Just 18 Summers

I just finished reading a fantastic book. A novel by the name of Just 18 Summers. A little snippet from the book says "When your child is born, eighteen years seems like they'll last forever. But it goes by in a blink. You have just 18 summers to make memories together. you can't go back and rewind those days."

 So the question is: how will you use that time? 

The book takes you through some ups and downs. I laughed at times and there were also moments I wanted to cry. One time, I was having a hard day with my daughter and I was having a little time to myself to cool down - so I picked up the book to read and just ended up bursting into tears. The idea of the girls growing up SO fast and time just passing too quickly was too much to handle at that moment. 

But overall, I loved the book. This summer we have been through some tough things with our girls. Mostly because they are both growing up so fast and starting to test us in different ways. Many days my heart is all over the place as I love them so fiercely, get angered or hurt so easily and cry way too much. I just wish they could go back to being 6 and 8 years old and just STAY that age forever. But alas, that won't happen, so we continue to roll with the punches as they come. 

This book helped me realize two key things. One is how quickly time is fleeing and how important it is to INVEST time into our kids lives. One set of parents in the book quickly came to regret the fact that they had invested so much time and attention into giving their kids the best of everything and focusing so much on a good education, that they missed the fact that all their kids really wanted was their time and attention. 

The other major thing I learned {and have been learning a LOT this summer} is about trusting God more with my kids. It's kinda funny because 2 years ago we decided to send our kids back into public school after we had homeschooled for 5 years. At that time, I was being challenged mightily by the Lord to fully TRUST Him and put my girl's lives in HIS hands. That year I felt such freedom in loosening my tight grip on the reins and learning to trust Him more. However ... as hard things have come this summer ... mostly in the form of peer pressure and the influence of the world on my daughter, I have been grasping at those reins again and literally clinging to them with all my might. I have mistakenly thought that I somehow could control how my kids turn out, what they do, how they choose to live, etc... by trying to control it all. I had stopped trusting God as much and was trying to rely on my own strengths. 

There were several things in the book that helped me realize these truths but here is a small example of one. I don't want to spoil too much for anyone who might read it, but one of the couples has a college aged daughter who very suddenly announces that she is getting married - to a pizza delivery boy. They are not happy about the wedding and the Mom spends SO much time worrying, crying and praying over the impending doom that is sure to come from this marriage. On the wedding day she finally comes to terms with it saying "I realized all these years I've prayed and I've prayed and I've prayed, but I never really trusted. I never trusted God because sometimes - most of the time - it felt like I didn't have to. I had full control. They were under our roof. They were dependent on our money. The things that were hard in their lives, I could make easier by doing something special for them. And I think at the end of the day I trusted in ... me. And God's called me on it, you know? I'm spinning out of control because I trust in me: to be a good Mom, to keep them safe and fed, to raise them as productive human beings. But you know what? It wasn't me. It wasn't ever me. They're the people they are because of God's grace in their lives. God's mercy in my life, to be the parent I was to them. If I did anything good at all, it was because of Him." 

Oh my heart people, can I just tell you that that moment in this book was written for ME! I feel like I could have written that whole thing word for word myself. It made me weep. Like just utterly, completely in awe that the Lord would bring me to this book and show me so clearly where I've been struggling and how I needed to let those reins go again ... I needed to give them back to God. 

That doesn't mean I stop parenting and just give up! NO WAY! In fact, the job of being a parent never ends and I feel like this summer I have spent more time talking with and sharing with my girls than I have in recent months. But I'm no longer stressing over every little thing and freaking out crying at night all the time because I'm so worried about them making wrong decisions and not growing up 'right'. 

Another quick snippet from the book, as one of the women gave birth to her first baby she makes this important realization: "As she clung to Butch for support, Daphne realized she would need to cling to Jesus just as tightly. There would be days of pain and sorrow and fear, just like now. She had no more control over this child's life than she had over this day."

So as I finished this book I was challenged and also encouraged to cling to Jesus, let go of all that fear and worry and choose to trust Him more. Oh, and also to enjoy all the moments I get to spend with my girls.

 This summer we have made some wonderful memories together but one of my favorites happened just the other night. We had grilled dinner outside and sat on the deck for dinner. After dinner we lit a campfire and sat around it chatting and making s'mores. Then one of us happened to look up and notice how many stars were out that night and suddenly one of us saw a shooting star. The girls then quickly ran to get some blankets and pillows which we spread out over the grass and we all laid there watching the stars for over an hour. We saw a couple more shooting stars, watched the blinking lights of the planes overhead while we guessed at where they were going, and marvelled at the majesty of the stars. We laughed and talked and just had the best time, just the four of us. It will remain one of my favorite memories of this summer. We have just over 3 more weeks until we go back to school ... I plan to soak up every last minute I can get because I only have 5 more summers with Haley and 7 more summers with Jilly {after this year} and quite frankly I can't afford to waste any of them! 

My 2014 Vision Board

OK it's Saturday and I have time so here comes another blog post for today! I have a feeling most of my posts will happen on the weekends when I have time to catch up!

