Before we moved, and during the last days of the kids school year, Benjamin & I went and picked as many strawberries as we could, to freeze for our smoothies for the year. I also wanted to share this pic to document this as the summer of "Woody & Buzz". Benjamin loves the characters from Toy Story SO much. Woody and Buzz have been constant summer companions. His big boy underpants he wears now (yay for being potty trained!!) are of course from Toy Story. :)
As Jude finished up therapy for the year it was hard to say goodbye to Mandy until January... it will be great to see her again! And she's married now!!
My Tuesday Sensory Therapy Date. Loved spending the one-on-one time with this boy. xo
Also right before we moved, one night Kelly, Kristin & I drove around Portland testing out our night photography skills. It was crazy, nerdy fun!!! I want to do it again for sure!
Then we took the leap of faith to move our little family to a much smaller town, to enjoy raising our kids near family. Josh and I often comment on how drastically our lifestyle has changed. I think this photo above and the photo below kind of are the two extremes.
It's been fun for the kids to have lots of room to run, and I've loved seeing all of the beauty in nature everywhere...
View of the moon, while standing on our back deck looking over the field.
The moon again on the left from the backyard, and sunset on the right I snapped while out driving near the house.
The sunset peeking through the oak grove and the old lantern light on our front porch.
The moon again, taken from back deck.
Beauty is everywhere around this charming old farmhouse... <3
...and I've found a bit of my soul again here too... finding moments to read, journal, play piano, admire God's incredible creation, notice the beauty in the old, and admiring the wonderful history of this place...if these walls could speak...
"He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will cam all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs." Zeph 3:17. He loves YOU.
And I've also found a lot of imaginative super heroes around here too! :)
That photo of Ben just cracks me up... He wears this superman suit almost daily.
Our other super boy is this guy... I'm just amazed at how well Jude's doing here. I think this setting is great for him. So many family members have commented on his progress and growth. His two passions right now are Legos and math.
Our favorite day each week is the day Daddy works from home! We have yet to set up our office, but Josh doesn't seem to mind because he's always happily in this chair by the windows.
On the hot days this summer we enjoyed swimming at Granny & 'Ol Papa's house (my grandparents)
Lots of playing outside...
With Gramma Jill at the "train park", and playing pirates in the orchard...
Selah date day...
Farmer Ben, gardening... ;)
Spending a week at VBS... Wild West and SO fun!
Making giant bubbles...
Having fun at Granddad and Grandma's neighborhood party, even though we aren't a part of their neighborhood. ;)
Family evening walks to get the mail...
Playing with future Aunt Jen (yay for Caleb & Jen getting engaged!!)
Celebrating Uncle Leon's 70th birthday with his talented live music...
Games, food and conversation with us cousins, when Ian came to visit (a post coming on that)... and I'll never forget Matt's crazy motorcycle story!
Somehow finding tiny amounts of time to work on this house... potty training a child in the midst of wedding season, in a half remodeled bathroom... need I say more?? Just admit me to the loony bin now. ;) And a photo Jude took of me peeling wall paper off the entry walls... literally something I worked on while taking photo editing breaks, while listening to Christmas music, because it's calming. If you're wondering about Baby Jesus on the door there... I'll have a post about that at some point too. :)
Josh and I escaped to Cannon Beach for the day a few weeks ago. It was wonderful. I had one morning shoot and two evening shoots, and a whole day to goof off with Josh in between. Lots of fun!!
We've been processing pears, apples, and plums already from the orchard. My mom's hilarious words always echo through my mind when I'm dehydrating fruit or making applesauce. These activities are not her cup of tea and she says with a smile, "I will not be a slave to produce," when she declines free fruit.
After shooting my last wedding of the year, we spent a day out at Josh's parents house for their annual extended family get together. The kids had so much fun playing in the creek and also crossing the river with Josh.
And now we prepare for September. I'm trying to wrap up my photo season and editing and turn my attention to school. We will be doing Classical Conversations schooling this year. The kids go to school 1 day a week and we school at home the other 4. There are 28 families in our school and we're looking forward to making lots of friends this year, and it will be fun to have a support network with other moms. This is Jude vacuuming as we began to prepare our home school room:
We're taking school one year at a time. We loved the Christian Montessori school in Sherwood SO MUCH that it was really hard to say goodbye when we moved. But the kids are really excited for school this year. We chose this route of schooling this year mainly for Jude to give him a little more time in a smaller classroom setting. Due to his sensory issues, anything more than about 10 kids is too much stimulation for him to be able to focus. And his teachers at the Montessori school highly encouraged me to go the home school route. We gave Selah the option of choosing between regular school or Classical Conversations and she really wanted to do this. I asked her a few different times just to be sure that she was sure, and she was. So this will be a fun new adventure for us all as we're new to the program, and I'm excited to have this special year with my kids!!
I hope you all had a wonderful summer!! I loved seeing all of the back to school photos of everyone's cute kids today on FB and Instagram! It also made me want to hug them all and say, "stop growing up so fast!" because soooo many of them I remember as babies, or photographing as 1 year olds... and now they're all in elementary school! It's all going by so quickly! I feel more than ever the urgency to soak up these fleeting days.
xo,
B
4 comments:
Loved reading the updates and as always, love the photos too :))
Wow Bethany, what a full summer! Sounds like it was lots of fun and lots of work. Keep the posts coming (in all your free time, lol), it's so fun to get a glimpse into your life and see God's blessing on your family. It's so inspiring!
I remember moving & having NO time to post, then finally writing a 3-month summary post :) CRAZY times!! How awesome for your family to move out to the country, so many adventures for the kids. They are growing up so much, and continue to be the most adorable little ones! Good luck with school, sounds like a great network with other kids and moms.
I am so enjoying watching your family's journey through your blog! The life you and your family are forming is the kind of life James and I have been striving for for ours. Being in Washington just strengthened our desire for a more peaceful life. We want so badly to have a home in the country with land so that we can have an orchard, a big garden, places for our kids to explore outdoors, and a place of serenity away from the distractions of the world. I am happy that your family has been able to find that.
P.S. The farm house looks great! It looks like it is on it's way to being featured in the Country Living magazine.
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