Sisters...

Since everyone is FINALLY healthy in the house, my little sister came to visit for a night this weekend.  YEAH!!  She "only" lives 45 minutes away, but I seldom get time with her just to myself.  We usually see each other when my folks are visiting and the whole family is together, but seldom get time alone to visit.  So, I cherish the time we get to spend together when we can manage it. 

It worked out for the both of us this weekend and I'm so glad it did!  I think I may have mentioned (just once or twice...) that Suz is my best friend... as kids, we got into all kinds of shenanigans.  As adults, we've been a little better behaved... :)  but she still is my confidante, sounding board, anchor, shoulder to cry on, reality check, living example of how I should live my faith... There aren't many hats that she hasn't worn for me...

I also love watching her with my kids... She has such a special way with them.

Here she is loving on Lauren...

and helping Karen play games on the iPad...

Megan missed out on the photos... she was napping when I remembered that I wanted to snap some! But I have a photo from earlier this summer when Suzie visited... before she chopped her hair for "Locks-for-love".

It never takes much to circle back to my niece, Jessica.  I don't know how many nights since she passed that I've pondered her loss and tried to imagine how my other niece Michaela is feeling.  She and Jessica were only 16 months apart - and so like Suzie and I (we are 13 months apart).  I try and imagine the last 20 years without Suzie and to be honest, I simply cannot. My heart breaks for Michaela, knowing the gap that will be in her life in the coming years without Jessica there.  I pray that over time she finds either a friend or her younger sister Abigail to help fill that gap.

Sisters... there isn't anything like them!

Love you Suz!!

Love my daughters!

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner on Show Us Your Life - Mom's of all girls! I have three beautiful daughters and absolutely love it!!  I grew up with three sisters, so am excited for my girls and the friendship they will share!  While I certainly hope that we may have a boy in the future, but my husband and I are both of the mind that "we get what we get" and are incredibly happy and blessed with our family!

My girls are 4, 2, and 4 months.  It has been an amazing journey so far and I couldn't ask for better little girls.  No, they aren't perfect or even exceptionally well-behaved... but they are my angels and ones that I spent many nights thinking I would never have!

Time moves on

One thing that my sisters and I have talked about (alot) recently is how quickly time has gone by and how "old" we are getting.  We remember growing up and looking at our aunts and uncles and "how old" they seemed to us.  The realization has been setting in that we are now them!  In fact, we are probably older than they were in many of our memories.  It's funny how time has a way of sneaking by you.  I always thought my Dad was a little weird by saying that high school to him felt like it was yesterday.  I can't say that I feel like high school was just yesterday, but college??  Absolutely!

This past weekend we had a gathering of some family... the reasons for which in a later post.  But the family included my Aunt and her four sons who's ages alternate with me and my sisters.  In fact, my Mom and my aunt were alternately pregnant each year for seven years until my Mom "broke" the cycle and got pregnant and had my little sister just a year after me.  What is neat is that my parents had four girls, my aunt and uncle had four boys (the fourth boy came about 10 years after my little sister).  Anyway, we have LOTS of pictures through the years of the seven and then eight of us lined up by age.  We took another one this weekend.

We talked about the last time we took one of these pictures and came up with it being at my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary party.  In doing the math, I realized this picture was taken almost 17 years ago!!  That makes me feel so old because I was in college when it was taken...

Have you had any "rude" awakening like this regarding the passage of time in your life lately?  Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely happy with my life and where I've come and too be honest (with the exception of the last 6 months) each year has been "better" than the one before it.  I'm just a little in awe at how quickly time moves on!  It really brings a new perspective to reminding myself to live in the moment and to be fully present to my kids because all they are going to go from here

my sisters and I circa 1980

to adults in way too short of a time - or as I was reminded this fall, from child to child of God well before I'm ready to say good-bye.

Sister Chronicles - Volume I

Considering I live less than an hour from my sister and am regularly (at least weekly) to the town where she lives, a visit should not be a rare occurrence!  But we’ve both been busy and so it has been a while.  She was driving back from a vacation and stopped in and spent the afternoon here!  YAY me!

My little sister is my best friend!  Our adventures started when we could barely walk and have not stopped since.   We were holy terrors as young children – not because we were purposefully misbehaved, but in our eyes the world didn’t exist outside of our games and adventures except when it inserted itself rather abruptly… now as a parent I can understand how frustrating that probably was!! Sorry Mom & Dad!

Anyway, I was thinking about some of our adventures and thought I'd share one of our more infamous ones... growing up we lived about 12 miles out of town and a 1.5 miles down a country/gravel road.  It was an unusually hot spring day and we had been outside playing.  I’m guessing we were 4 and 3 since neither of was yet in school.  We were hot and terribly thirst and decided that we desperately needed a soda pop – which is unusual because pop was not something we had often or should have thought we were entitled to… but for whatever reason, on this day, it was a must have! So, we decide that we would walk into town (12+ miles!) to buy this pop.  Without telling Mom, we slipped away from the house and set off on our trek.

A little way into the walk, we remembered that we will need money in order to buy it.  Our solution – we plan to stop at the neighbor’s house on the way and ask for the money.  We continued walking and after what I’m guessing was about a half mile, my sister was getting tired.  Reality interjecting itself… I convinced her that we needed to keep going or Mom would catch up with us.  This worked for a while, but she was getting more hot and tired (she was only 3!).  I started bullying her into going on by telling her that we’d stop and rest and get some water when we got to the neighbor’s house for money.  

We were about one mile into our trek when my mom came barreling down the road in the car.  She had been frantically looking for us for the last half hour and had stopped only because she had to pick up our older two sisters from the bus.  Her recollection is that her anger did not even phase us, in fact, it did not even register.  I was so mad at my sister because it was her fault Mom caught up with us and she was so mad at me because all she had wanted was to stop and rest a while.  In the end, we got some water back at home and did not get a pop for a VERY long time.

Please Lord… no antics like this from my two girls?!  *sigh*  I think I’m doomed! :)