Shelby's 15th Birthday!

It feels absolutely surreal, but on September 17th we celebrated Shelby's fifteenth birthday! It's hard to believe she's fifteen, but it's also hard to remember life before her! What a gift she is to our family & the world!

And it was a small miracle that she didn't have morning or afternoon band rehearsal, so we got to enjoy lots of time with her on her special day! We had chocolate chip muffins for breakfast before school, and Shelby requested Derek's chicken fajita quesadillas for dinner. Then it was time for presents!

For the third year in a row (I think?!), Shelby picked a Cold Stone ice cream cake for dessert. It was so good!

And the next morning, I was dropping her off at 6:45 for band rehearsal in a new birthday shirt & necklace that she was very excited to sport! The days are long for Shelby. On this particular day, she had band rehearsal from 6:45-8:30am, a full day at school, and then rehearsal/stage prep/orchestra concert until 8:30pm. But she is thriving & loving it! And we are trying to embrace this season knowing it won't last forever. Once marching band is over (early November) and the school musical wraps up (early December), her schedule will calm down dramatically! Until then, we are holding on tight & trying to enjoy the ride!

We love you, Shelby-girl!

First Day at Marvelously Made!

On Tuesday, September 2nd, we had our first day of school at Marvelously Made for our seventh grader & fourth grader! 

{Shelby didn't have marching band rehearsal that morning, so we got to snap a quick photo with her, too!}

We celebrated a great first day of school with a visit to Orange Leaf for frozen yogurt!

And when we got home, these two immediately retreated to their room with books...the perfect way to round out the day!

I am also teaching Kindergarten this year at Marvelously, so it was a first day for all three of us! I am currently typing this post about three weeks into the school year, and I am still trying to find my rhythm. After three years of homeschool with Brady and a slower pace of life in Alaska, this has been a jolt to the system to say the least! Brady & Hadley are in the Collective at Marvelously Made, which is a multi-age class of 4th-8th graders. It is kind of hybrid school model. They do history, science, art, handwork, and other things that can be done really well in community across ages while Math & Language Arts are done at home with me. 

We are looking forward to a great year ahead!

August 2025

It's hard to believe our first month back in Texas has already come & gone! In some ways, it feels like much longer & in other ways it feels like we just got here. 

One thing we are so thankful for here is our long driveway to play catch!

I had a meeting at work one morning, and this guy came running out to give me hugs before I left. 

{For Brady's birthday, BooBoo gave him a white shirt with craft markers to decorate it. We had a rainy afternoon one day, and we finally broke out this project. They had so much fun with it!}

One day during Shelby's first week of school, I took Hadley & Brady for his {belated} annual birthday trip to Barnes & Noble and for a treat. He picked Nothing Bundt Cake! We also went out for lunch at Panera beforehand (although the pictures uploaded out of order, oops!)--we are really enjoying all of the different options we have for restaurants & treats here!!

Grammy came to save the day! She spent the last week of August with us to hang out with Hadley & Brady while I had my work week at school. They had the best time with her, and I was able to focus on getting ready for the new school year. She also helped us do lots of little projects around the house and boosted morale for everyone! {Moving is exhausting--both physically & emotionally!} We're so thankful for the time we had with her, and we're looking forward to her next visit with Grampy in tow!

{RC boats in the pool with Grammy!} 

{making Uncle Bill's guacamole recipe with Grammy!}

{Grammy reading to Brady}

{Nothing makes Brady happier than someone willing to play Monopoly with him!}

Thank you for coming, Mom! We're so grateful for the time we had with you!

2025 Book Post #4

Life has been coming at us fast since we made it to Texas...it's hard to believe we've been here a month already! I am super behind on organizing pictures & posting things, but here we go! Most of these were books that I/we read in Alaska or on the beginning of our road trip to Texas.

