Growing in the South

I love living in South Carolina.  Somehow our family found the perfect place to make our home away from home.  Life is a bit slower.  Sure, we still have "things" to do, but something about being here makes me feel less pressured to do them a certain way.  Maybe it's the humidity.  Maybe it's the porch swing.  Maybe it's the lake and the kayak and the canoes in our backyard.  Or, it just might be the fact that Jonny is dead tired after a 4am-3pm work schedule (sometimes longer) so some afternoons we all hope on the "nap wagon" (except for Aaron, that is...who has never really enjoyed sleeping in the first place).  Whatever it is, I'm grateful we get to grow up for a year in the south.    

We are growing in simple ways: learning to make PB&J sandwiches;

Running down our country roads; memorizing our address (414 Sunward Path...); reading to one another;

realizing that when I don't have make up on, I look like a young version of my grandma; playing cars, more cars, and even more cars still;

dressing ourselves and pulling out every awkward expression possible when I want to take a picture of the combination (he likes to tuck his shirt in lately to look like his dada going to work); playing on the "beach";

swinging, swinging, swinging...;

glorying in Goodwill shopping finds (a few of Aaron's favorites here...all the bball shorts a boy could want worn all at once); attending library reading hour every week and checking out the maximum allowed allotment of books;

committing to violin lessons with teacher dada;

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hanging the clothes out to dry and realizing how much I love to do my laundry this way;

eating popsicles to our hearts content (the boys don't even notice they're sugar free); fishin' in the dark;

entertaining ourselves on rainy days;

riding bikes;

feeding the neighbor's chickens;

learning to put cochlears on by himself;

and growing super duper excited when visitors come.  Lafe was such a fun break from our simple summer schedule.

Even if we did have him for less than 48 hours, we made the most of it.  The boys adored his attention, and we loved talking with him.  He is such a good uncle and we were grateful to have him in our home.

We love Uncle Lafe.  The boys are growing up so much--JJ doesn't even call Lafe "Lay lay" any more.  He woke up the morning we were going to Lafe's children's choir concert and I said, "we get to see uncle Lay lay today!"  He immediately corrected me, "uncle Lafe!"  It is sad to leave those things behind, but I love watching my boys grow.  I need two entirely different posts devoted to each boy to adequately highlight their progress.  More to come.

But for now, let me pay homage to this awesome family photo--one of my favorites, for sure.  It's from our trip to South Carolina.  We strategically detoured from 4 hours from our route so that we could visit Nauvoo with the boys.  Jonny had never been there either, and we imagined that it would be an extremely meaningful family moment.  Needless to say, it wasn't so.  But, that's family life.  And it's worth it.  Even in South Carolina--where the pace is slow and the playtime is abundant--it's not always smooth sailing.  There will always be dishes.  There will always be conflicts.  I will always be scrimping for time to scribble a few coherent thoughts on paper.  There will always be thunderstorms and other things that (as JJ says) "I no like."  But all our growing pains feel better in the morning.  I'm just grateful we get to grow a year older together in South Carolina.