Growing Up

As the school year comes to a close and we celebrate three birthdays this week, growing up is what is happenin' in our home...

Alena is growing up. She is 5 stinkin' years old! Gracious! And she had her last, last ever, forever last day of preschool. And she is FULLY ready for Kindergarten. I agree it seems like the next logical step but golly gee, I hope she misses me. I know for sure I will miss her. She is excited to go to the same school as the boys though and she will be gone 3 full days/week, so two days I will still enjoy the jibber-jabber and endless questions, but still...Kindergarten??!!? How fast they grow.

Alena and Titus on her last day of school (park day!)

Caleb is growing up. This past year has been a little tough for our boy KB (nickname given and stuck). He misses his Tacoma friends and honestly I think he misses homeschooling a little bit (not his teacher aka ME, but more the flexibility of routine, free time, etc). Anyway we have really been praying for him and hoping he can find a niche. Well this last weekend, his GG gave him a little foresight and he took it ALL THE WAY. Picture to follow. He loves being outside, he loves animals, he really enjoys nature. So, I hope that as we make a move to the country, he will find his place in this big world and by the activities from last weekend...I think this isn't too big of a hope.

He even got a book at the library and knows the name of each butterfly!

Titus is growing up! He turns ONE YEAR OLD tomorrow. I can hardly believe that just one year ago I was lamenting, "Please, oh Lord, please have mercy and let me have this child!!" And what a birth it was! A joy! And now I have a one year old. He is not walking quite yet but that child can M-O-V-E. He's so quick. And he loves the stairs. So often I find him upstairs looking around for his Nonni and Poppi and finding the huge bath tub. Yesterday I found him up at the sliding doors looking out for birds and talking like he knew exactly what he was looking at! Titus is a joy!

Mama look, I moved the door-stop, can we please go out to see the tweet tweets?

Nathan is growing up. He reads books like a crazy boy! I love it! Maybe I have mentioned this before but I love to read. So, as a mom, I hoped that my kids would like to read. But as a former homeschooling mom, there's a bit of self-inflicted pressure that comes with that hope. Like I hope my kids read and that I taught them all the right things..etc etc... So there's this peace and joy with a) knowing I really didn't have to teach him to read in Kindergarten anyway because his 1st grade teacher probably taught him 99.9% of all he knows about reading and b) MY KID READS! And he enjoys it. Anyway, last night about 8:45pm Nate comes running out to the living room and about scares me to death because he went to bed 45 minutes ago and I thought he was asleep long ago... and he exclaims, "I finished my book!" He's been reading it for maybe 2 days and he just HAD to finish it last night! Oh so sweet. I slept well. :)

Sweet Nate.

Ben and I are growing up. We both had birthdays this week and you know what? I am proud of us. We have moved away from what we knew, what was so familiar to us. And we are here making crazy steps to get ourselves out of debt and to give our kids what they need right now. It's not easy. I will admit that it is awesome to be near our families and the sun does shine a bit more over here. But moving away from friends and into a new community and putting your kids into a new school and trying to find a new church has been tough. Yet we have made huge strides in getting our family to a more healthy place and I am proud of us. We have decided to follow Jesus and go where He is telling us to go and to move when He says move. We're growing up and it's good. We are flying and it feels freeing. We are running and the wind in our face is refreshing. We are trying new things and He is cheering us on.

Cheers to growing up ~ CMC