Sunday Afternoon

We're settling back into school routines, with early alarm clocks reminding us summer has ended. In case we weren't certain, the leaves are falling rapidly, hitting the ground with a golden hue. Back-to-school colds are already making their presence, our annual gift we'd be happy to let go. It's my last year before all three are in school full-time; it's bittersweet, making me pause and wonder how that much time has slipped through my grasp, while making me relearn time management. Life's funny like that. We sit there holding our newborns, swearing to ourselves we'll soak up all these moments because it'll pass so quickly. But yearning for a little more- like getting out the door in a timely manner, and in one-piece. Then finding ourselves with older children, yearning for more control, like we had when they were babies, when we could bundle them up and load them up in the car. Life's funny like that. An ever-evolving circle that we're at the helm of, navigating through all the ups and downs.

Rodeo

On his first birthday, he received a red cowboy hat. Much like the magic contained in Frosty's cap that winter day, this one quickly & quietly transformed him into a cowboy. Flash forward twenty-five years, and his children now share the passion, guided along by both their parents who've been riding their entire lives. The hard-work, the determination, the passion, all blended together, to create a family fierce with skills. At our annual Labor Day Rodeo, these skills were on demonstration for all, & resulted in both All-Around Cowboy & All-Around Cowgirl honors. I imagine someday, probably quite soon, their children will be garnering those honors.

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Home

On the cusp of changing seasons, lives change alongside. Children quietly get older, day by day, until we, usually shocked, find them to be new people. Personalities grow, just as the inches. But the most pronounced change is often when we welcome a new baby into the family. When the conversations of five-year olds are now accompanied by the sounds of a newborn. When the school schedules are accompanied by infant schedules. When the dynamics of two children becomes the dynamics of three children. The love grows and the walls inside our homes swell with the new memories created. Just as the seasons welcome each other, the family does the same. Quickly and quietly.

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September: 10-on-10

The first of August began with mixed emotions, mostly because it meant in less than a month we'd be back to school. & now here we are, two weeks into school. With each year these kids get older, time slips faster & faster. While our summer days are documented to prove we did actually do something over the past three months, it feels like I only blinked. I don't mean to imply the days were easy, quiet, or calm. Mostly they felt like organized chaos. But even in the longest, loudest, craziest of them all, I'd take one-hundred more, starting now.

Continue our circle with Bethany.

100 Days of Summer, week 13

August 17th: checking on the potatoes

August 18th: a sudden surge of birds in windows has hit the neighborhood

August 19th: lunch on the deck, with live music

 August 20th: the first time she wrote her ABC's

August 21st: goodbye broken washing machine

August 22nd: hanging on to the last of the deck days

August 23rd: dental cleanings, checking off the to-do before school ist