So Long Summer

It is officially fall now. I say that because I wore jeans the entire day. Being that I stay home most of the day, I get to change clothes when I want. If it is cooler in the morning, I dress for it and then when the heat comes, I put on my tank top and shorts. Well, today there was a constant breeze. The sky was a gorgeous blue and you could hear the leaves blowing in the wind. I kept my long pants on.

So, goodbye pool days. It was a blast! We went one final time to the pool (pictures below). It was a 90 degree day and we had the whole pool to ourselves. We went right after we got our school work done. Ah . . . the benefits of homeschooling. :)

Thanks to our parents that payed portions of the fee for us to have a summer full of swimming. I am so grateful. It didn't take long for me to learn how to be a pool mom. It was uninterrupted time with my kids. I loved it and I know full well that our kids did as well.

Not sure what this was. He (Kalen) was totally posing though.

This is pre-belly flop.

All smiles.

Love

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you

without leaving happier.

Mother Teresa

*photo from the internet

Playing in the Rain

What a joy it was to watch our kids playing in the rain today. It wasn't just sprinkling, the rain was beating down on them. They were squealing, jumping, having mushroom races (seeing whose mushroom floats down the street the fastest), splashing, laying down, and finding worms to fiddle with. I hope they remember this. They totally surrendered themselves to the moment and lived it up. Next time, I might join them. :)

Yes, he is laying down in the stream of water going down our street.

J, K and B all have their worms laid out on our driveway and they are inspecting them in this photo.

Jesus Wants to Save Christians

I just finished a book by Rob Bell and Doc Golden. I am very familiar with Bell's style of writing from his other books Velvet Elvis and Sex God. I really enjoy his interpretations and simplicity. This book is entitled Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Yet again I have been pushed to a place that makes me uncomfortable, broken and inspired. I can't recommend this book enough. It is easy to read and it will change your life. I found a comment on Amazon that said this about the book - bearing a message evangelicals need: that Jesus didn't come just to save people for heaven someday but to transform his followers and the physical world now. Rob Bell truly tries to help us see the world through Jesus's eyes. I know that sounds corny, but I am interested in that. Totally.

I would like to share so much more from this book, but here is just one excerpt that spoke loudly to me.

When you give unconditionally, you will be reminded of the God who gives unconditionally.

When you extend grace to others in their oppression, you are reminded of the grace extended to you in yours.

(later Bell writes)

Our standing in solidarity with the single parent, the unemployed, the refugee, our joining the God of the oppressed to work for justice in the world, doesn't just make a difference for those who are suffering.

It rescues us.

Disconnection from the suffering of the world, isolation from the cry of the oppressed, indifference to the poverty around us will always lead to despair.

We were made for so much more.

Gardening

Our garden needed some much deserved attention today. Just after church and a quick lunch, we all put on our play/garden clothes and made our way to the backyard. Our monster tomato plants had many green tomatoes on them, but we decided to make room for our fall plants. So, we picked the tomatoes with hopes of making fried green tomatoes and pulled up the plants. If I had studied him harder, I may have seen Scott shed a tear. It pains him to say goodbye to our tomato plants. He is one tomato loving guy.

I loved being in the garden today with Scott. Spending time together as we worked on this task was meaningful and sweet- not to mention super productive. We worked for hours as our kids just played in the yard and in the front of our home with neighbors. What a gorgeous day it was!

We pulled up several other plants that were just about done. We left our eggplant. It has ten eggplants growing on it and it is still producing flowers! Scott tilled up the soil and gave us a fresh start for our fall garden. I planted a section of kale seeds and decided to call it a day. This means there will be much more planting this week because we bought onions, sugar snap peas, lettuce, spinach, and chard seeds.

As we worked, our little ones took some photos.

Here is a bowl of green tomatoes, two kinds of peppers and our butternut squash.

Brayden enjoying a caterpillar.

Sweet Maddie cleaning off the slide for her and her brothers to play on.

I Promise

I Promise

I promise to give you the best of myself

and to ask of you no more than you can give.

I promise to respect you as your own person

and to realize that your interests, desires and needs

are no less important than my own.

I promise to share with you my time and my attention

and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.

I promise to keep myself open to you,

to let you see through the window of my world

into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.

I promise to grow along with you,

to be willing to face changes in order to keep

our relationship alive and exciting.

I promise to love you in good times and bad,

with all I have to give and all I feel inside

in the only way I know how,

completely and forever.

by Dorothy R. Colgan

This sweet poem is dedicated to Scott who holds my heart and to Torie and David as they celebrate their 5th Wedding Anniversary. :)

A Cozy

This afternoon, after all our homeschooling table work was done, we went to the museum. We met up with a few of my girlfriends from Durham and their kids. Altogether, we had ten kids. It was quite a crew. We had a delightful time.