Read-Alouds
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame: I read this one aloud to all three kids. No one was thrilled about it when I started it, but we all ended up enjoying it. Definitely better suited to a younger crowd, but still a sweet, fun little read-aloud that was new to all of us.
The Storm by Cynthia Rylant: This is another one better suited to a younger crowd, but we'd never read it before & I always wanted to! It was a super short, sweet read that we all enjoyed.

My Reads
Before I Do by Sophie Cousens: I am slowly making my way through all of Sophie Cousens' books..so far they've all been a hit for me!
It's a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan: The same is true for Annabel Monaghan's books--they're the perfect rom-com-ish books. This is her newest book that just came out this past summer. This quote from the book resonated with me: "This feels like wealth, I think. This is the thing you save up for. You live your whole life so that you can be surrounded by too many people in too small of a room and tell the story of how it happened." (page 220)
Wait till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin: I would never have picked this book up on my own, but I saw it recommended on a bookstagram account I follow. This book was kind of a flop for me, which kind of tracks since it is a memoir. I always love the idea of memoirs, but when I actually read them they tend to fall short for me..with a few exceptions of course!
Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren: This was recommended on the same bookstagram account that I found Wait till Next Year, but this one was a winner for me! It was a fractured fairy tale of Rapunzel. Super fun!

Audiobooks
Audiobooks aren't really my jam, but we listened to these in my car at the beginning of our road trip:
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman: I had read this aloud to the kids years ago, and it was a fun, quick audiobook for the car! 
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: Hadley and I have never read this book, so we gave it a try in the car. We listened to about half of it before we decided to throw in the towel. We weren't loving the story line, and it was honestly harder to follow as an audiobook because the accents were so strong. (Shelby & Brady were both with Derek in his truck while we listened to this one.)
Tress and the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson: We listened to the Audible version of this (we get one free Audible book a month with our Amazon Music subscription), and the girls & I loved it! It was an amazing production! I would definitely recommend this one.

Shelby Starts High School!

On Monday, August 11th, our first baby started high school. It feels absolutely surreal being at this stage of parenting. I feel like we were just in high school! Shelby has adjusted beautifully to her new school & routines. 

Back in the spring when we were still in Alaska, Shelby sent videos to her new school to audition remotely for orchestra & jazz band. She ended up making it into the top groups for both orchestra & jazz band! Shelby was thrilled, but I was slightly apprehensive it might be too much for her to take on her first year of high school with all advanced classes & one AP course. Then, about a week before we arrived in Texas, we got an email from her jazz band director asking if Shelby would be interested in the lead synth position for the school's marching band. I was fully prepared to respond to the email with a firm no {her schedule was already maxed out!}, but Shelby thought this opportunity sounded amazing. {We never even knew until the moment we read the email that piano players can be in the marching band!} So we very hesitantly agreed to give it a whirl. Shelby missed the first two weeks of summer band camp, but she jumped into the third & final week of camp once we got into town. Shelby ended up loving it, and it helped her get a feel for her new campus and meet a few people before school officially got underway. 

Once school started, I was even more reluctant for her to be in marching band. The rehearsal schedule is like nothing I could have anticipated, but Shelby is enjoying the experience & we're taking it one day at a time! I felt a lot of anxiety & uneasiness about the daunting schedule {we really value a slower pace filled with margin in our lives for family time & downtime} at first, but we are trying to embrace this for a season knowing it won't be forever. This past Friday was Shelby's first football game performance, and it was everything she hoped it would be & more! Shelby has always loved football & music, so this is really a match made in heaven for her!

{This was Shelby right before the "Hotdog Howdy" event, which was the premiere performance of their halftime show for the school community}

Shelby was also asked this past week to play the piano for her school's upcoming musical later this school year, which absolutely thrilled her to no end! There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss the slower pace of life in Alaska & the small town feel of Eagle River {words I never thought I'd be uttering three years ago!}, but we are beyond thankful that Shelby seems to be settling right in & has had such wonderful opportunities thus far.