Labor Day 2015

Labor Day: My favorite holiday. 

No presents, no agenda, just the 9 of us hanging outside for 4 days together. I get excited typing about it because I already can't wait for the next one! We've stopped having the hunt at our house, which has it's reasons, but is sad. I miss hearing the gun shots in the morning and wondering how the team is doing down there. It was also always cute to drive down and see 20 gentlemen hands (and charley!) popping up out of camo to wave at you as you drive by! It feels like life in it's simplest, most hospitable, extremely southern form and I love it!

We took the kids for a walk at the Riverwalk and mom wore a tank top with bright flowers all over it. I'm not sure if it was the shirt or her scent, but the butterflies were all over her! I've never seen anything like it!

London and Liz had fun taking front porch pictures of the fam. 

The little one was highly entertained by the photo bomb... 

....and selfies with grandma!

Silly girls!

I had fun on our morning four wheeler excursions (sorry i look like death). I love riding around and looking for things to find. It's like a little treasure hunt because something new and interesting is bound to pop up while we're scooting around the place!

Our friends, the Garrett's, came over for Sunday lunch and hunting so mom took all the girls and too small boys to Friendship Cemetery to explore. Columbus was a hospital town during the Civil War so there are hundreds of unknown soldier grave markers in this cemetery. There's a picture of one below. 

Here's another little ditty about the cemetery: 

On April 25, 1866 the women of Columbus gathered to place flowers of remembrance on the graves of not only the Confederate soldiers at Friendship Cemetery but also the Union soldiers as well. This eventually turned into the nationally recognized holiday of Memorial Day. Columbus, Georgia claims to have founded Memorial Day but Columbus, Mississippi claims to have been the first city to memorialize both the Confederate and Union dead; a fact recognized by the Library of Congress.

LOTS of pics of the kids because I'm still playing with my camera a lot! :)

I like this one!

This was my favorite! Sweet, sweet girl.

These are pictures of the cool memorials we saw. We loved this one. It was placed at the grave of a girl that died in her 20's. We loved the boldness of this lady and the star on her head. Feels like this girl must've had a brave, 'seize the day' kind of spirit in her! 

This memorial is called the Weeping Angel and no amount of pictures can do the beauty of it justice. You get so pulled in by it and just want to sit quiet and grieve with her. 

The angel was placed by the people of my parents church in the mid 1800's after the passing of their beloved pastor. I wonder how expensive ceremonial statues are these days. I wish they still adorned cemeteries like this because it's like walking around an art and history museum. It's a bit gut-wrenching due to all the children buried here, but it also shows such a display of love and honor of family. It was an emotionally stirring day. 

Hundreds of markers that read the same as this one. I wonder who is here. I am so sad for this soldiers mother, who never knew where her boy was laid to rest. Thankful for the hope that they walk streets of gold together today. 

Awkward transition from touching history section to The Dove Slayers!  :) Such a fierce bunch!

Our visitors left later that night after all little people were in bed. The Rhea/Lane adults (minus Chuck because he loves TV and not talking) went to the fridge, grabbed a beverage, and plopped down on the sunroom sofas. We spent the next 3 hours swapping embarrassing stories, life lessons from college, and then it moved into mom telling us stories of Papa. I teared up so many times as she gave us glimpses into his precious life. He was so fun loving! Do you know what his first real job was? A traveling candy salesman. There could not be a more fitting job for my adorable grandfather.
And do you know how he met his wife? He went on a date with her older sister but decided he liked Lottie instead. People did that back in the day. I can't even get a phone call! He got to go on a date with sister #1, then it was totally fine for him to marry HER SISTER! I love it! 

I loved being curled up next to my momma and listening to memories roll off her tongue. What a wonderful, sweet life she's had! 

In NOT obeying the law, we let the kids ride in the way back on the way to lunch Monday. Lala turned around and they were all laying down, watching the clouds through the back window. Umm. They are good for my heart.  

Clear to see why I love it so much.... a beautiful weekend filled with the most beautiful people in the whole wide world. No one distracted with things, all just pining for love from a whole family willing to dish out as much as they can handle. Best. Life. Ever. 

Caden's summer of baseball 2015

Just jumped on to work on a post and forgot that I had this one loaded as a draft post. Here's a summer full of baseball pictures of sweet Caden! Their team didn't win the championship but this guy is a champ to me! 

An end of the season letter written by their coach. Such sweet words!

Weekends Lately

A pictures post of life lately:

The Birmingham Barons, our baseball team, host one game per year with a Star Wars theme. It's also 'Pyrotechnic Night' which is the biggest firework show of the season. We went last year and had a blast so we've made it a tradition to catch this game! We love going to the games plus the enormous fireworks show is too good to miss! We didn't see as many Star Wars characters as last year, but we had a big crowd with us so there were lots of really sweet kids to play with!

