closing a chapter.

So, I'm a processor.  And when big things happen in life, my mind is constantly processing.  

I can be super sentimental and I need good closure on things in order to keep myself from major meltdowns, which may or may not come anyway.  So I had to stop and sit down and write.

I had to do everything my heart needed to do or I knew I'd regret it.

So I put on Amy Grant's "If These Walls Could Speak" and sat among boxes at 3am just staring at this home.

That song was a special song of my Pi Phi days in college.  One I've probably heard twice in the last 10 years, but those lyrics just came to me today and they stuck.  And I had to listen. My heart had to say goodbye to these walls before all the busyness of moving day tomorrow.

So yeah, we are moving.  You may know that already. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you've seen what's been going on for the last month.  There's such an awesome story behind it all. And I want to tell it to you sometime.  A total God-story.  Something we've been waiting and wishing for for so long.  But that story has to wait.

Today is MOVING DAY!

Which means some really hard emotions too, that will more than likely be masked with the busyness and chaos of having friends show up to help us move. 

They aren't the hard emotions people have when they are moving far away, we are only moving 10 minutes away. We don't really have to say goodbye to anyone.  And it's not like I didn't know this day would come at some point.  We were pretty sure we wouldn't live in this house forever.   But change is hard.  Closing chapters of life can be so hard...especially when they were such a good chapter.  I'm not too much of a fictional reader, but it really is kind of like reading an awesome book, getting to the end and not wanting it to be over.  You know there's a sequel, so you know things go on.  But closing the back of that book is just no fun.  

That's how I feel.  What's ahead is so exciting and so much fun for us, and completely our dream.  But along with it means closing the back of the book and ending a really really good part of our lives.  

There's 2 parts to the story.  

Part 1 goes like this:

This is the house we moved to a year and a half after we were married.

Our first home purchase.

It's the house we really truly learned how to be husband and wife. (who are we kidding, still learning that one!)

It's the house we brought all 3 of our babies home from the hospital.

Where they spoke their first words and had their first Christmases.

It's the house our babies learned to walk in and then learned to ride their bikes in the driveway.

And just recently it's the house they took off riding bikes from to Grandma's.

It's the house we had to say goodbye to our beloved chocolate lab, Anni.

It's the house we tried to leave several times before, and God said it just wasn't time.  

The walls of this house could say so much about what it's seen.

Laughter, love, growth, heartbreak, pain, fear and everything in between.

"If these walls could speak.
Of things that they remembered well
Stories and faces dearly held
A couple in love
Livin' week to week
Rooms full of laughter
If these walls could speak

If these old halls
If hallowed halls could talk
These would have a tale to tell
Of sun goin' down and dinner bell
And children playing at hide and seek
From floor to rafter
If these halls could speak
If these walls could speak

If these old fashioned window panes were eyes
I guess they would have seen it all
Each little tear and sigh and footfall
And every dream that we came to seek
Or followed after
If these walls could speak"

 

This is the place we grew from 2 to 5.

The place where our family began. 

 And as if that weren't enough...

 here's how Part 2 goes:

I got married, moved to Newton, my husband's hometown, knew pretty much no one and began subbing in the school district.

I subbed a handful of times at Slate Creek, and then got hired to teach 3rd grade there.

It was my first year of marriage, no kids, first real job. 

I moved into my 3rd grade classroom and found out that I had the most WONDERFUL neighbor.

Kendall became my 3rd grade teaching partner and my mentor who taught me EVERYTHING about teaching 3rd grade.  That was just the beginning of what was to come of all that I'd be learning from her.

Being classroom neighbors was the best.

I got pregnant, then she got pregnant.
I ran to throw up all the time while I was pregnant, and she always watched my class for me.

They invited us to be part of their small group, couples who went to a completely different church than us, but we were longing for meaningful friendships with other couples our age, and in the same season of life.  We found exactly what we were looking for.

The next year we taught together again.

I got pregnant again, then she got pregnant again.

I promise we never discussed this ahead of time.

Then we decided that instead of being next door to each other, we'd just share a classroom and share the job.

So we babysat each other's kiddo while the other one was working. She hauled the babies to school at noon and we'd switch and I'd take them home.  Job-sharing with her was the best and if it hadn't have been for growing families and the pull to be at home with my babies, I could have done it for years and year and years.

Then, instead of just being classroom neighbors, we became REAL neighbors too.  