While we were there, we visited the butterfly house. Within that building, there is a section that features all sorts of bugs. I was hanging out with Brayden and Kalen as they looked through magnifying glasses at the life cycles of different bugs. Now, these were real things, non-living things, but they had once been living and had somehow been preserved for the museum. They weren't just looking at photos. Kalen is an extremely verbal child. I listened as he talked about what he was seeing. He was looking at the life cycle of a moth. He looked through the magnifying glass at the tiny egg and said, "Mommy, there's the egg . . . oh, now this one is the wormy (referring to the larva stage) . . . and Mommy, this one is the cozy (referring to the pupa or chrysalis stage) and there's the big Moth!" It was completely cute. I pointed to the chrysalis again and asked him what it was and he told me it was a cozy. I had to hear it again. How cute is that? A cozy. I love that. This is laugh jar material.

It's That Time Again

Soccer season has rolled around again. Julian and Kalen are playing this fall. Scott is coaching Julian's team and is an assistant coach for Kalen's team. We make it a family event going out for practices during the week. All our kids have cleats and dress out for practice. We picked up several pairs at local thrift stores and Madelyn's cleats came from a consignment sale I went to. There is something about having on real soccer shoes that is quite inspiring for our kids. Since Scott is the coach for JJ's practice, he encourages and allows Maddie, Kalen and Brady to practice with the team. It is truly fun to watch.

This is Julian's soccer practice. Notice Brayden, the short one in the middle of it all.

This is Brayden and Kalen taking shots on the goal just before Kalen's practice.

Madelyn is an athlete. We have been reassured of this over the past two weeks as she plays hard during these practices. She does everything that is asked and is quite fast. We'll be signing her up in the spring to play soccer.

At the end of their two hours of practices, here is Julian all tuckered out. He is enjoying soccer more than ever.

What? Practice is over? This kid never stops. See those wide eyes? They stay like that until he falls asleep at night. Kalen is an excellent soccer player. We can't wait to see how he grows with this sport this fall.

Here's soccer guy. Brady doesn't need a team in order to enjoy soccer. He is crazy about soccer. Not every three year old could or want to do soccer drills that 9 year olds are doing.

Julian at the Skatepark

Scott took Julian out to a skatepark in Chapel Hill this past Saturday. Julian did great for his first try at it. What a cool kid! Check out the three clips at the bottom of this post of Julian skateboarding on the ramps.

If Scott or Julian were to have created a post about their experience on Saturday at the Skatepark, it would have been a little more exciting and descriptive. This is just a proud mom's attempt to showcase her son's coolness. :) Thanks Scott, for taking the camera!

Photography and videos by Scott ~ I must give credit where credit is due.

Peek-A-Boo

Madelyn thought this would make a great blog post. Julian is the photographer. This is for them.

Another Home Visit

We've been jumping through the various hoops necessary to slowly complete the licensing process of becoming foster parents. Our licensing social worker came by today and we had a delightful and informative time together. She even spoke to our kids. She asked them several things pertaining to fostering a child. Scott and I were in the next room enjoying the sweet and candidness of our children's responses.

We still have several things left to be done in order for this all to become official, but we are getting there. I have learned that this process takes time and that that is okay. The thoroughness that is required is for good reason.

Within the next 180 days, we will be licensed foster parents and have a certified foster home. Then after we are licensed, we will be available for the Department of Social Services to call us. They would call us if they had a child under the age of three (that is the age restriction we gave) that would be suited for our home. They would give us all the information they know about the child. Then we would be given the choice to accept the opportunity or say no. Depending on what is going on in our lives, we could say yes and the child would be immediately brought to our home or we could say no and wait for another opportunity. We will continue to think about the needs, commitments, and desires of our family and try to make wise decisions based on those.

I won't lie to you, we have experienced doubts within the past few weeks. Scott and I have had to ask ourselves some really hard questions. Our willingness to step up to this challenge is breathtaking at times. With those doubts we experience, there is still the desire to provide a child a home and to welcome him or her into what we have here. Hope is still very much alive as we slowly step closer to the possibility of fostering a child someday down the road.

I just wanted to give an update of where we were in the process. I welcome any comments or inquiries. I will keep you all posted. :)

The Eno River

Saturday afternoon, our family headed out to the Eno River. We enjoyed hiking, snacking, river walking, swimming and more. Whenever we go we say that we must do this more often. We had such a great time just enjoying nature. The hike was long, but the kids did well. What a gorgeous day it was.

Here they all are just before the big hike.

This was the awesome Footbridge.

Brayden was so proud of this acorn he found. Just after he found it he told me that those are what the quirels eat.

Here's Maddie on a log with Kalen. She was the cutest thing out on that river just floating on a log that some other kids had found. I am sure Kalen is talking up a storm at this moment. You can tell by the way his hands are out. He loved every minute of this. All except the hike back to the van, of course.

The following is a clip of Madelyn and Kalen in the river. It was so delightful just watching these two surrender themselves to this. They were so peaceful as they enjoyed the water and all that surrounded them. They each had big logs that they were floating with and holding on to. I love that these two have this memory to tuck away from their childhood.

Yes, I got in the river. I can be adventurous. :)

After three hours of hiking and playing, this is Brayden all tuckered out.