Busy days...

Summer has arrived here.  Josie has been out of school for two full weeks and it has been non-stop.  I actually don't like it like this.  I want slow, lazy summer days.  It hasn't happened yet but I know it will soon.  Sometimes I miss Marie setting our pace.  She slowed us down, made us appreciate things, kept us grounded.  Maybe it is Josie getting older, more involved but it seems that time is just passing far to quickly these days.

Landon's Hope was great!  We were so grateful to everyone who came and walked with us, and our team raised far more than our goal for the UMDF! 

Josie had her dance recital. She had been taking jazz classes since January and it was really wonderful.  She loves dance, we could see how much she practiced and how much it meant to her to do well at the recital.  She did great and it was so fun to see just how big she's getting.

Sarah is so busy.  I thank God constantly for her being able to be into so many things.  Her hair is not getting any darker, it's still white.  She reminds me of Marie more these days and I am grateful for that.  In so many ways I am lost for what to do with her.  It's been five years since I gave any thought to potty training and big girl beds.  Marie was a big girl too but it was so different.  With Marie I had to learn everything over again, and I feel that way with Sarah too.  I'm learning this all over again. 

Josie has been playing machine pitch t-ball for the last two weeks.  This Saturday is her tournament.  She really likes the game and it's fun to watch her.  She gets frustrated with herself easily, but I think it's a good learning experience.

This is my favorite picture that I've taken for awhile.  She looks so grown up, I'm really not sure when that happened. 

I will be 24 weeks Wednesday.  It's hard to believe we've gone through six months already.  In just four months we'll be meeting this new baby girl.  It's such a blessing, but I find myself struggling more these days.  I wish Marie were here to be going through this with us.  I want to share it all with her.  I can't imagine really who she would be a four years old.  She wasn't meant for that and in my heart I know it.  It's hard to accept, that I have a beautiful girl who was meant for greater things than this world.  Because I am grateful she's with Jesus, but as her mother I am selfish and I still want her here with me.

Luke is in the fields planting millet.  Only three quarters but it's good for the soil.  One up north and two out by the farm.  It will harvest in September when he'll swath it into windrows and leave it to dry.  Picking it up just before this fourth baby comes.  It's the continuity of it that brings me comfort.  He planted millet the year Marie was born, he planted it again the year after.  He is planting it this year, and he will plant it again the coming years.  The same kind of seed, the same soil, the same man.  Some things don't change so drastically.

Summer days oddly enough make me miss Marie.  Those were my last days with her.  The long, hot days of summer.  It will be two years and that makes me want to scream.  It can't be that long.  It can't be.  But it is.  And I can't stop time so we'll make the best of it.  The ache of two years for me is the being without her.  Little Mama is unaware of time, she's just where God meant her to be and she'll see me whenever I get there and she won't recognize that we've been apart for even a second.  And I think she's with the twin that vanished, the other little girl that we would have had, the identical twin to this baby that I'm carrying now.  We would have named her Jayne...   

Still, it's summer days and I need to turn off the water in the vegetable garden and fold laundry and carry the metal watering can around to the seeds the hose didn't reach and make Josie get dressed and do dishes and all the other work that God gave me to keep me busy and sane.  And I am blessed...