{ the call.... }

Today we received the call.

The call that I knew was coming, but had hoped that it wouldn't.

The call that is sending my husband to Afghanistan again.

The call that will turn our lives upside down.....again.

We were having a normal day. Jerome had taken the day off to get some things done that he had been needing to. The kids were running in and out of the house barefoot....they were enjoying the weather outside and playing with all the neigbor kids. I was on the phone laughing with April about something that I can't remember now. Jerome walked in the room, looked at me and asked me who I was talking to. He had that look on his face. I hurriedly hung up the phone. We went to our bedroom and that is when he told me, "Amber, that was it.....that was the call".

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But instead I stood there frozen......numb. I wanted to pretend that what he had just told me hadn't really just happened.

He put his hands on my arms and pulled me close to him. I knew he thought I would have cried.....but I was just numb. I wanted to cry, but I just stood there frozen.

Then he said to me, "It will all be OK, we made it through this before, we can do it again. Besides, this time you won't have to worry about me as much. I'll be on a much safer base."

Those words kept repeating over and over in my head, "you won't have to worry about me as much". Then it hit me. I remembered the feeling of going to bed at night, unable to sleep because I was worried about him. How I spent every.waking.moment. trying to function and make it through the day with the "normal stuff" and try to keep my mind distracted and away from all the worry.

Then I cried.

I cried and he held me and promised me it would all be OK.

Then there was a knock on our bedroom door. It was one of our girls, they were wanting Jerome to fix their bicycle. I wiped my eyes, looked at him and smiled, he smiled back and then we opened the door to the normal day we were having before the call.

{ the simple things }

There it waits.

The tire swing swing under the old sycamore tree.

Waiting.

Waiting for summer to arrive.

Waiting for bare feet to swing it back and forth.

Waiting for little hands to hold on tight.

Waiting for kids to spin round and round in circles filling the air with laughter.

Waiting for summer to arrive.

We had a break in the weather earlier this week. The kids played on the tire swing late into the evening. When I told them it was time to come inside to get cleaned up and ready for bed, they begged to play outside just a little bit longer.

I can't wait for summer to get here. To watch the kids play in the yard and swing in circles round and round on the tire swing. Just a few more weeks and summer break will will be here.

There is one sure sign of our kids getting older. That is that the tire swing is to low to the ground for them now. I guess their daddy will have to tie the rope up a little taller for them this year.

{ Spencer Andrew }

It has been a busy couple of weeks.

Spencer took his school trip to Washington D.C. and had a great time. Jerome joined the group going and they both came home with a lot of D.C. stories and tired from all the walking and trying to sleep in the bus.

Then not long after that the kids were out on spring break. The girls and I took a trip to Ohio, Jerome had military in Williamsburg and Spencer went with a few friends to camp at the Greenbrier River in his friend's family's cabin.

The girls and I spent the week shopping for summer clothes, antiquing and having fun. Spencer spent the weekend fishing, tubing down the river, going to a local festival in Lewisburg and just hanging out with his friends.

Yesterday was the last day of spring break. Jerome had drill and the girls had spent the week with Grammie and Poppie and visiting their cousins. Jerome had to pick them up yesterday after drill and called to let me know they were going to dinner with Grann and Aunt Pam and they would be home later. So Spencer and I went to see a movie, got a bite to eat and came home. It was a pretty day and I had been wanting to get some pictures of him. We went and shot some pictures and I took a lot. It has been a long time since he has decided to cooperate for pictures, and...this time I didn't even have to bribe him either!

I took a lot of pictures. I plan to post more later. Right now I need to get dinner finished.

~Amber Hope

{ light shining through }

Yesterday evening, after a hard rainstorm, Natalie came running inside from the porch where she had been watching the rain fall. "Mommy, Mommy! You have to come and see the sky how pretty it is!", she said to me. I walked out on the porch and smiled as I looked up at the beautiful sky. "You're right", I told her, "It is a pretty sky this evening isn't it?". She then looked at me, put her hands together, letting me know she was getting ready to ask me something that she thought the answer would be no to. "Mommy, can I please, please, please use your camera and take a picture of the sky?", she asked me. I smiled and said, "Of course you can, just please be careful". She gave me a big hug and ran inside to get my camera. I showed her a few things on it, set it to auto for her and went inside to pull a load of clothes out of the dryer.

She came back in the house after some time and proudly showed me all the pictures she had taken. I told her how good they were.

Last night after putting the girls to bed, I loaded up her pictures and the one above caught my attention. I think it is beautiful. She did a beautiful job of holding a big camera in her tiny hands and capturing what she saw as beauty, the sky showing through our worn out American flag hanging from our front porch.

