The Small Things ... {revisited}

So I read blogs. Lots of them. Call it my daily newspaper as if thrown from the paperboy onto my lawn except it's written and loaded up to blogland for me to read. Everyday. Just like real news. And the best part is that it's much more entertaining and much more sweet (and sometimes sad) than anything I can read in the real newspaper or see on the real tv news.

And today I read my oldest and dearest BFF's blog and it made me cry. Yeah, this sort of thing happens on a regular basis so just ignore it, but seriously it brought tears to my eyes. See? Carie and I don't get to chat every. single. day. like we did when the kids were small (seriously, it was our sanity for years! the only adult conversations all day long!) and now we talk on the phone as much as we can but we find emailing is much easier (and recently, texting! go figure! we are so hip.). I'm glad we still find the time but even if months passed, we'd still pick up right where we left off. :)

This photo is of Carie and me along with our tiny crew... our boys are now in middle school and our girls are in Kindergarten to Fifth Grade... how did that happen? People ask us all the time (seriously) how we manage having large families (I have four, she outdid me with five, lol) and we say that it's not so difficult right now, but boy! you should have seen us when they were tiny. lol We never knew how the day would turn out or if we'd ever manage to get a shower or have time to pee, for that matter (no, seriously. it's true.).

Now mind you, there are three missing children from this photo. I know. Shocking. :) I think this photo was taken in the Fall of 2001... and soon we would both be pregnant (again). Shocking. I know. lol And are those barrettes in my hair? lol I think so! Weird.

LtoR... Baby Mary. Carie. Hazel. My Nathaniel. Her Charlie. Nicole. Me. Natalie. Missing: Lacy. Nadine. Dixie. :)

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This following post is taken from Carie's blog today.

 If you are in the stage of life we're in,

where children are going in every single direction at any given moment,

 you'll be able to relate to this sweet post too.

Just go get a tissue. You'll want one.

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THE SMALL THINGS...are probably the things I'll miss most when our gang is all launched. Driving to dance and baseball and back to dance and back to baseball and then back to dance, all the while tossing out string cheeses, gogurts, apple slices and carrot sticks to anyone whose peckish. Listening to "Adventures in Odyssey" and "Jonathan Park" stories as we tool all over town. Watching my posse spend entire afternoons jumping on the trampoline from the window over my kitchen sink. The girls all fighting over daddy's t-shirt to use as a nightie at bedtime because it smells like him (sometimes he comes home from work and wears another shirt or two so more than one can have the scent!). Piling on my bed to watch a movie. All the crafts and pretty pictures so lovingly assembled and presented to me for display. Always having someone I can call out to who comes running and opens a door for me when my arms are loaded with laundry or groceries. The feeling when we all put the house back together when it's had a day with all of us livin' and schoolin' in it. The house just bursting with people and things and laughter and love.

I know I will miss these things because we were at Awanas the other night and the weensiest of our brood, who I'm convinced has agreed to stay teeny as long as possible so we don't go through complete small person withdrawal, was getting a drink of water and DID NOT NEED A BOOST TO REACH THE FOUNTAIN. Gone, gone forever, I tell you, are the days when big bro would get down on all fours in front of the water fountain so that any one of his sisters could get a boost to reach the water's flow. Because no one needs him to do that anymore. And one day they won't need me to do the buttons on the back of their dress or get out the double knots on their tennis shoes, or put the glass stuff from the dishwasher up on the high shelves that they can't reach. Or - sniff, sniff - drive them anyplace. And I will really miss it. All of it.

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I'm going to miss it all too.