right now

  

I am so glad to be a mom.  I hold these days dear and you know how women past this stage of life are always saying "Enjoy these days, they are so fleeting"?  I want to look them seriously in the eye and say, "Yes.  I am.  I really am."  Especially as I see Rosie pass out of each stage for what may be my last experience having a child that age, I really do try to enjoy each day, even almost each moment.  This not in any perfect romantic sense, because it's such a mess, and I have to say sorry so often and I know I'm not even saying sorry for everything I should be saying sorry for.  

This right now is what I always wanted.  I just selfishly want more of it. 

Millie is learning to ride her bicycle without training wheels, just a couple months after Lyddie mastered it.  Little sister wants to keep up so badly!  She's reading everything voraciously, even things much too difficult for her reading level, she's picking them up and laboriously sounding out each word, mostly successfully.  Lyddie, meanwhile, is in love with Edward Eager and plowing through the Race Across Space reading program I found at edsnapshots.  It' a great challenge to me to keep finding a variety of books to expose them to for fun this summer. 

I used a portion of our grocery budget this month to buy a bunch of cherries to preserve and I was afraid I would then miss the apricots like I did last year.  I love canning- well, mainly I love having jars of sunshine to pull out in the winter to go alongside soup for easy dinners, and apricots are Jesse's favorite.  I actually prayed about fruit because I knew there wouldn't be money for it until next payday.  I shouldn't have been surprised when some friends from church said they had apricots breaking branches off their tree and would we come pick some?  I was so blessed by getting to visit the home of this newer friend; she is always so kind to me and my girls, and it also gave me one thing to give Millie when she had to deal with not being old enough to attend the Kids Camp at church with Lyddie last week.  A few jars of apricot halves (hot pack... next time I think I'll go back to raw pack unless they taste phenomenal, but they look much mushier than my apricots usually do), several jars of jam, a dehydrator full of leather and drying apricot quarters.  I'm not sure I've even been so thankful for a box of fruit before because it was so clearly an answer of provision to my little prayer. 

Big white pelicans in flocks are all over the lower valley this summer, I've never seen this many here before.  They lazily circle overhead and they are gorgeous and huge.  (Unlike my camera lens which is clearly very dirty in spite of my quick efforts to clean it.  Excuse the dust for now, I'm holding out in hopes of upgrading this year sometime).