Jedi Knox and London

The next day we went Christmas shopping because it was hot as creases and that's when I do my Christmas shopping! London apparently decided she was going to be one of those department store sample girls and had a whole plan to walk around West Elm with her gloves on (to be clean) and she would let all the people sample her lipgloss. There were (clearly) no takers but she had fun offering her services to the ladies! :)

School is still not on the 'list of favorite things' so y'all please pray with us that she finds a way to start looking forward to it. She has fun once she's there but she ask if I will PAH-LEEEAAASSSEEE not make her go every morning. Bless her heart. I never expected this transition to be so difficult for her. She does, however, forget that she doesn't want to go to school between brushing her teeth and actually getting to the school house and is happy as a clam until the handoff. 

Could this scene get any cuter? I love it so much!

I teach spin on Wed/Thurs evenings so I've allowed us one 'eat out night' on one of those nights since it's such a rush. We tried a new pizza place down the street from our house that advertises the 'big slice' pizza. While we were ordering, they pulled this monstrosity out of the oven. This is a 3 foot pizza. THREE FEET. It wasn't spectacular but was really fun to ohh and ahh over! (Note: this was not our order! We had one slice each!)

This is Jill's front yard... We drove up one day and there was a perfect semi-circle of mushrooms growing in their yard! A few people said this is called a 'fairy ring' and the folk lore is something along the lines that fairies live under the mushrooms or they grow after fairies dance in a circle... so clearly London has been all about these mushrooms and runs to the front yard every time we're there to see if she can see any fairies. :) 

I'm really interested in learning how to use my new camera so I've been reading a book about it and looking up photography tips on how to best use it. I don't know ANYTHING about aperture, shutter speed, etc so the best place that I've found to get tutorials for idiot adults is.... the National Geographic for Kids website! :) The tutorials are really simple, clear, and fun! Here's one attempt that we tried of 'throwing light'. London is holding two glow sticks and waving them all around while I take her picture. 

Here's another picture taken the same way but the website gave us tips on 'how to turn your friend into a ghost". Dear tutorial, great instructions. I love that we were successful in learning new things but this picture weirds me out. It gives me a strange emotional response! Yesh!

By the time Friday rolls around, we are both wiped out. So, this Friday we kept it very low key and rested. After the tough prior two weeks, seeing this smile and hearing that giggle was good for my heart. It's hard to walk through this world as a momma. Every instinct is to protect your kids, and when it's a situation you can't correct and make good, it's difficult. This is one of the first times we've gone into a stage where she's just had to keep plowing forward and find happiness in there somewhere. I haven't loved this road, but as with all the rest of my life, I'm confident God is with us, allowing this story to be written so that we can help encourage the moms or kids who come behind us. So, we'll keep looking for the joy and doing our best to be thankful for the abundance that He so graciously gives us. 

An architectural history of America.... in Legos.

A friend called with an 'I read your blog' that turned into a great, long overdue catch up. So, blogging is totally worth it and I'll fire a few of these out while I'm still motivated! :) 

A friend posted a picture on social media about taking her kids to the mall to see a lego exhibit. We've never been to Lego Land (or the lego store) so we didn't know the extent to how cool these exhibits are. We passed by the mall and decided to quickly run in and take a look. 

I read online today that the current exhibit (Americana something or other) is touring to 12 malls in the US this year so it was great that B'ham was chosen for one of the stops. Turns out there were lots of displays (not just one like I thought) and they were incredible! The amount of detail was unreal. And, bonus, built in history lesson! NICE! 

(History lessons usually go down like this: "Baby, this is the Lincoln Memorial. You've seen this in 'Night at the Museum' when the huge Abraham Lincoln walks around Washington D.C. and rescues everyone trapped in the Museum.... anyway, they built this as a memorial for President Lincoln a long time ago. Also, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a really famous speech here." 

Lord, I hope she's smarter than what I'm teaching her!)

President Lincoln. Famous for his role in 'Night at the Museum 2'. 

Jefferson Memorial

Department of Justice

United States Capital Building 

It took the Lego 'Master Builders' 1700 hours to build this exhibit! 

And a stolen picture of Lady Liberty that I stole because my picture didn't turn out. Amazing, right?!

First Week of Big school

Hi there, blog! Long time no see! Really long time. My bad on that. I wish I could promise that I had an iron resolve to be the most dependable blogger of ALL TIME! But, good gracious.... life, man. Why don't I skip the excuses and just pick up and tell stories! 

My baby started Kindergarten last week. 

Oh, right. She's not a baby anymore. 

The last 5 years were clearly sucked into a time-warped, black hole. I feel like I could pull facts and data that there is no possibly way she is old enough to be in elementary school, but somewhere in the rush of life, 5 years have come and gone. Of course, there is an element of sadness to this because I'd do anything to slow time down,  but we've lived a lot of fun life in these 5 years, so instead I'll do my best to celebrate this milestone! 

