Did I say party? I meant normal stuff that's a bit more fun than not
fun normal stuff. We are getting even closer to the move which means we
were packing in as much of the good stuff as we could.
I remember being only a few years into the whole Navy gig when we stopped keeping track of what holidays and significant events Clark had to miss - it was just too easy to let it bog us down, so we learned to make the very best of it whether he was here or not and even though it was hard, not having him there I have amazing memories from those years with my kids. And the bonus now is that we really truly enjoy his presence at every single thing. It's kind of like starting from scratch in a lot of ways - so much time left for memory making.
Last year Clark took the day off for our anniversary and he indulged me in a day of my favorites: The Museum of Fine Arts and lunch at our favorite place, Seasons 52.
16 years is a long time!
We took a trip up to Dallas with the Keck cousins and made a stop at the Dallas Temple grounds. The kids had never seen where Clark and I got married so it was fun to share that with them. And of course we told them all about that wonderful day that was so hot we had sweat dripping down our backs but we didn't care at all because we were so happy to be married and together for real! Mike and Megan were also married there but they opted to leave cranky traveled kids in the car.
This is the everyday. More and more, my blog is filled with the everyday things that make me pause and feel grateful for my life. It is the one pro of a phone in my pocket almost all the time. I wish I had this many reminders from when the older kids were little-I just feel all goopy and Mommyish inside.
The kids often remember their hoodies when we go to the movies - the hoods provide an excellent popcorn and drink holder.
Clark still gets a scary amount of air when throwing kids up (I have to reign it in a little when in public, lest we be lectured by some concerned citizen.)
Cooking with the kids and kids in aprons, swoon.
Megan and I have been known to sneak a late night kid free movie every now and again. I know for sure that we did NOT see Angry Birds (at least not on this night-we naivelly took all the kids to see it for FHE one night...worst FHE ever!) but I DO seem to recall that our husbands saw one movie while we saw another.
And right smack dab in the middle there is possibly the best picture ever taken of Ezra. It just doesn't get any better than a fat baby with a double chin in a dirty, sleeveless onesie...unless of course you consider the other picture of Ezra starting to crawl at 7 months. It's near impossible to rank his pictures in cuteness.
The yellow tape signifies yet another critter caught in my house being too large and disgusting to take care of myself...I spent plenty of years with no choice but to deal with it myself but now I have the luxury of waiting until Clark comes home from work.
We had the first high school graduation of a niece on the Scharman side...this is significant for so many reasons but mainly because it reminded us all that time isn't slowing down and these people are all growing up. That is both a very happy, exciting and super sad thought.
And just the kind of picture a mother wants to get of her kids at camp - flying through the air a million miles off the ground, or so it would seem. I worry and lie. They were perfectly safe, having a marvelous time at girls camp.
Family dinners: one of the things that I miss most about leaving Houston. This one in particular was significant because it was the last time that the Scharman family was together in their entirety - that is truly rare! When we first moved, Sunday evenings were the saddest times for me, they felt lonely and quiet. Sunday dinners with family were loud and often chaotic but I couldn't not do them. It was a time to be together and talk and catch up, to be in one another's presence and that was not taken for granted. When looking for houses in Virginia it became almost a joke that we refused to even consider a house that couldn't accommodate our huge dining room table. I could've easily gotten rid of any piece of furniture in our whole house, except my table. I found it at Roundtop and it quickly came to represent the love I have for Texas, friends and family. It reminds me of countless holidays and weekends, every chair filled with people that I love and the house spilling over with important people. How grateful I am for those times!
Almost as significant as all of those sentiments would be Haley's excitement at passing up so many Scharmans in height, including her own mother. It was a big summer for her ;)
The
trip to Dallas was our last hurrah with the Kecks. These people have
meant the world to us over the years. Megan and I have known each other
for as long as Clark and I have. From the time that Clark and I were
first married she has reached out to me and offered friendship, comfort
and a whole lot of wisdom. There has been a truly blessed connection
between our families from that time on - our children are close, they
have spent countless hours hanging out and supporting one another in a
myriad of things. There have been a lot of deposits but the return has
been ten fold. When we got out of the Navy and moved back to Houston,
we did so with the intent to sink roots and finish raising our family
there. The turn of events that led us to leave was a heartbreaking one
for us even though it was the right decision. I often think that the
reason we moved there was so that my children could feel like they had a
home to go back to. The hardest thing about being in the Navy is that
my kids haven't ever lived anywhere long enough to sink those roots and
even though our time back in Houston was short, the time we had with
family and the friends that became like family, have given them that.
