Today while uploading a video onto YouTube of our oldest dancing to the Christmas music we’re listening to, I was reminded of this video I put together 5 years ago for Adoptive Families magazine of our family’s story. This video has had 6,000 views to date.
Viewing this still warms my heart and makes me tear up ❤
And now 5 years later, I share this with you. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Enjoy!
Day 22, #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer
Does this blog post title give you a vision in your head? It does me, I see 1950s style neighborhoods in suburbia in black and white. Neat rows of houses and kids playing outside together.
There are days as I sit inside our house I hear the kids in our neighborhood outside and playing together. It’s such a great sound and one I enjoy knowing my girls are out there too!
I think of our neighborhood as Pleasantville like a throwback to the 50s and 60s when you did play outside in your neighborhood with your neighborhood friends!
When we first moved to our home we had no idea what our neighborhood was like other than we knew the schools would be good and we liked the look of the older ranch style homes and all the trees!
Within the first day of living in our home we found that we were one of many families with kids our kids ages. A mix of girls and boys (mostly girls) who were around the same ages and most of them were going to the school our girls would be enrolled in.
Today I sat here, and I listened to our girls surrounded by friends jumping, yelling and laughing in the piles of leaves they all helped rake together. First the two sisters from across the way came by to have fun and then after hearing all the fun and laughter another two sisters from a few houses down came over. Yep that’s right it was not a planned play date, it just happened!
This is like a throwback to the neighborhood I grew up in the 60s where you always played in the neighborhood with your friends and always outside as the weather permitted. When all is said and done all the organized after school activities are just that, the spontaneity of playing with friends where you live that is childhood! I am so happy we moved to a place where our girls will get to have this fun neighborhood experience!
And that is how we are spending our Saturday afternoon!
This is day 15 for National Blog Posting Month, to read many of the other bloggers click #NaBloPoMo and Enjoy!
The definition of Time from the free Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
noun \ˈtīm\
: the thing that is measured as seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, etc.
: a particular minute or hour shown by a clock
: the time in a particular area or part of the world
In my opinion for my life, I feel time is flying by no matter how you define it. Either clock time, calendar time or time followed in milestones as my girls grow.
I look at the calendar and see that it is already November 5. Yes November! Where did the early part of our year go? I know truly our days are filled with school, ballet, soccer, girl scouts, holidays, homework, play dates, family vacations and so much more! I just see it all going by and fast!
Wasn’t it just yesterday when I made the move to California? It was only May 1994, it couldn’t have been that long ago. I know we tracked our girls milestones as babies monthly on how they were growing and the things they were accomplishing at those ages. Now that they are 8 and 6 years old it’s no longer monthly but more a year at a glance that we think back to where they are and how they’ve come to reach that milestone.
I don’t remember time ticking away so quickly when I was younger when I was a student in school partaking in my girl activities. Why as an adult does it feel to go by so much more quickly?
Each day may have moments that we need to remember, moments that pass and sometimes a day may feel long but then there are times that it feels fleeting that it has gone by too fast. I realize you cannot stop time, but maybe just slow it down a bit. I see with time how all of our relationships through family and friends have changed and grown. I see for our girls how they have developed family and friend relationships on their own. I see glimpses of the women they will be with the empathy, compassion and love they show for those in their lives. I see time has a way of going by for the good too.
This is my fifth post for National Blog Posting month. Click #NaBloPoMo to read many other blogger’s contribution to this event, Enjoy!
It’s been a little over a year since we moved into our new home. The leap of faith we took to change homes, neighborhoods and schools has been a good thing for us.
That was most evident for me when I had an injury accident that kept me off my feet for 3 weeks back in March. We were not in our house more than 8 months and our neighbors/friends jumped in to help. Help that was much appreciated and much-needed. How did they help? They helped get our kids from school, they helped if I needed an errand when my husband was at work. They checked in on me home alone laid up trying to heal. It was their automatic offer of help that made me feel so good. I didn’t have to ask they offered and that to me sealed my feelings of the community we fell into when we bought the home we currently live in. The friends we were making were true friends and I know we would be able to reciprocate whenever needed for them as well.
Our girls transitioned better than we could have ever hoped. How did that happen after their sharing that they were upset to leave the only home they ever knew? It was finding out there are children in our new neighborhood their age that attend the school they would be attending. We moved in July which was part of my plan to be settled before the new school year would start. On the day we were moving in three girls dressed up as princesses ages 7 and 5 were all we needed to know that this was going to be good! The friendships have only blossomed from there both for our girls and for us.
Our new community extends to the school community as well. Me being nervous believe it or not as the new mom to a community at a new school. I found the parents very open and helpful making my transition easier than I had expected. Of course now I’m fully ALL the way in too LOL! And our girls found new friends to help them put roots into their school community as well. We joined girl scout troops, they play soccer in the local area league and now we live closer to their ballet school and some of the other activities they were already involved in.
It was a leap of faith moving ourselves but it was a leap that has paid us back over and over again. It has only been a year and 4 months but I cannot believe our fortune in finding ourselves within this new community and the friends we have made that feel like we’ve known each other for much longer than we have. For that I am thankful!
There are many other bloggers participating in BlogHer’s National Blog Posting Month! Click here #NaBloPoMo to read more, Enjoy!
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