~Amber Hope

{ beauty smiling at me. }

7:15am
Time to start hurrying everyone along.
Insist Spencer eat something for breakfast.
Kiss my husband goodbye for the day.
Close the door.
Braid Katie's hair.
Sign Natalie's homework.
Pack a blueberry muffin for breakfast at school.
Hear the school bus and hurry my girls along.
Kiss them goodbye and hand them a muffin.
Watch them catch the bus.
Close the door.
Open the windows.
Smell the spring air and love feeling it blow through the windows.
Start a load in the wash.
Walk in the kitchen to start my day.
Stop.
Stop, look in the window and smile.
Smile at the beautiful flowers Natalie picked for me the other day, root and all.

{ sisters. }

This was taken at my youngest sister's high school graduation. It is a favorite picture of mine, one with all four of us. There were quite a bit of emotions going on this day, more than can be expressed. But I look back at this picture and see the strength in all of us.
I think this is the picture I would have picked for The Pioneer Woman contest of "sisters" but I didn't know she had contests. I will be entering more pictures in her upcoming contests soon!

{ creativity. }

Today was one of those days.

You know, one of those days where you feel like banging your head against the wall.

I am one of those moms who rather than patiently sit back and let her kids learn how to do certain tasks......I jump in out of frustration and time and do the tasks myself because, ONE. I am able to get the task  done a LOT faster and, TWO. I like things cleaned and organized a certain way.

I have not helped my kids by doing this.

Instead, I have a thirteen year old who doesn't know how to wash his own clothes. A ten year old who at one time mistook Palmolive soap for Cascade and filled the dishwasher cup full of it.....not once, but twice (in the same wash load) because she thought she didn't add enough soap. A nine year old who would rather go to her room than to help clean.

Thankfully, I now keep Cascade drop-ins for the dishwasher. But this doesn't solve the rest of the problems I have created for myself in not teaching my kids simple household tasks they should be able to do by now.

I have come to a point where I have decided I want change. Not just a little but a lot. I am tired of unrolling dirty socks before putting them in the wash. I am tired of tripping over backpacks by the front door. I am tired of shoes being scattered everywhere (and yes they do have a place to be put) and the morning rush of, "Mom! Where is my other shoe?!"......followed of course by a reply of, "I don't know, probably wherever you left it". I am tired of toothpaste stuck to the sink, towels and laundry in the floor and water left dripping in the bathtub. I am tired of glasses of milk filled to the rim for Oreo dipping and then poured down the sink. I am tired of telling them to clean their room every day and they don't listen to me, that is until they receive a phone call from a friend to go somewhere and then magically their room can be clean in ten minutes. Oh how I could go on and on.

I love my children. I love them dearly. But these are just a few of the things that need to change here in our home. It isn't their fault....that falls on my shoulders for always "wanting to hurry and get it done".

So today I decided things would be different. I decided rather than me cleaning their bathrooms that they are perfectly old enough and capable enough to do it themselves. Spencer did pretty good.....he has cleaned his bathroom before. The girls however.......lets just say it took a lot of patience and a few laughs here and there.

Natalie and Katie share a bathroom. I divided up the cleaning tasks to be even. Believe it or not they were fighting over who got to do certain jobs. Katie wanted to clean the mirror. Natalie wanted to mop the floor. They both shared the rest of the tasks such as, scrubbing the bathtub, the toilet, putting things away, taking laundry to the laundry room and cleaning the sinks.

What would have taken me about 20 minutes to do......it took them over an hour.

That is where the wanting to bang my head against the wall came in.......it was taking FOREVER.

But my good laugh for the day came when Natalie started mopping the floor.

She mopped by the right side of the toilet (which is right next to the tub), then mopped by the door. I told her she needed to mop by the left side of the toilet and that she had missed it and explained to her how to start mopping at a far corner of the room and mop your way out of it.

"OK Mommy" she said.

Then she climbed from the doorway to the tub.....walked along the edge of the tub, all the while holding a dripping mop, and then stepped on top of the toilet (and yes the lid was closed).

"What are you doing?" I laughed and asked her.

"Well Mommy, I didn't want to put feet marks on the floor where I already mopped!".

I had to laugh, it was hilarious. She was standing on top of the toilet mopping the floor. Then I came to my senses after laughing and realized this was Natalie.......Natalie standing on top of the toilet mopping. She is the clumsiest of the three of our kids. The one who is always falling and getting hurt. The one who can trip just walking. So I helped her down and helped her mop her way out of the bathroom.

So for today I feel like I accomplished something. I feel better knowing I stepped back and let our kids do certain tasks rather than taking over so I could hurry and move on to the next one. I learned that there is certainly a creative way to do everything, including mopping a bathroom floor.

To my darlings. I love you.
Love,
Mommy xoxo