There will forever be a place that they feel they can "go back to", a
place that is full of welcoming arms and hearts. That has been the
biggest blessing of all.
Great
Wolf Lodge was so much fun - so fun that in every, single, prayer that
Jonah said for the next year he made sure to say "and thank you for
taking us to the water park". I'm serious. Every single prayer. Four
adults and twelve kids are not an inconspicuous group. The food alone
was kind of an insane endeavor - one trip out to pick up lunch and
dinner for the day and we had to use a cart to get it all back
upstairs. Our little people aren't so little anymore.
We stayed up late, played cards, did the ropes course (which looks way more fun from the ground,) swam, swam, swam, and Mike got super into the MagiQuest game insisting that Hazel and Jameson see it through to the end. We made some good memories that week.
One of the most frightful and entertaining things about having our house on the market was seeing reviews of what people thought about it. It may not have been our dream house, and we may have had some "less than desirable" neighbors but it was our home. These people ultimately because the buyers and while I was touched by her comments, I was very glad that the "love" she felt was not marred by the incessant bickering that is possible on a daily basis.
The many faces of Jonah. He turned four last June. He cracks me up and makes me roll my eyes, very typically within the same hour. I know I talk about how I cherished the time when it was just us and the girls but I hope it doesn't diminish how I feel about these little boys. There certainly is a special place in my heart just for them.
Jonah's free hugs t shirt led to many a speech sessions in our kitchen where I was trying to convince him that "three" and "free" are indeed, different words. Regardless of how many times I have tried to explain it, to this day, when he wears it, you will get "three hugs" which is kind of a win win.
[Can you imagine the number of pictures I would have stored on my computer if cell phones were around from the beginning of my family?! Because just for the record, every single one of my kids has been the cutest, silliest, most amazing human being ever born.]
I sat out the day that the Hubniks took Clark and the girls to Lake Conroe. Something about little boys in life preservers didn't sounds super fun. But they had a blast, as we always do with those people [see above where I mention friends that feel like family]
My second trip to Magnolia in less than a month, except this time with the Scharman women. A group that I adore. We even let Clark come along on this excursion; that's how much we like him.
I'm glad I have this documented so I can also remember how much I loved living near a temple and going with people that I love so much. These youth amaze me. We literally were racing a torrential downpour on this afternoon to make it there. Clark sped past the cop getting out of his car to close the road from the rising waters. By the time we got out, the rain had stopped and the waters had already begun to go down. They sang their hearts out with joy and optimism on our way there. These times in the temple with family and friends just make our connections all the richer and more special. How grateful I am for those experiences!
I remember being only a few years into the whole Navy gig when we stopped keeping track of what holidays and significant events Clark had to miss - it was just too easy to let it bog us down, so we learned to make the very best of it whether he was here or not and even though it was hard, not having him there I have amazing memories from those years with my kids. And the bonus now is that we really truly enjoy his presence at every single thing. It's kind of like starting from scratch in a lot of ways - so much time left for memory making.
Last year Clark took the day off for our anniversary and he indulged me in a day of my favorites: The Museum of Fine Arts and lunch at our favorite place, Seasons 52.
16 years is a long time!
We took a trip up to Dallas with the Keck cousins and made a stop at the Dallas Temple grounds. The kids had never seen where Clark and I got married so it was fun to share that with them. And of course we told them all about that wonderful day that was so hot we had sweat dripping down our backs but we didn't care at all because we were so happy to be married and together for real! Mike and Megan were also married there but they opted to leave cranky traveled kids in the car.
This is the everyday. More and more, my blog is filled with the everyday things that make me pause and feel grateful for my life. It is the one pro of a phone in my pocket almost all the time. I wish I had this many reminders from when the older kids were little-I just feel all goopy and Mommyish inside.
The kids often remember their hoodies when we go to the movies - the hoods provide an excellent popcorn and drink holder.
