family

Life’s moments

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take … but by the moments that take our breath away! unknown

I have the app Timehop on my phone and Facebook now has an “on this day” feature.  Both function as a way for looking back a year or 2, 3 4, or 5.  It is these moments that I see each and every day that remind me of life’s moments that are happening every day!

How fast life has been passing by.  Our girls are getting older each and every day.  Here we are in November already, what are some of the moments from this year already passed?

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On the first day of 2015 we added a new dog to our family, Friedmann joined us #weloverescuedogs!

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Our girls enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt in town in April.

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We started Mother’s Day in bed snuggled together ❤

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We joined friends on a weekend trip to Yosemite and had a blast!

2015 Larkey Sharks Swim Team

Both of our girls joined swim team at the pool club we belong to.  It was a fun summer of swim for all of us!!

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Our girls enjoyed another fun Fall soccer season with their Dad coaching each of their teams!

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My husband and I celebrated 16 years of marriage in October!

This is all just a snapshot of this past year, it doesn’t include all the daily moments we have together, or the moments in the past that I am now seeing regularly thanks to Timehop and Facebook.

I try to remember to be in the moment each and every day.  It is hard some days to be in the moment as we are rushing to and from school and activities but this post is making remember to appreciate and live in the moment.

Do you have special moments that you can remember and picture?

Day 8 of #NaBloPoMo #BlogHer

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January 31, 2015

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Here we are the last day of January.   We are already finished with the first month of the new year.  The time of transitions as we shift from focus on holidays and celebrating with family and friends.  The new year shiny and bright.
Our first month of the year brought a lot of things to my family.  On the first of January we celebrated the 14th birthday of our beloved dog, Cody, in memoriam having lost him the month before.  In thinking of Cody, on this day we added a new dog to our family.  A 2-1/2 year old German Short-haired Pointer, named Freidmann.  Since picking him on New Year’s day we had a few days as a family for him to acclimate to us and bond with our other dog, our 19- month old Weimaraner, Pepper.
two happy dogs 1-1-15
January was a return to our schedule, our routine.  Back to work for my husband and back to school for our two girls.  Back to volunteering in classrooms for me and stepping up the planning of our school’s fundraising Gala/Auction which I am the chair.
In January we returned to the routine of after school activities as well, both girls restarted their ballet classes and Girl Scouts was back on the schedule.
The weather tricked us in January with very cold and frosty mornings, tulle fog on some days and warmer afternoons.  In fact, this last week has been in the 70s in the daytime.  AND the sun is starting to stay out later longer, now setting well after 5PM which shows the promise of Spring and Summer coming sooner than later.
Now that we are back in the swing of things, our life has taken on its natural hum of doing and going.   But there have been a few days scattered here and there that I was going through the motions.  Suddenly stuck unable to get more than simple tasks done.  Was it the gloomy weather or something else?
I will say with the sun and warm of this last week, I have a feeling of lightness and happiness!  Funny how weather can affect you.  This time of year when the weather is warm and nice is also the return of children’s voices outside.  Our girls and the neighbors playing, playing all day long!
So as we end January,  I look forward to February and what’s in store that is known,  and not known for our family.
How is the start of your New Year going?

the last few days

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a lot has happened in our family over the last few days/week.  Our beloved Cody Bear passed.  He was nearly 14 years old.  Our girls are sad as we are too. They did find a shiny penny over the weekend and are sure it’s from our Cody up there running around over the rainbow bridge with our Molly.

My oldest daughter’s 3rd grade teacher shared that she too is an adoptee. This turned into a wonderful discussion learning about her life, her reunion with birth family and how an adult adoptee feels.  I love that she shared this knowing our two girls were adopted as well.  My daughter was there in the room during this conversation at the end of the school day.  It was one that I followed up with her in our car as she, her sister and I headed home.  How did they feel knowing a beloved teacher was like them, adopted at birth?  Hearing her life and love for the family that raised her and the relationships she now has later in her life with her birth family.  Without over prodding my girls, I wanted to see what they understood, heard and thought about learning this information about an adult they know. I think we will need a few more days or weeks to process.

Adoption seems to be the “it” subject of our week.  Yesterday we learned a classmate of my older daughter’s was adopted as well.  She from China.  I again followed up the conversation with my daughters in the car on the way home from school.  Wasn’t it interesting to learn a classmate came to her family in a similar way?  This girl’s mom recently became a friend of mine on facebook and had read my posted links of this blog learning about our family’s story.  I don’t want to overdue the conversation with my girls, but how great is it to learn more about the people in our lives through school that have similar family stories!

Adoption is a part of our lives and it is our family story.  It’s something that comes up in conversation within our family often, sometimes just our two girls talking with each other about their families and our family.  Sometimes it’s their planning out their future lives.  They’ve shared with me they too want to adopt a baby into their lives when they are older.  I think is wonderful and shows me how normal our family lives are that they want to have a family in a similar way.

Time and again I realize you never know when or who you will meet that will have a similar story and share it with you.  I appreciate the honesty of people sharing their stories with us. It give us more to talk about and appreciate the life we have and for our girls to have others in their lives with families just like ours.

a new advent tradition

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It’s December 2nd, and it’s starting to feel like Christmas around here.  In the past I have purchased the chocolate filled calendars for the advent countdown for our girls, but this year, thanks to Pinterest I have a new advent for them.

2014 christmas advent for the girls

Each little gift bag is numbered for the day of the month.  Instead of candy there are activities and things to do together as a family.  Some include treats, it’s the holidays after all!

  • 30 minutes on your kindle
  • make snowflake garland to hang in the house
  • drink hot cocoa in our Christmas mugs
  • wear new Christmas jammies
  • make cinnamon decorations for the tree
  • watch Christmas TV special with special treats
  • decorate the trees in their rooms
  • unwrap a new Christmas book to read
  • make graham cracker houses decorate with candies
  • drive around and look at lights
  • visit Six Flags holiday decor & sleigh rides
  • bake and decorate cookies
  • visit with Santa Claus
  • game night with the family your choice
  • buy toys for “Toys for Tots” collected at local fire house
  • Caroling with Girl Scouts at a local assisted living home
  • watch Christmas movie with popcorn
  • write out Holiday cards to classmates
  • go to San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker
  • go see Christmas tree in Union Square and decorate windows
  • help me with “you’ve been Elf’d” in our neighborhood
  • help us buy a real tree and decorate
  • visit Christmas Tree Lane
  • unwrap and read a Christmas book
  • attend church on Christmas Eve

I hope my girls enjoy this new advent as much as I am putting it together for them!