Fall Planting

I really had a hard time on Emma's last day of school last year. It was such a unique environment at the montessori school she attended and I was so sad for her to have to leave it. The school building is a remodeled 2 story home on camp bowie. It is on a large lot with several outdoor areas for the children to do "work" such as sweeping the porch, watering the plants, and feeding the pet rabbit Bean. They also had some great traditions to celebrate the seasons including fall planting, Thanksgiving bulb planting festival, and spring planting where we got to come in and help our kids with the planting. It was so much fun and I was sad to lose this tradition, and it just dawned on me today that I would love to continue these and make them a part of our family traditions! So today we decided to do our fall planting. We planted a beautiful yellow mum in the front flower bed. Emma and Daddy did most of the work and Cooper helped some but he still has a pretty short attention span. Milo helped too by supervising from the bouncy seat.

Lately we have been amazed by how fast our kids are growing up. I know everyone always talks about how kids grow up too fast and it's pretty cliche but it's really true and we just want to savor every moment while they're so little. Sometimes we get so busy that it's hard to enjoy them like we should so we're going to try to find help when we need it and try to get more sleep and slow things down a little so life doesn't just pass us by. OK so I have to admit, I was recently moved to make some changes in my life after watching an episode of Oprah where she interviewed the mom who accidentally left her 2 year old daughter in the car all day while she was at work and her daughter passed away from a heat stroke. Such a tragic situation, I cannot even fathom how you would pick up the pieces and go on with your life after something like that happened. But her message was to slow down and live in the moment instead of always having a list in your head of what you're going to do next and living in the next moment. That really struck a chord with me because I have a hard time focusing on the moment I'm in and am constantly thinking about all the things I need to do and how in the world I'm going to get them done. And I just feel overwhelmed and seem to always be in a hurry. I can see that this is causing me to miss out on enjoying my husband and precious children like I should be and keeping me in a constant frenzy where I don't know if I'm coming or going. It's really scary to think about how easily a tragic accident like that could happen to me so I'm trying to make some real changes in my life and start living in the moment and enjoying God's precious blessings on this earth while I'm here.