.
I know babies don’t keep. I know the poem and all that jazz. But sometimes I sure wish they did.
Grace and her friends are thick as thieves and are constantly in need of a ride somewhere and are counting down the days until they each will get their driving licenses.
She has lucked out with lots of photography jobs and a part time babysitting job after school (she goes half-day this year) so she’s doing well at saving up for college as she wills it to stay at bay for as long as possible.
We do FHE (or family council) right after church every Sunday. We do an activity on Monday night.
STILL after all these years this is just what works for us.
Our family room is kind of a sacred place to me. Not only do we use it to gather for Family Home Evening (complete with family business, our family motto and a lesson), we have family scriptures here each morning before school and Max’s setting apart took place here (one of the vivid beautiful nights I can remember).
Plus, I can’t complain about how the light bathes the people who sit in that room…
On Sunday nights we wait anxiously for Max’s letters. He’s fifteen hours ahead of us in Taiwan, so as the light fades here, it is a bright p-day morning there. I imagine him sitting in an internet cafe trying to concentrate so he can write.
We hold on to each of his words and find ourselves laughing about the funny things he says days after we hear from him.
We have planted a garden (finally after years and years of good intentions), and have big plans to figure out all the ins and outs of gardening in the desert.
This is still Lucy’s preferred mode of transportation to the bus:
Either Dave or I run alongside her as she rides (she’s getting so good at bike-riding but we’re so worried about her eyesight). And this is how we get home:
Our knees pumping up to our shoulders with each pedal since the bike is so small:)
There are kids at our house a lot and we love it.
In an effort to feed them (and get our kids so they don’t like it any more), Dave has had a plan to stock our pantry with sugar cereal. He figures if it’s always around, the kids will get sick of it and not like it any more. That plan is not working.
But it sure makes the neighborhood kids happy!
Claire babysits once a week for our sweet friends who just adopted two kids from Ghana. She sparkles when she comes home because she loves it.
Lucy is tidy.
She has taken it upon herself to make sure everything in her bathroom (the one she shares with Grace and Claire) is put away each night before she goes to bed and each morning before she leaves for school. I think it is darling.
There is always art all over the house from Lucy. She works diligently at so many projects and I adore them all.
We have “gifted” our kitchen sinks to our daughters. They are in charge of every dish that goes in them. This grand plan worked for a while, but is unraveling quickly as the school year draws to an end.
Job check-lists too.
We will start anew next school year and figure out some whiz-bang plan to keep them going.
But for now, I’m ok to let things slide.
Because my babies are leaving one by one. And I just want to memorize them.
I love this chalk board barn door we have going into the kitchen from the girls’ bedrooms:
Lucy has sort of taken over this homework space and uses it as her desk:
Oh, there is so much more, but that will do to capture that tail end of the 2016 school year before everything started shifting and heaving to change once again as Elle took off.
I’m so grateful for all those moments and things that make us a family.
As I was reading the part of the post about your Lucy riding her bike to the bus stop and heard the sadness in your words, this story came to mind….I grew up in a ward with a blind woman. She was blind since infancy and I remember this story she shared with my siblings and I when we were kids. She said, "I loved riding my bike with my siblings and friends and we would go to parks and other places on our bikes. We would also go to a coal yard. I didn't know that coal was black or that it would show up all over us from playing in it. My friends and siblings didn't tell me and when we would arrive home, I would always get in trouble for playing in the coal yard. The other kids would dust off the soot but I didn't know to do that." She would laugh about that experience. She also shared how much freedom riding a bike gave her and she felt like the other kids, even though she was blind. I have thought about that for years, how brave her mother was to allow her to experience bike riding. She could follow the other kids voices and learned various routes. I think it was amazing.
I love that story. There's a podcast about a blind boy who learned to ride his bike through noises that sounds similar… I need to re-listen to it. I'm so inspired by stories like this so thanks for sharing!
I love this post. It is so inspiring for the everyday life . Thank you so much for your blog. I have kids too but my oldest is a girl and then four boys.:)
Five*
could you please tell me where you bought your couch, pillows, and white square frames from the hallway wall off the kitchen?? Thanks.
The couch is from Thrive furniture, the pillows are just a random assortment I found (Home Goods, Crate & Barrel, a place called "Potato Barn"), and the white square frames are from IKEA). I know it's been ages since you asked this question, and I'm sorry I'm slow…but there you go for what it's worth!