Sharing a little bit of loveliness today

Julia wanted a photo shoot.  She stole borrowed one of Savannah's shirts.  We hit the park on a day where lighting was less than desirable - far less than desirable.  You can see some of her personality regardless.

daring

setting up the shot - she's really good at camera angles and editing photos

Some of Julia's artwork...these were done for Savannah - hence the architecture theme

and this one for this weekend - included in Savannah's Easter care package :)

What's so good about Good Friday?

Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Mark 15:37-38

Just two small sentences mix despair, love and ultimate sacrifice. Hope lived in that torn curtain where God opened his sanctuary to ALL of his people, and it would be three days of grieving and anxiety before they would see hope fully realized.

I am always amazed by the torn curtain.  The symbolism.  The supernatural aspect of it.  That small detail mentioned after the agonizing reality that an innocent man carried the weight of the world's sins onto a cross.  Then the curtain which opened the access to the Holy of Holies.  The curtain that was the hint that Jesus would be the intercessor for his people who could now go directly to God without the help of a priest.  

God amazes me!

Sometimes you never know the last

As a mom you will likely mark many milestones, but you will also miss many as well.  Some milestones are big and in your face while others seem insignificant until later.

You likely won't remember the exact day that you took your child's hand for the last time to cross the street or the last time your child cuddled in your lap before they grew too tall.

We faced a couple of lasts unknowingly last summer.  We love the summer swim and dive team, and Julia refuses to return to it this summer.  We certainly did not expect that- not that she won't return next year or the following year.

Last summer when Savannah was home, she planned to return to dorm life, so we had no reason to believe that she would not be home this summer.  However, the game changed.  Somehow during a search for summer internships, Savannah found a ministry based internship right in our own hometown.  It's an eleven week commitment, and she will be serving the inner-city.  Unlike many other internships (aside from teaching), this one is not a paid internship.  In fact she has to raise the money to do it.  Savannah will live on site with the other interns and will be handling digital media.  This is designed to raise and train the future leadership of the church.  The good news is that she will be in our hometown and will have one day a week off that she can hang out with us.  The bad news is that her one day a week off is the day the pool is closed, and Savannah is traditionally my pool buddy.

When Savannah returns to school in the fall, she will be in an apartment, so I don't see her returning to our home unless it is necessary when she graduates.  Even then she will have to pursue a Master's degree in her field, and the only local state school probably does not have the program.  If it does it is irrelevant.  After three people in this family have had terrible experiences there, we have decided that they will not see another penny from us once Zach finishes his program - transferring to another school has not been ruled out.  It's that bad.

I am so proud of Savannah.  This decision was easy and tough.  The reality is that if we can afford a family vacation this summer (looks highly unlikely), Savannah cannot go with us.  That will be really tough.  Savannah's heart is in this. She's so excited!

Not quite retired!

When a gymnast leaves the sport, they call it retiring instead of quitting.  Julia left artistic gymnastics for a few reasons at the old age of seven.  It was painful for me to not allow her to continue because the coaches literally gushed over her natural athletic ability.  However, gymnastics is an expensive sport and with four kids to raise, we could not put all our eggs in one basket. It's a demanding sport - at the age of seven, they wanted her in the gym 12 hours a week.  Andy and I did not travel to China to bring home a daughter and then send her off to school for the majority of each weekday and then to the gym for hours in the evenings and most of day on Saturdays.  Julia is and always has been a socially active girl. We jokingly say that our second jobs are keeping her social calendar, so I believe she would have burned out on gymnastics within a few years anyway.  She used to ask if she could have been an Olympian.  To which I firmly tell her no - we were not in the financial position to pay for the coaching needed for that, and there's no way we would have sent her out of state to live with coaches as most Olympic gymnasts do.  In light of the Dr. Nasser scandal, Andy is thanking God that we got Julia out of gymnastics.  Of course we can never know if she would have had the talent, the drive, and would have remained injury free enough to pursue that anyway.

 Unfortunately, gymnastics from the level where Julia had already reached could not be just recreational, so it was all or nothing. 

A long break and then a pursuit of strictly tumbling ensued.  Julia's best events were the floor and the bars, and I will always miss seeing her advance on the bars.  She went on to excel at tumbling, and it became her first athletic love.

As of Tuesday when Julia's cheerleading team gathered for their banquet, Julia retired from cheering.  She has not been tumbling for months because swim and dive kept her from her class during the summer, and then her cheerleading team met for a stunting class.  We could not afford the extra cheer expenses this year and allow her to keep tumbling.  She was not crazy about the coaches at the gym chosen by the cheerleading team, and we could have gotten a discounted tumbling class there, but Julia was adamant that she loves Coach Travis at her regular gym and would not train under anyone else.  That long break ended yesterday when Julia excitedly returned to her first athletic love and to her beloved coach to tumble again.  She has much she still wants to learn!