Clark still gets a scary amount of air when throwing kids up (I have to reign it in a little when in public, lest we be lectured by some concerned citizen.)
Cooking with the kids and kids in aprons, swoon.
Megan and I have been known to sneak a late night kid free movie every now and again. I know for sure that we did NOT see Angry Birds (at least not on this night-we naivelly took all the kids to see it for FHE one night...worst FHE ever!) but I DO seem to recall that our husbands saw one movie while we saw another.
And right smack dab in the middle there is possibly the best picture ever taken of Ezra. It just doesn't get any better than a fat baby with a double chin in a dirty, sleeveless onesie...unless of course you consider the other picture of Ezra starting to crawl at 7 months. It's near impossible to rank his pictures in cuteness.
The yellow tape signifies yet another critter caught in my house being too large and disgusting to take care of myself...I spent plenty of years with no choice but to deal with it myself but now I have the luxury of waiting until Clark comes home from work.
We had the first high school graduation of a niece on the Scharman side...this is significant for so many reasons but mainly because it reminded us all that time isn't slowing down and these people are all growing up. That is both a very happy, exciting and super sad thought.
And just the kind of picture a mother wants to get of her kids at camp - flying through the air a million miles off the ground, or so it would seem. I worry and lie. They were perfectly safe, having a marvelous time at girls camp.
Family dinners: one of the things that I miss most about leaving Houston. This one in particular was significant because it was the last time that the Scharman family was together in their entirety - that is truly rare! When we first moved, Sunday evenings were the saddest times for me, they felt lonely and quiet. Sunday dinners with family were loud and often chaotic but I couldn't not do them. It was a time to be together and talk and catch up, to be in one another's presence and that was not taken for granted. When looking for houses in Virginia it became almost a joke that we refused to even consider a house that couldn't accommodate our huge dining room table. I could've easily gotten rid of any piece of furniture in our whole house, except my table. I found it at Roundtop and it quickly came to represent the love I have for Texas, friends and family. It reminds me of countless holidays and weekends, every chair filled with people that I love and the house spilling over with important people. How grateful I am for those times!
Almost as significant as all of those sentiments would be Haley's excitement at passing up so many Scharmans in height, including her own mother. It was a big summer for her ;)
We stayed up late, played cards, did the ropes course (which looks way more fun from the ground,) swam, swam, swam, and Mike got super into the MagiQuest game insisting that Hazel and Jameson see it through to the end. We made some good memories that week.
One of the most frightful and entertaining things about having our house on the market was seeing reviews of what people thought about it. It may not have been our dream house, and we may have had some "less than desirable" neighbors but it was our home. These people ultimately because the buyers and while I was touched by her comments, I was very glad that the "love" she felt was not marred by the incessant bickering that is possible on a daily basis.
The many faces of Jonah. He turned four last June. He cracks me up and makes me roll my eyes, very typically within the same hour. I know I talk about how I cherished the time when it was just us and the girls but I hope it doesn't diminish how I feel about these little boys. There certainly is a special place in my heart just for them.
Jonah's free hugs t shirt led to many a speech sessions in our kitchen where I was trying to convince him that "three" and "free" are indeed, different words. Regardless of how many times I have tried to explain it, to this day, when he wears it, you will get "three hugs" which is kind of a win win.
[Can you imagine the number of pictures I would have stored on my computer if cell phones were around from the beginning of my family?! Because just for the record, every single one of my kids has been the cutest, silliest, most amazing human being ever born.]
I sat out the day that the Hubniks took Clark and the girls to Lake Conroe. Something about little boys in life preservers didn't sounds super fun. But they had a blast, as we always do with those people [see above where I mention friends that feel like family]
My second trip to Magnolia in less than a month, except this time with the Scharman women. A group that I adore. We even let Clark come along on this excursion; that's how much we like him.
I'm glad I have this documented so I can also remember how much I loved living near a temple and going with people that I love so much. These youth amaze me. We literally were racing a torrential downpour on this afternoon to make it there. Clark sped past the cop getting out of his car to close the road from the rising waters. By the time we got out, the rain had stopped and the waters had already begun to go down. They sang their hearts out with joy and optimism on our way there. These times in the temple with family and friends just make our connections all the richer and more special. How grateful I am for those experiences!
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