I remember the excitement of them moving in.

For the last 4 years they've been our backyard neighbors.  We cut an opening in the fence and made a gate to get back and forth easily.

She got pregnant and then I got pregnant again. 

All 6 of our kids are the same age.  They have become the closest of friends.

Summers have been a child's dream.  Maybe a mom's dream too? 

Eat breakfast, run off with the neighbor kids, come back at lunch. 

After school, they come home, grab a snack and find each other fast.

For us parents...sometimes it's extra extra quiet in the house because everyone is at the other house, and sometimes it's extra extra loud because everyone is at our house...but both were so very very good.

We became classroom neighbors in August of 2005. 

We became real neighbors in April of 2011

That's a total of 10 years, right now this month...of being neighbors of some sort. 

She walked with me through some really hard stuff and celebrated with me during some really exciting stuff.  She definitely saw me at my best and worst.

And today, even though our friendship will continue, we close that chapter and begin a new. 

I've been so busy and distracted by the work at our new farmhouse and packing up my other house, that I haven't slowed down to process much.  But today the tears came.  She came over

with muffins and coffee in hand and helped me pack up my house and we hugged and cried.  I knew I would at some point, it was all just hiding in there for awhile.

Not many people get the opportunity to live life with close friends like this.

And to be honest, I was nervous at first to have such good friends right by us.  She'd see my mess, she'd hear me yell, she'd wonder why I'm such a homebody, she'd see that we don't eat dinner on time like they do, she'd get annoyed of my kids and see how naughty they can be.  But you know what...having someone know you like that, there's a sense of freedom to that.  

I could never list all the things I loved about being neighbors.  The memories I will take are so very very precious to me. 

It was so so so good.  And while we are moving on to a dream that we've had for so long, and we know that God's hand has been in every detail, we are sad.  We are leaving a wonderful neighborhood, the neighborhood Dave grew up in.  Grandma and Grandpa are here too, just a 2 minute bike ride away for the kids.  And other friends in front of us, beside us and all around.  God put us in a very very special place for the last 9 years.  We are so grateful for the life we built here, the memories we've made and the friendships that have grown. 

It's all bittersweet.  This is the bitter part.  But I know the sweet part is to come.  My heart just has to process this part first.

I hope I can keep up with life enough to share a lot of the next chapter with you.  IF I will ever have internet again that is.  You'd think I was moving to Antarctica with the choices of internet service.

Geesh!

So here I am. With all kinds of roller coaster emotions... closing this chapter and opening the next.

celebrating eight

This week in 2005, a humongous ice storm hit Kansas.  It was a bad one, and I can't remember one that bad since.  People were without power for a handful of days.

The storm hit on Tuesday, and on Saturday, January 8, Dave and I were getting married.

I wasn't worried about the weather one bit.  I love winter anyway, and we chose to have a winter wedding, which we definitely got.  (I was only worried about people driving to our wedding)

We wondered if anyone would even come.  But if it was going to be just us and our immediate family, which we honestly thought it could possibly be, I knew it would still be perfect.

 I shared our wedding day "as it happened" on Instagram today.  It was definitely an excessive number of pictures to post in one day, and quite possibly annoyed someone.  But it was fun to remember what we were doing throughout the day, on this day in 2005.

So I'll share a little bit of our story here too, for those of you who don't follow on Instagram.

Maybe you've heard how we met.  But just in case, I'll back you up to that.

We met at the K-State Student Union, over lunch time.  I sat down in a semi-empty area of the Union to eat my Chinese food, and when I cut into my first bite my plastic fork broke, with a pretty loud snap.  It was loud enough for others to hear, so I looked up and around to see if anyone witnessed it, before I slowly got up to go get a new fork. As I stood up, I heard a voice teasingly say,
"I heard that."

And that was the beginning.  My fork broke.  The stranger next to me heard it and decided to actually comment on it.  And a year later he asked me to marry him.

January 8, 2005...

I'll start with a picture from the rehearsal dinner the night before, because it's one of the better ones I have of me and the girls, without having to scan something like I did a lot of the rest.  And yes, I know my hair is very blonde. Way too blonde for me.

 And then we said goodbye.

On our wedding day, a wonderful friend hosted a bridal party luncheon in her home for all of us.  We staggered it so the guys would be out of there before the girls showed up.
 These are all of our groomsmen and ushers.

