Enter the Double Digits!

Time flies!  Really.  Even when it seems like it's dragging by it's really just an illusion.  You blink, and years have passed.  It's like a flash in the pan.  Seems like just yesterday the girls came to live with us, and we were celebrating Harmony's 7th birthday.  Just this past weekend we celebrated number 10!  How does that happen?

She's grown SO much in form and in spirit.  That little girl that moved in with Nana and Papa a few years ago with all that anger and hostility is quickly (sometimes it really does not seem to be quickly) growing into a more mature young lady.  How can that be?  We've seen enough children through to adulthood by now that we know it really is just a short period of time before they're off and on their own dealing with their own challenges and triumphs.  For now, we're going to enjoy them right where they are, and spend as much time in the present as we possibly can.

Her party was a blast!  Believe it or not we had a house/yard full, and it was pretty much all immediate family.  And, because this mama has no fear we pulled off a double party that day.  You read that correctly.  We celebrated Harmony's 10th birthday from 1-4 p.m. then we followed it up with a little farewell party of sorts to see our Navy son off for his first overseas deployment.  Still can't believe he's on the other side of the world.  Sniff, sniff.  Unfortunately, we didn't get too many pictures from our son's portion of the party, but it's all good.  We have our super fond memories.

With our first batch of children we had birthday parties each year.  Most of them saw their way straight through the public school system, and it was a nice way for me to see the friends they were choosing away from home.  I liked having a little glimpse into their school life.  As the younger portion of that batch grew older and we morphed into a homeschooling family our outlook on birthday parties changed.  Now, with this current batch of wee ones we are taking a totally different approach.  Of course we celebrate as a family each year with their choice of meals and dessert on their actual birthday, but at ages 1, 7, 10, 13, and 16 we will have an actual party with games, friends, and party food.  We all seem to enjoy it much more this way.

Since Harmony turned 10 this year, she got her party.  Unfortunately, her two best friends we unable to attend, but fortunately we have a HUGE family.  So, she got her big party, and it was a blast.  Here are some highlights:

Had a blast making these owl cupcakes!

All the kids got to make nature sun catchers.

All ages love to blow bubbles!

Lawn twister was a blast.

These always take WAY LONGER to fill than you would think...

...but they're SO MUCH fun!

All the kids have been liking soccer lately.

Waiting for cupcakes.

Past, present, and future.

Birthday Girl!

The matriarch and patriarch of our five generations.

Ice cream and four wheelers!

Best buds forever.

And, there were chickens.

Doesn't this just warm your heart?

Silly...

...silly...

...and more silly!

We thoroughly enjoy the natural progression of our family traditions.  It's fun to join the kids in their journey and watch the way they naturally create them along the way.  What traditions have developed over time in your family?  We'd love to hear about them!

*All photos shot by Leah Lauzon and edited by myself.

Just Around the Corner

We went to the first of our weekly OB visits yesterday. Doc says that her body isn't ready to deliver our little Avery yet. Praise God! I am looking forward to having him here, but I am glad to know that I have more time to finish our preparations.

I have been finding wonderful deals on things that are helping in the process of preparing our home for our new bundle of joy. Yesterday, my husband and I picked up a futon style bunk bed for our youngest son that we found through Craig's List. Rearranging his bedroom is our project for this weekend. Last weekend it was the other son's room. Tuesday, my mom helped me go through our office/music room. It was a lot of work with a lot of heavy lifting, but it delivered great reward. Tomorrow, my oldest son and I will be picking up a beautiful sleigh crib with matching changing table and a mattress that we also found on Craig's List. Avery's room is our project that will get started sometime next week.

Can you say, "sore and tired"? I am literally pooped out! I sure hope hubby and I find some time to rest and be together before we have our new addition. My birthday is tomorrow, and I was hoping to spend it relaxing. That will not be the case. I am sure glad that I took advantage of a little pocket of time that revealed itself to me yesterday and went for my free birthday burger at Ruby Tuesday's all by myself. I even had a delicious piece of blackberry cheesecake. Divine! It was a nice 45 minutes or so spent enjoying a quiet corner all by myself. I am a solitary soul, so moments like that are medicinal for me. I was replenishing.

We are praising God that our daughter and the baby are both healthy. All past concerns have been washed away. There are no medical issues to worry about. The plans are to deliver Avery naturally. Hubby and I will take responsibility for him as soon as he enters the world. It will surly be a blessed day. I'll be sure to keep you posted as things develop, lessons are learned, and pictures are taken.

Happy New Year to all!

Growing Up, and Letting Go

For those of us that have teenage and young adult children relating to the transitions that we go through as families is likely easy. It really is a journey with twists and turns, bumps and bruises, and plenty of hills to climb with the occasional slope to glide down, thankfully.

Our family is going through it's final stages of residential children and transitioning to the stage of visiting wee ones. This means that our children are growing up and moving on, and our grandchildren are coming to Nana and Papa's to hang out, cook, eat, play, eat, sleep, eat, sing, eat, read, color, garden, and did I mention eat? How soon we forget just how important food is to little ones! Thankfully, Nana loves to cook, especially with wee ones.

Our second oldest daughter got engaged on Valentine's Day with our blessing. She is planning to marry a wonderful young man. They both have a bright future ahead of them. He is a student at a technical college and almost ready to graduate. Kindness emanates from him. She is a tech for a sleep study company preparing to go back to college. With our new son-in-law we will also get another grandchild. He has a daughter just a couple months older than hers, our oldest grand.

So, for those of you that fell behind in our little math equation here we will have SEVEN children and SEVEN grandchildren as soon as the twins get here and daughter number two gets married. This provided that no one else gets pregnant before daughter number two gets married. This puts our family total up to 16! Can you imagine our holiday gatherings in our 1600 square-foot house with NO basement? It's not pretty people!

With these changes come new challenges. The twins that are being born this month are to our daughter that lives in southern Indiana. We are in Michigan. We already have one grandchild there that we are trying to figure out how to maintain a relationship with him, now there will be two more to keep up with. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to do for him for his birthday this month. It's just in a few days, and I have no good ideas yet.

My goal is to make traditions with all the grandchildren for the holidays and their birthdays. I would like them to know what to expect from Nana and Papa. Obviously, I need to keep it simple. We're still raising children here, and now we have SEVEN grandchildren to buy for on holidays and birthdays. It is important for me to establish connections with them and for them to know who we are, like for real. I don't want it to be this abstract grandparent existence. I really desire for our grandchildren to be impacted positively knowing that their grandparents are there for them and really care about them and their futures. There is security in knowing that someone loves you and believes in you. I want us to be that anchor for them.

This year there will be much to do, much to learn, much to create, much to share, much to provide, and much love to spread around. We just need to figure out how to do it all. It is my goal to go through this transition as conscious as possible and keep it as simple as possible. Weddings, new babies, holidays and 20+ birthdays on the horizon all in the midst of our homeschooling lifestyle. Just how do we do it and stay sane? I'll let you know what I figure out and learn as I figure things out and learn them...