Olivia's 1st Day of Kindergarten!!!

The day has arrived...  Olivia is at her first day of school!  We walked her into her classroom, gave her a quick hug goodbye, and walked away.  I have mixed emotions today!  I am excited for her and a little worried.  Proud and a little sad.  Several friends shared this prayer this week and I couldn't bring myself to read the whole thing until today.  It sums up the whole experience of the first day of school!  

I also wanted to share some pictures from this morning!  

I can't wait to go pick up my big girl and find out all about her first day of school.  I don't know how the past 5 1/2 years have gone by so fast.  

-Maegan

New Happenings

I haven't posted in FOREVER so I thought it was time to play a little catch up on our blog.

To kick off my return to blogging, I have BIG news!  We are moving again!  I can't believe I am even typing this because when we purchased our current home we just "knew" it would be our forever home.  How does one really "know" anything in life?  Nothing is guaranteed and none of us know what the future holds.  When we bought this home we had a laundry list of requirements.  More space, more room for our stuff, more furniture, better neighbors, a quieter street, extra bathrooms, a guest room, a bigger garage, a better front yard.  I could go on, but I am sure you get the picture.  This home met and exceeded all of those hopes we had.  Since the day we moved in, it has been very clear that this home would meet our needs and wants as our family continued to grow.  I believe we were put here at the right time.

Last fall, my parents went through a divorce after almost 20 years of marriage.  Talk about heartbreaking!  The bright side to that is that we had plenty of space and a lovely guest room for my mom to stay in while she found a place of her own.  I am thankful that we had the extra room for her then.  My parents' divorce was so unsettling for me for many reasons.  Is your parents' divorce EVER easy to handle?  Definitely not.  Not even when you're grown up person with a family of your own.  My mom is now in her house in town and my dad is living in their family home.  Since the divorce we have talked about the possibility of my dad selling the family home.  To me, it's the only place that has ever truly felt like "home" and the thought of someone else buying the home and land has just made my heart ache.  So many happy memories were made there for me, my brother, and my daughters, too.  My dad offered to sell the home to us and it couldn't have come at a better time.

As I said before, we bought our current home with a heart of wanting MORE.  In the year and a half that we have lived here, we've had the luxury of extra space.  We have filled our walk-in closets to the brim, we've stuffed our house full of furniture and flat-screen TVs, everyone has their own bathroom, and we've even managed to fill our garage with gadgets and a new SUV.  I don't know if we have truly enjoyed any of that.  In fact, it has become more of a burden than anything else.  When we sat down and discussed what it would mean for our family to move to the country (as the littles say, the "crunchtry"), at first the talk was centered on the sacrifices.  What would we be giving up?  We wouldn't have a guest room, our youngest two kids would be sharing a bedroom FOREVER (they already share because they like each other, just in case anyone was wondering), we wouldn't be sending Olivia to the private school we'd just decided on, we couldn't have take-out delivered anymore, only two bathrooms in the whole house, and the maintenance of five acres of land and an old farmhouse.  First world problems, right?  None of those things are sacrifices.  I can't say that it was wrong of us to purchase this home, but I can say it was wrong of us to purchase it with a heart of wanting more.  There have been so many times over the last year and a half that I have felt that conviction.  I am thankful that we have the opportunity to focus on what our family NEEDS and not what our family wants.  After sharing all of that, I think it's time for a picture!

This is what our house will look like if you decide to visit us in the winter!  (Don't forget to bring your sleeping bag because we won't have a guest room.)

Visiting Louisiana Fall 2013

We took a WAY overdue girls' trip to Louisiana in October and it was so awesome.  My mom and I drove the girls down to Farmerville to meet my mom's mom, who is affectionately called Nan, Nanny, and Caroline's favorite, "Grandma Nanny".  Hahaha!  The drive down was a quick one and pretty uneventful.  We left early on a Thursday morning and drove about 8 hours including stops.  We got there early enough to visit with family and stop by our favorite bakery, Allbritton's.  It is THE must-stop place for us when we go home to visit and if you've never had their petite fours you are MISSING OUT.  We had Johnny's Pizza for dinner and settled in to our little cabin on Lake D'arbonne.  It was an amazing weekend that went by much too fast.  

 The views are AMAZING.

 Nanny and Ellie snuggling

 Nanny and her three girls having leftover pizza for a lunch picnic on the porch!