 The ice was really bad and the church maintenance people told us there was no way they could get the front steps to the main entrance of the church cleaned off.  So they cleaned a side/back door, leaving guests having to walk through the basement of the back of the church and then up some stairs into the lobby to come into the sanctuary.  It was quite the detour.  A few of the ushers went out and tried their hardest to clear the steps so we could try to use them, but they had no luck.  It would have taken them hours and hours.  I had really really wanted to walk down these stairs and have pictures coming out of this beautiful entrance to drive away.  But it wasn't happening.  I think that's the only thing that didn't go as planned (that I know of), so in the end, no big deal.

My favorite moment of the day was seeing each other before the ceremony. I walked down the isle, in the empty sanctuary to meet him. It was just us and the photographer.  It was such a sweet sweet moment.

We had the cutest little ringbearers ever. 

 Dave knew that along with my dream of a winter wedding, I wanted to ride off in a sleigh. Me and my crazy ideas.  But it's hard to book a sleigh in advance in a place you can't predict whether there will be snow.  So I was settled on riding away in Dave's 1970 Cuda.
 Before we walked out, I even made sure to ask Dave to make sure I was able to get into the Cuda okay without falling and that my dress didn't get stuck in the door.
He gave me his assurance, and then we headed out through the candlelit crowd.

I was mostly focused on the ground, making sure to not slip on ice and hold my dress up. So when I finally did look up, I saw a horse drawn carriage waiting. It was such a fun surprise from Dave and his family, and still had the same feel that a sleigh would.
It was a 35 degree ride.  But I think the adrenaline kept us warm.  I didn't think about the cold one time.

And then we celebrated.  It's so fun thinking about all of our friends and family that were there with us that night.   Our reception was a beautiful mix of greenery, snow, ice, and white lights. With the perfect backdrop of real snow and ice out the wall of windows along one edge of the reception.

  I'm thankful to be so richly blessed with a husband who loves me beyond all of my faults.  The past 8 years I have learned so much about unconditional love.  Marriage is wonderful and hard and sweet and frustrating and so many other things, all wrapped into one relationship.  But I'm thankful that God put us together, to walk this life together, learning all along the way to not only love and serve each other, but to ultimately learn how to love and serve Him.

And to think it all began with a broken fork.  

while he was sleeping

I still haven't gotten to our vacation pictures.

But these are from vacation and I thought they deserved a post of their very own.

This sweet boy of ours keeps us on our toes.  There's nothing too predictable about him, other than the fact that he's unpredictable and we never know what we may get from him.

One minute he can be cuddling cozily on the couch with me or giving me sweet kisses,

and the next minute he can be stomping his little feet as hard as he can down the hallway.

One minute he can be singing sweet songs about Jesus in the cutest voice I have ever heard in my entire life,

and the next minute he can be screaming bloody murder to demand his way or let us know he is upset about something.

One minute he can be shooting baskets, playing legos, or drawing contently,

and the next minute he can be throwing his paper and marker across the room out of frustration.

But I can't tell you how many times he has humbled me, or made me realize that his choice behaviors are very similar to my own at times.

One minute he can be throwing a humongo fit and exhausting us to our wits end,

and the next he can be zonked out in the middle of the living room floor at the lakehouse,

with 15 other people coming in and out from the lake about 4 feet from him.

I knew he was exhausted.  His vacation was spent swimming, tubing, swimming, and swimming some more.

So I tried to calm him and have him just lay here and relax and breathe for a few minutes after a major meltdown.  Within minutes he was out....

...and then he turned towards the window.

And finally, it was the most perfect moment ever, one I was certain I'd never get.

I have wanted for so long to photograph those lashes.

But when does a child actually fall asleep in the middle of a room, facing the best natural light ever?

When he's sleeping, I just want to scoop him up and cuddle with him soooo badly.

For almost 4 years, every night when I headed to bed, I detoured into my boy's room.

I crawled onto his bed and would half way pick him up and hold him in my arms while he slept.

Sometimes just for a minute, sometimes 10. 

He's a sound sleeper and I knew he'd always stay asleep. When I laid him back down, sometimes he'd wake up just enought to whisper back "I love you" as I kissed his forehead.

I love this little guy to death all the time.

But there is something so heavenly about him when he's sleeping.

And there is something so heavenly about those lashes.