I felt like we were both really prepared for Kindergarten. I wasn't weepy.... I was focused on the fact that elementary school will be a blast! She honestly didn't seem to care one way or the other. She was rocking along like normal. The night before school started, Champion of the Bedtime Stall Game decided to make a run for her world record and took forever to get to sleep. 

We woke up for our new early-squirrely routine and crumbled into a teary puddle. Bless that heart. It was so early and she was so sleepy and I told her she couldn't take her blanket that smells like the inside of a dumpster to school with her and I was unrivaled in my motherly horribleness. (Thankfully she came home from school with the "no blankets allowed" rule and all was peachy since her new cool teacher had sweetly laid down the same law that I attempted at a much less cheerful hour of the morning!) But really, that blanket has got to go. 

Thankfully, I did make a 'first day of school' sign, which she was really hoping I'd get for her and we found joy before we left the house! (Side note- the "wall of awesome" in the background is one of the culprits for why I haven't blogged. Pintrest said it would be SO EASY. Umm humm. Pinterest lies. All of the time.) 

Our house is one block from school so we get to walk to school in the mornings! It's my new very favorite thing. At the moment, there is nothing better than these sweet few minutes with her. Knox lives a few blocks in the other direction so we meet up at the corner and all walk over together. These two might have been trying to hide their new school nerves so they held hands and braved this big new world together! :) What a sweet, sweet blessing to have each other on days like this! 

The first day of school was good! They didn't do much but she enjoyed it! Sweet Lala had planned a FaceTime date after school so we could all hear about our young-uns first days back! They had so much fun telling each other stories from their classes, friends, recess, and lunch breaks! Another enormous blessing to be so close to our darling family! Look at all the joy in these faces! 

Kindergarten has not gone quite as smoothly over the past week. We had an after school pick up mistake that scared her a little. And the big kids aren't as nice as she thought they'd be,  and they are really big and walk fast in the halls. She loves her teacher and friends, but it's been a hard week for both of us as London's come face to face with a more harsh real-world than she was expecting. It's been hard for me to watch her little light dim slightly. Heart breaking actually. But we are healing together, and talking ALOT about how to stick to what you know when the scene around us changes. Be kind, be brave, and people will follow suit. Even if they are scary at first. 

I know this makes for a long 'first time back' post, but my favorite, Glennon, wrote about the first day back feelings and just nails it.... 

"I just dropped Chase off at middle school. MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Like I’ve been doing for three weeks now—I let him out of the car. I let him walk away from me and toward that huge building filled with PEOPLE AND DYNAMICS AND IDEAS and other horrible wonderful things that will break his heart and MAKE his heart and that I have no business trying to control. I let him walk toward a life that is HIS and not mine. Toward experiences that he is meant to have without me. Toward journeys he has to take alone.

Someone needs to create a word that describes what happens inside of a mama’s heart as she’s watching her child walk into a school building. We need a word for the feeling that overtakes her after saying goodbye to her infant who is somehow masquerading as a young MAN and who is walking away from her into his adolescent life. A word to describe the phenomena that is a mother sitting helplessly in her empty van while her heart silent screams her daily PLEASEPLEASEPLEASES!!! PLEASE be good to him. Please see his strengths and overlook his weaknesses. Please sit by him at lunch. Please smile back when he smiles. Please want to be his partner. Please be gentle. Pleasepleaseplease. PLEASE.

And how as she watches him walk away—toward the unknown of his day and away from the KNOWN of her (SO BRAVE! HOW DID HE GET SO BRAVE??? IS THIS LEVEL OF INSANE BRAVENESS EVEN WISE????) her head understands that the world is unfolding as it should. Her head KNOWS that all is well. That he is beginning his LIFE and that LIFE in all its bruty is what he came here for. And that he is ready. But her heart will not receive that memo. Her heart wants to run after him and pull him close and say: JUST JOKING HONEY! WE MADE A MISTAKE! THIS IS TOO MUCH! Come home and we will stay together forever and I will make sure that life NEVER HAPPENS TO YOU. Don’t worry. We will snuggle forever. Because I am not ready.

So she just sits in her empty van for a moment—holding up the car line for a split second too long. Her body is temporarily paralyzed, short circuited by the opposing messages from her head and her heart. The mixed messages SWARM her being and all at once she feels pride and fear and terror and excitement and hope and hopelessness and tenderness and ferocity and loss and gain. All these emotions swirl until her heart becomes so swollen that it threatens to escape out of her throat into tears and so she instructs herself to snap out of it. She shakes herself a bit. She breathes deeply and shrugs it all off and she drives away. And on her way home she tries to restore her heart to its original size by thinking of other things. Practical things. Because it’s all too much. Whatever that feeling is—it’s a lot like looking right at the sun. It’s simply too bright to stand for longer than a moment."

- See more at: http://momastery.com/blog/#sthash.7r8Tusvi.dpuf