What They Will Remember....

I hope that when my girls are grown there will be some things they look back on and cherish, things that they will remember and want to tell their children. Samantha has spent more years experiencing these things, but Sara is growing up in the  middle of it all. And I am so thankful that over the years, we have been able to learn what it looks like to model our most important values.

I hope they will remember....

-God. I hope that they will remember all that they have learned at home about God and Jesus and his Love for us. I hope that they will remember the history of the Bible that they were taught. And I pray that we have modeled marriage, family, and and relationships in a way that they will be able to live all of them out in a Biblical light.

-The hours and hours we spent playing family games: everything from classics like Candy Land, the less common ones like The Ladybug Game, educational games like Go To The Dump, family games like Life and UNO, and the more adult strategy games like Catan. I hope that they will remember that time around the table together.

-The Living Books we read: from Charlotte's Web, Trumpet of the Swan, Marley and Me, and Pippi. And as Big S grew, heavier books like Number the Stars, War Horse, and A Long Walk to Water. We have laughed, and we have cried. We have empathized with characters, and lived their stories beside them. Big S has fallen in love with the writings of authors like Eric Carle, E.B. Webb, and Lois Lowry. We value the time we have together to lie in bed or on the couch each morning sharing these moments. Little S is quickly catching the Book Bug too. When she wakes up earlier than usual some mornings, she sees me reading my Bible and says, "Will you read to me your Bible?" And she falls back to sleep as I do. Many mornings, I even wake her up by reading, because it is the one way to guarantee she will be in a good mood. How I wish that she would remember these days and cherish them like I do.

-Food. Food seems to be something that brings back memories for all of us. Anybody who has a Mom or Grandmother who cooked or baked a lot will talk about the taste and smell of their food. We LOVE to bake here. There is no doubt about that. Big S has her own baking business, and Little S is the official egg cracker and "Kitchenaid Watcher." We especially love to make foods in the Summer when we have lots of fresh vegetables for cooking and herbs to dry out. The Fall is when we do a lot of our baking-pumpkin cookies and apple pie. Winter time is when we make a lot of granola bars and other filling snacks. And Spring brings on the fruit foods, like strawberry cake! Yum!

-The long days we spend outside: playing Red Light, Green Light out in the rain, rocking in the hammock, and exploring new places. It is even more fun now that we get to see nature again through the eyes of a toddler. Last Fall we went to Elsie for an event, and I had never felt more at peace than I did rocking in the a porch swing watching my girls play together in the autumn breeze. I saw them picking up rocks, looking at bugs, and chasing each other around a tree. I could sit there for hours and watch. And I did.

-The Garden: I doubt they will ever forget the garden, as we plan to keep growing our garden year of year, and eventually making it into a homestead. This year we are adding new raised beds-putting us at 5 beds total. We are adding 1 bee hive. And we may also be adding a small fence with some chickens. I pray that they both will remember how to identify, care for, and harvest plants, and that she will be pass that on to her children. There are few things that I revel in more than watching my girls in nature. Watching Big S get excited to harvest a new kind of plant or seeing Little S look at an observation hive while I try to pick out a bee suit that will fit her tiny toddler body.

-The Community/Service to Others: I hope that they remember the community of people that we belong to. I hope that they will remember seeing others serve us and serving others themselves. I hope that their relationships with some of those in our community will extend long past their childhood. We have had people bring meals after babies, during sickness, and other struggles. We have had a community of people who have prayed hard for us when we needed it most. And the girls have played a part in all these things themselves. Our current church, especially, is a very close knit community. We just began attending the Wednesday night youth group as well, and I pray that the girls will continue to grow up and feel what we did that first Wednesday. The fire going when we first arrived. The individual packets of tea and hot chocolate. The Barn lit up with outdoor twinkle lights. The laughter with friends. The prayer circles. Studying the Bible together. Sharing struggles. More prayer. Time playing in the mud kitchen with friends and visiting afterward.

-The plethora of people in and out of the house: I hope that they remember all the guest we have had. Over the years, we have worked hard to make our house the "place to be" so that people will want to come here and we can serve and minister to them. We also want to get to know our daughters' friends as the girls grow older and begin making friends with kids who aren't just my friend's kids. We have invested in things that will make memories, like a projector for movie nights and finishing the basement. I hope that the girls remember the New Year celebrations-playing board games, Mario Party, and laughing until midnight. I hope that they remember the potluck cookouts. I hope they remember DnD in the basement, as they get to join in on Guy's Night occasionally. I hope they remember the play dates and sleepovers.

These are the things I cherish. These are the memories that I hope to keep going with my grandchildren. These are the kinds of memories that I wouldn't feel complete without.

What brought this post up was a comment Big S made on the way home after Heritage Girls. One of the Explorer Co-Leaders was leading the Gardening Badge and she had planted Basil plants for the girls to put in their herb garden. She walked around the room, rubbing the tops of the plants and telling all the girls to smell the Basil. Big S said she would never forget that smell, as it brings back so many memories for her. So I asked her to name a few more things she would never forget.

What Samantha says she will remember:

-The smell of Basil reminds her of our first really successful garden, of our homemade spaghetti sauce, and drying out our own herbs.

-The time when my sisters lived here, especially the Summer when they were off school. She will remember the playing the Game of Life that seemed to go on for hours, the shopping trips with an overflowing buggy and a super packed refrigerator, the Outshine bars, harvesting zucchini, the sunflower fields, kayaking, and the weekend backyard camp outs and devotional times.

-Camping! The sound of the birds in the morning and crickets at night make her long for Spring to come so we can go camping. She says there is nothing better than waking up in your hammock, and rocking back and forth while you listen to the morning sounds, and the water-if you are lucky.