Twenty10:8

FLASHBACK FRIDAY- back again.

As I was cleaning out the basement today (ready for the for sale sign now!), I found a box of old magazines and photos. I was stopped in my tracks by what I saw. The last 15 years of my life....in a box. I sat on my newly swept but totally dirty basement floor and cried as I looked through the stories that make up my life thus far. I know I say this a lot, but the whole concept of time really gets me. It just goes by sooooo fast! It's hard to enjoy the little moments because they are gone so fast, and we are left with memories that seem almost like a dream....like they never really happened. That is why I am so obsessed with pictures. Pictures are the only way to capture the little moments that would never really exist without the picture. They would someday be erased from time all together because memories fade as we get older. My memory is so bad that I have cried many times over it. Pictures are all I have when it comes to memories. I have a handful of memories of my childhood but most of them are major events or tramatic events....not the everyday little stuff....and most of them are from pictures. And I have so very few memeries of Kaitlin when she was little. I have to look at pictures to remember her early years.

As I tearfully fumbled through this amazing little box of memories, I found this photo of my tiny little girl on snow day 2004. Jack was about 6 weeks old at the time and I remember this day like it was a month ago. I had just gotten over a terrible case of post pardom and was so happy to be alive once that dark cloud lifted, and so in love with my new son. We got a snow day ( a little gift from God) and I was outside building a snow man with Kaitlin and taking pictures, feeling guilty for leaving Jack in a bouncy seat inside the kitchen behind the sliding glass door.....watching us play in the snow. He was just an infant, but I remember thinking..."oh my goodness.....this is what juggling 2 kids is like. Always feeling guilty for not being with one when your with the other." It was my first realization that I was now sharing my love and time with 2 kids, and I was amazed at how much love I had in my heart to share. I am in awe at the slew of emotions and memories that came over me when I saw this photo....and that I found it in a box on a rare snow day 6 years later. Life is so precious. Today was a gift in so many ways. I know everyday is a gift, but today...God was really trying to talk to me. He confirmed a lot of things for me and in the coolest ways. Let me share one of them.

A while back, I posted a message on this blog.....a plea to God...asking for him to send us neighbors for my kids to play with.

It totally changes your everyday life when you have neighbors that you love, and we just haven't had that in our home here. Yesterday afternoon, God answered my prayers. We discovered that we already have neighbors that are wonderful, and God already brought them to us a long time ago....we just never took the time to get to know them. I have been confused because after I prayed for this, a new couple moved into the house next door who have NO KIDS. I didn't understand....why? This is an easy one GOD, right? Some great neighbors....some great kids....a family on our street that could be like family.....this is a piece of cake for you! Why THESE people? Well....yesterday he told me why. My kids found a couple of new friends 2 houses down and they have spent the last 24 hours at their house. The mom is a woman named Mabry.....the sweetest most southern and precious woman alive. She's a teacher and I've known her for a while but never really tried to get to know her more out of a lack of effort and time. My kids all of the sudden decided to want to play with her kids yesterday, and they had a blast! They played in the snow and threw snow balls all afternoon. I ended up at Mabry's poppin open the vino and hanging out with her and another teacher friend for over an hour last night.....laughng so hard I almost cried several times. Mabry is hysterical and wonderful and I want to be just like her when I grow up!This was an unexpected event, but a welcomed one. That, as sad as it sounds, was my first time hanging out with another girl close to my age since we moved in. I told you this year was gunna be good. I can just feel it.

Apparently the kids had a fantastic time at their house because they woke up at 8 and walked over there fully dressed without telling us!! WE WERE STILL ASLEEP!!!! Her kids were asleep too, but she invited my kids into her house and MADE THEM BREAKFAST! I'm not kidding. She is the most warm, sweet, hystercial woman you will ever meet. She reminds me so much of a younger version of my mom and my mother in law combined.

So my kids ate pancakes at her house and I was awakened to Kaitin telling me I needed to go help Jack at Mabry's house because he was using the restroom and needed me. Um...... WHAT? HOW? WHY? WHEN? She fed you? Her kids are still sleeping? What time is it? I walked over to her house in my PJ's, thanked her for her unbelivable hospitality, helped Jack get his bathroom issue taken care of, and took my kids home for breakfst #2. They ended up going back over there at 11 and I had to rip them out of her house at 4:30....as she was feeding them homemade chicken soup. Love her.

I think my kids want to move in with Mabry and her kids. I think I do too. I think I just met the most awesome neighbors ever.....just in time to put my house on the market. Oh, the irony of life. At least I learned a lesson. Get to know your neighbors. God puts people right next door to you for a reason. :)