After lunch on Friday, we got up and headed into town to run some errands.  We got some flowers to make an arrangement on Aunt Cindy's grave.  When Olivia was a few months old I brought her here and I know I have the pictures somewhere, but I couldn't find them for this blog post.  She was only a few months old, but it was a very precious time to me.

Such a big, wise girl!  She was so thoughtful and sweet at that time.

On Saturday, my sister Brooke brought her three babies over and we got tons of pictures of all six kids together.  They are hilarious!  It was such an amazing blessing to see these kids and all of their different personalities.  I wish that we lived closer so that we could see more of them!  I have committed to making a trip happen at least once a year so these little cousins can enjoy their time together.  

Us girls and our babies!!! :)

We went out onto the dock (SCARY!!!) with all six kids and this was the best picture out of a million. LOL!  It's the memories that count, right?!

We took the kids inside for some cake and decided to let them all blow out candles since we aren't ever together on birthdays!  This wasn't planned, but it was definitely a neat memory.  They were pretty excited!  And if you'll notice, Caroline changed out of her matching dress because she jumped in the lake.  Yeah, she's my kid alright!  

After cake, we went outside for some play time.  Out of all the pictures from our trip to Louisiana, these are my absolute favorite.  The kids were just running and playing in the sun and I'm so glad I snapped these.  These are the ones to remember.  Cousins just being cousins!!!

It was an amazing weekend and one that I was very hesitant to leave behind.  Saying goodbye to my sister and her kiddos was so hard, and then having to say another goodbye the next morning to Nanny was even harder.  We had been meaning to get someone to take a photo of all six of us girls all weekend but kept forgetting.  Sunday morning before Nan left, I figured out the auto timer on my camera (after a whole year of ownership you'd think I'd know that!) and we got a picture of everyone!  :)  

Four Generations

This photo captured something I will never forget.  My three girls really got to know their great-grandma and they bonded with her over the weekend.  I hope we get the chance to do it again soon.

This is why it always makes my heart ache to leave Louisiana!  

-Maegan

Halloween 2013

I am playing catch-up on posts, so sorry the Halloween update is almost a month late!  Better late than never, right?  Halloween is always a bittersweet time for me.  I love dressing the kids up and we seriously talk about what costumes everyone will wear all year long.  Halloween is my Aunt Cindy's birthday, and since she passed away several years ago it is always a little sad for me, too.  I always think about her and our good memories.  I wish my girls could have met her.  I wish she could have seen me as a mommy.  I wish she could be here for her grandkids.  Anyway, this Halloween was particularly weird because we got some hard news right before, but we made the best of it and it turned out just fine!  

The girls woke up and requested a spooky breakfast.  The best I could do was oatmeal pancakes with jack-o-lantern faces!  (don't judge, I'm not really a morning person)  

 You can tell that my kids are easy to please!

A little later in the morning, we were coloring pictures and making Halloween crafts and someone found a black marker and decided to eat it.  Apparently, it tasted delicious because it was ALL over her tongue.  This kid rarely causes a disturbance in our household, but it's pretty cute when she does.

After naps we started getting ready for trick-or-treating!  Nathan had been working out of town for several days but he was able to make it home just in time to help get the girls ready.  Olivia dressed up as Rapunzel from the movie Tangled.  I got a few pictures "pre-wig".

 Then we lined all three girls up on the fireplace and did the best we could to get one picture of everyone looking at the camera.  Easier said than done.

Caroline and Ellie dressed up as Doc McStuffins and Lambie from the Disney show Doc McStuffins!  I thought it was a perfect fit and they were hilarious!  

 Grand-dad passed out candy to trick-or-treaters while we were gone trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  Since he was here, we got a few pics of him with his girls!  

Our family of five, Halloween 2013

This year was our first year trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood.  The last couple of years, we have gone to the mall and to Nathan's sister's neighborhood.  Our old house was in a really hilly area and not too easy to navigate strollers and babies.  This year, it was perfect.  It was so awesome seeing our neighbors and meeting new faces in our little area.  There was a storm heading our way so we called it a night after a few streets and got back home in plenty of time to let the girls pass out candy and dump their buckets!  We all had pizza and headed down to the basement to wait for the storm warnings to pass.  The girls all went to bed happy.  I think they had a happy Halloween holiday!