Julia and her Cheer coach.

At the cheer banquet I tried to capture Coach T's words on video, but my camera battery had died.  Coach T taught Julia when she was a sixth grader, so the words she spoke of Julia included an acknowledgement that Julia would do round-off back handspring passes as many times as she was asked even when others would have been exhausted.  She talked about having Julia in the classroom and said that "hard worker" does not even begin to describe it when speaking of Julia.

I'm gonna miss this cheer team - great girls, great moms, and great dads too!  I've watched this girl cheer for 7 years.  It was her pre-school and early school years dream. At one time she wanted to pursue college cheering.  Unfortunately, she grew too tall for pairs cheering, and she did not like the gym that offers the best training for that- not to mention that said gym is about as pricey as artistic gymnastics.  Coach T still believes that Julia can cheer in college.  However, Julia does not want to cheer in high school, so....

She says her next adventure will be long jump, high jump, and pole vaulting.  Julia has even decided to give up swim and dive.  

You just never know sometimes when you are facing your "last" with a child.  -See my next post about another child and another last.

Somber

I am not going to lie.  Going to work and sending my kids to school today was tough.  We spent much of our faculty meeting on Tuesday discussing evacuation plans and lockdown procedures.  Yesterday, a school faced the unimaginable with 17 left dead.  It was definitely a somber start to the day for much of the staff.  I think the thing that struck me was that I first learned of the shooting when a friend posted that her best friend's children attended the school.  There was no news alert until the death count total of 17 was determined.  This is what we've become, a nation where this is so common that there is no news alert until the death count is high.

Keep it Simple

My love treated me so well today.

I have decided to collect Starbucks mugs from places we visit.  Andy remembered my casual mention of this and took care of the China mug. 

Every year I bake a cake or cupcakes for the kids to decorate - tradition. They haven't actually decorated them in years because --teenagers. For the past couple of years, I have had one or more conversations that went like this:

kid: Mom, why are you baking cupcakes?

me: It's a tradition. I always bake a cake or cupcakes for Valentines Day.

kid: Seriously? Since when?

This year when that conversation happened with the third child, it ended like this:

me: Since as long as you can remember, I have photographic proof.

kid: Oh I'm sure you do.

proof in the picture above 😀

I hope you took the opportunity to send someone some love today, even if only in an encouraging text.

Creative Care Package

I attended a moms' conference in the fall and learned this fun way to send a care package.  Cut three sides of a square into a 2 liter bottle.  Fill with goodies. Tape up the square and add a label. You could probably just cover the square with the label, but mine ripped further down the bottle, so I taped it up. You can use scrapbook paper to wrap the bottle where the original product label would have been. You don't even have to put it in a box.  The post office will ship it just like this.  

For Valentine's Day we have always given the kids a small box of chocolates, and we bake a cake to decorate.  A friend once told me that she always bought small gifts for her kids for Valentine's Day so that they would not think it a miserable holiday if they did not have a boyfriend or girlfriend.  I thought that to be wise council. I never cared for Valentine's Day growing up - not because of where my life was romantically but because my baby sister was buried on Valentine's Day, and that was a hard time of year for my mom.  

I thought I would be the mom who always had the house full of kids friends running in and out.  I thought I would be the mom always sending fun, care packages to my kids away at school.  The reality is that I am neither.  I have not sent a care package to Savannah since finals week last spring, and I ordered that one online. Some of my reasons are valid - the campus has finals week "care packages" everywhere.  Between her church and dorm, Savannah came home loaded with sweets that she did not want last summer.  I don't need to add to the junk food.  I am limited by my own lack of creativity and my finances.  Even putting this together, I struggled with ideas, so we basically filled it with sweets. 

So what's in the bottle? 

• A message of course - actually four messages - cards from every family member except Julia who was at a sleepover when we packed it.
• Some cereal bars that Savannah likes
• mini candy bars and candies
• suckers
• a gift card to a favorite fast-food restaurant
• a small Russell Stover heart full of chocolates

The reality is that junk food is fairly cheap.  I could have gone with some more expensive items but wanted to stay in line with what the kids at home will be receiving for the holiday in terms of budget, and our budget is in recovery mode post Christmas while being hit hard by high energy bills after too much time spent with single digit temps.

Some ideas that I could have used

• make-up
• fun earrings (I would have probably had to get them approved first as we have different tastes)
• deodorant, toothbrush (I learned of this idea from a lady who always sends a toothbrush because she's grossed out by the fact that college students do not change out their toothbrushes 😜), etc.
• favorite pens and pencils (for Savannah that can get pricey as she is into artistic pens and expensive colored pencils - also a problem because I am not sure what she has - that said, she's very inexpensive when choosing basic pens and pencils for everyday use)
• of course gift cards can be as varied as the person - her campus has an Insomnia Cookies store (oh so yummy!), coffee places, various restaurants, various stores etc.