So I read this fab blog called Peak 313 Fitness and this year she talked about making a vision board to visualize your goals for the year. Her post is HERE if you want to take a moment to read it and get an idea what I'm talking about.

Taking my word INTENTIONAL and running with it, I had SUCH a fun time putting this board together! I already had the large bulletin board in my bedroom, it had photos of hubby and I through the years on it - I moved those photos to another place and used the bulletin board for this project. I used things I found in magazines, some free printables from the Peak 313 blog, and also printed out some things from my Pinterest Boards that I found especially inspirational.

The board is set up in four sections with four major areas of life I'd like to be intentional in this year. 

Relationships, Finances, Health and Faith. 

I know a few friends who are making similar goals this year and I'm excited to have people who will help keep me accountable and cheer me on. I hope to do likewise for them as well and pray that I can be an encouragement in their lives as well.

Clare's vision board idea stems from the concept of 'dream it, do it' ... so you dream of the progress you'd like to make in certain areas of your life, then you make a plan of action so you can DO IT! 
I also LOVE how on Clare's posts she uses this verse as a guideline, after all, if you pray that the Lord will help you, He will never fail to show up and give you the strength to accomplish great things! 

                                    “Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
                   and he will establish your plans.” Proverbs 16:3

OK, here is the whole picture of my board: 

Here is the HEALTH section

And my health section DREAM IT / DO IT goals:

Here is my FAITH section

And my faith section goals:

Here is my FINANCES section

And the finances section goals:

My RELATIONSHIP section

And the relationship goals:

I put this photo of my family over the photo of NO FB ... not because I am 

going to stop using FB altogether, but I want to be intentional about limiting

my time on there and specifically limiting the time while my family is home

and awake. If the girls aren't home or are already in bed for the night I don't

mind spending a little time on it. But if it's the evening time and everyone is home

and awake I want to spend that time WITH THEM, not with FB. 

At the top of the board is my word for the year as a little reminder. 

And in the center I printed out Clare's Dream it ---> Do it graphic. 

Here is the whole thing hanging on my wall. I get so inspired each time I walk past it!

How about you? Do you have big dreams, plans or goals for the year? 

Basketball and Band Concerts

In the fall we were so busy with soccer that I was excited for winter to come along to give us a little 'break'. Well we did have about 3 weeks in November where things slowed down but since then it's been crazy again. Right now Haley is playing on a rec basketball team and an indoor soccer team and Jillian is playing on a school basketball team and a rec basketball team. Add school, homework, church and youth group stuff to that and we're pretty busy. Also they both had winter band/chorus concerts in the past week so we've been out of the house every weekday evening for the past two weeks. And some nights we go from one basketball game to a band concert to another game - crazyness I tell ya! But I LOVE being able to go watch my girls do things they enjoy and love seeing them make progress in music and sports. 

I am SO proud of both of them!

First, this was Jillian's band and chorus concert. This is her second year playing the Flute. 

Not too many 5th graders stuck with their instruments from last year so the Intermediate 

Band was quite small. She is in the peachy colored dress.

She is also a part of the 4th and 5th grade Chorus - they sang 3 songs and did such a beautiful job! I wish I could figure out how to add a video on here because they sang Philip Phillips 'Home' and it was AWESOME! She is so tall, here she is standing the back row. She wasn't really miserable like she looks, she just didn't know I was taking pictures from way back in the crowd. 

Here they are singing and doing some hand motions for a really cute song. I absolutely LOVE the music teacher at our school and LOVE the songs she chooses for the kids to sing. 

Now on to some basketball action! Here are some pictures of Haley in action last weekend. She is #6 on the pink team - #6 has been her number for almost every team she's ever been on, it's become her favorite! 

The coaches for her team are all young Navy soldiers {is that the right word to use?}.

 Anyway, they are great, they have a huge passion for working with these girls and many 

times for practices they do crazy-hard military style drills. 

OK, so I'm totally taking this verse out of context, but I was looking at this photo and the verse came to mind, so just having a little fun with it ... 

Then we had some basketball games for Jillian's school team. I think many of these girls have never played before but they are doing a good job and trying really hard to learn the skills. This is our AWESOME principal giving some announcements before the game. 

Our team doesn't have numbers on our shirts - Jilly is the one in red on the right side. 

Sorry some of these are blurry - I was using my 'sports' mode on the camera but sometimes it still doesn't capture a clean shot. She is hustling hard in this pic! 

And again using the verse ... so funny how they get surrounded by the other team. 

And lastly, another band concert. Haley is in her second year with the Clarinet and doing great. 

It's cool to see how much they have improved since last year. The song actually sounded like a cohesive song, not just a mash up of sounds. =) 

She is on the far left - I was sitting way near the back of the auditorium so she and her friends didn't know I was taking their pics. I love seeing the funny moments when they're laughing at something together. 

And at the end they had a little dessert reception, I took a couple cute pics of her and some of her closest school friends. Such a GREAT group of girls! 

And that's what we've been up to lately!

 I have to say, it sure is making January FLY by being so busy like this!