Birthdays and Letting Go

 I love this picture of Clay.

 The birthday kids!!!

 I LOVE this picture.  This summarizes Athanasius so well.

 My sweet sweet girl!!

 It is hard to get Athanasius to take a picture so I really cherish these. 

 She is finally getting brave and walking along furniture!

 

 Birthday cake is so thrilling.

 This girl melts me.  :)

 This is Felicity scooting on her bottom to get around, she is actually pretty fast.

The kids birthdays were this month.  Eleanor turned 8 and Athanasius 6.  I would give a lot to spend one hour with the baby version of them.  They have grown so much, I don't just mean physically, but as people.  They have these little inside worlds that I don't completely know about, thoughts and perspectives all their own.  Clayton took the kids to our weekly Tuesday night story time and I am blogging.  It feels so good.  The kids birthdays were great.  I love birthdays, I love spoiling them.  We had some dear friends over and I think the party went wonderfully! 

We are still homeschooling through the summer, but we only go four days a week.  I like it.  I am liking our routine more and more.  I am trying to meal plan more to make life more peaceful and reduce some of my stress.  It is "loose meal planning" meaning only dinner.  I like it, it feels good to have some sort of plan.  I have discovered the amazing and beautiful world of audio books!  I have been a mother for eight years and just now, NOW, am listening to audio books??   This is going to sound strange but I have to breath in a paper bag for thirty minutes everyday, doctor's orders, really.  Really everyone would benefit from it.  But it is helping work on very specific health issues.  Anyhow, I hate it. Thirty minutes feels like an eternity.  One day I was complaining that I can't read my novel while I breath in my bag, so my hero came to the rescue and found it for me on audio!  Thank you Husband!  It was like a whole new world opened up to me.

There is a lesson I keep having to learn..LET GO.  I will think I have a handle on it and then am shown that no, no I do not.  But I am taking baby steps and that is what matters.  My motto for my days is LOVE, PEACE, and HOPE.

I turn 29 in July and feel old.  I know 29 isn't old but I kind of feel it.  I asked Clay, "Where did my twenties go?"  I look at our kids and see where my twenties went.   :)  I was a Mommy by twenty and four babies later here I am.  I didn't take trips around the world or get a masters but I am surprisingly okay and at peace with that.  I have learned a lot of amazing lessons a long the way and have loved and been loved, none of which comes with out hardship and suffering.  But there is beauty in having peace with our stories.