The Summer Before

     For our family, this is the summer before everything changes.

     In the spring, I had a plan. I wanted the summer for my own--time to finish the final draft of my novel, long, lovely days spent stitching fall wardrobes for my little ones, afternoon naps with my growing baby belly. The children would play in the backyard, wild and free. No plans. Just play for them and my own time for me before...And then I remembered. Fall will come, and something will happen in our homeschooling family that has never happened: Laurelei and Riley will go to public school. And this Mamma bird will have no children in her nest or under her wing for a good chunk of each day. And then, more changes: the baby we've hoped and prayed would come for the last three and a half years will arrive. These are good changes for us. They are right for our family at this time. But when I really stopped to think about how precious these summer days with my little ones are, my plans went out the window. 

    
    That novel? It's been in the works for four years. It can hang on until fall. The stitching? We'll do it together. Naps? Those stay, but in mountain meadows on blankets with storybooks scattered around us and a little one on each shoulder, whispering to the baby (whom they call Little Sprout). We've been riding bikes and exploring forests, packing picnics and cooking over campfires, snatching up cabin weekends and diving into everything in Missoula's summer scene. 

      We've been doing, doing, doing...living, living, loving... and making memories that, sometime, I will start to write about more often again. 

    I sleep a little more these days, and clean house a little less. And I'm trying to spend as few hours of my precious summer as possible on the computer, but I still have stories to tell. They'll come. And so will fall. But for now, I'm cherishing every moment of us as we've always been; Mamma and little ones, Daddy when he gets home, loving nothing in this world so much as being together.

xo