A change of plans...our childcare saga.

Approximately four years ago, a church friend happened to mention to me that a lady in our church named Rhonda kept kids at her home.  Shortly thereafter I turned the corner in our church hallway and ran immediately into Rhonda.  She agreed on the spot to be Turner's primary caretaker when I returned to work and it was a magnificent three years for Turner at Miss Rhonda's house.  I am so grateful for the time and the attention that my sweet girl received from Rhonda and she will always be so special to our family.

Rhonda isn't keeping kids this year so Mark and I had started looking into alternative options for Turner for this fall.  But, when I got the new job I had to find summertime childcare immediately.  I was thrilled that our children's pastor's wife, Miss Natalie, was willing to keep Turner a couple of days a week for us. Turner and their oldest son Andrew are big buddies at church and Turner absolutely LOVED her time spent at the Snuffin house this summer.  Natalie was sweet to send me pictures from their days on several occasions! 

But, I still didn't have a clear plan for the other three days of the week when Turner wasn't at the Snuffin house.  I happened to be in conversation with a church friend who brought up the name of my former intern (a mutual friend to us both) and she suggested that Miss Lauren was looking for extra summer money.  I called her on my way home from church and she agreed to keep Turner for me three days a week. Within a few days of accepting my new position, God had provided childcare for Turner in an "in-home" environment similar to Rhonda's house. Turner and Miss Lauren went out on the town frequently to Frog Legs, the mall (Turner may now always be addicted to the Dollar Tree), Chic-Fil-A, and the playground.  At home they baked cookies and I still have crafts they made here at my house during the day.  It was a wonderful blessing to my sanity that God provided in this way, particularly as much transition as I was personally wading through on my own.

As I mentioned earlier, Mark and I had already explored options for the fall for Turner's school and we were thrilled to have her enrolled at a local Montessori School.  We loved the Montessori philosophy for our Turner and after receiving beginning of school information from her teacher and perusing her blog I was absolutely stoked about this educational opportunity for Turner!  Around August 1st, we were talking over dinner about who would drop Turner off at school each day when our phone rang.  I knew from Mark's face it wasn't good news and I knew from caller ID that the call was regarding the school.  Due to unforeseen circumstances they had to close the school for this year - we had 10 days to find other arrangements.

Can I be honest and tell you that I totally panicked?  And I sulked.  I think the sulking and emotions were more about my own personal disappointment over the lost educational opportunities that I felt were available at the Montessori School.  But also there was the stress - what in the world were we going to do?

We sought out full-day private preschools in the area and all were long ago full for this fall.  We learned a hard lesson of this community and Mark articulated it best when he asked me, "So let me get this straight, for your child to enroll in a preschool type environment you've got to be a stay at home mom?"  Most preschools are part-day with random schedules - something our jobs can't accommodate.  We toured public daycare facilities, and while they are great and wonderful for most families, it just wasn't the transition we wanted to make considering our past home-daycare experiences.  We were admittedly spoiled...and we were becoming despondent about what path to take for fall.

I heeded the suggestion of a church friend to call another Sunday School friend who has a daughter about 2 months younger than Turner.  She's also a teacher at our church preschool, and there was a belief that she might be interested in keeping Turner for us each day.  I talked to Miss Amy at church on Sunday and honestly if she hadn't agreed, we were set to enroll Turner in a local daycare on Monday morning.  Amy was literally an answer to our prayers.  She was thrilled at the opportunity to keep Turner for us!  Mark and I talked and we both felt like this was the right option, and honestly I am overwhelmed at how blessed we are to have this fall into place.  It is nothing short of God providing a way for us, yet again, in providing awesome caretakers for Turner.

Mark takes Turner to Miss Amy's house each morning and Amy takes her to our church preschool.  Turner is in the 3 year old class (taught by Miss Natalie referenced above) and absolutely loves it.  Miss Amy brings her home, feeds her lunch, orchestrates naps, and they are almost always outside playing when I come pick her up.  Turner is honestly sad sometimes when I drive up - because she loves playing with her friend Aubrey and Aubrey's three big sisters so much!  This is a picture of Turner and Aubrey on our church playground.

Turner has already told me that "their house is better than ours", but after investigating her logic I found it's mainly because they have sleeping bags and we don't.  She's also decided she wants to have her birthday party at Miss Amy's house because they have a birthday banner that spells out Happy Birthday (which they hung to celebrate a big sister's birthday in August).  The best part by far is that both Turner and Aubrey ask all weekend when they'll get to see each other again, and each morning when Turner asks, "Are we going to Miss Amy's today?" and I answer yes, she just cheers with excitement.  She loves being there and feels so comfortable and loved.  For that we are immeasurably BLESSED.

Here's a picture of my sweet girl on her first day of preschool, with her new backpack that she and Mark picked out.  Below, she's pictured with her teachers Miss Natalie and Miss Christy.

Despite the initial disappointment when the plans changed, we will choose to believe that this was no random occurrence.  Though not in our plans, it was no accident that the school closed for this fall.  We choose to believe that God was orchestrating this for the good of our family and to provide the best environment for Turner for this fall.  And we are so grateful for His plan!

Labor Day Beach Trip 2011

On Labor Day weekend, when around 87,000 people were invading our quaint little town for a weekend of football, our family loaded up the car for a long anticipated trip to the beach!

Turner and I normally go to the beach with my family every summer while Mark slaves away at CWE, but since my mother broke her ankle badly in late May the beach was totally out of the question in June and July.  With school starting in August, and my new job responsibilities, we realized that a Labor Day beach trip would be our best option.  We shared our idea with both of our families and invited everyone to join us, and before we knew it we had a multi-family vacation planned!  Mark found two condos in the same unit and concocted a beautiful plan in which both sets of grandparents and Turner stayed in one condo, and me, Mark, Rebekah, and Matt stayed in another.  He's a brilliant man I tell you!

If you know me and my love for the beach, you can infer that my entire family feels the same way about our time in the sand, sun, and waves.  You can imagine our trepidation as we traveled south, knowing that we were driving straight into Tropical Storm Lee who also decided to take his beach vacation on Labor Day weekend.  I was honestly afraid we wouldn't see any sun and our beach time would be limited at best.

We all arrived by Friday night and by Saturday morning Turner was fully prepared for what we feared to be a wet visit to the beach. (Excuse the Minnie Pearl look with the umbrella.)

But, nevertheless, we all headed out early in what would be our only rain free time on the beach for Saturday.  I grabbed some great pictures, despite a blistering wind that would almost lift you off your feet!

This is my favorite picture of the weekend....these five people all love one another so much!  Mark and I are so incredibly grateful for the relationship that our parents share and for how they genuinely enjoy each other's company!  Can you tell Turner is the only grandchild on both sides of the family?

We did brave the water, and Turner got her fill of jumping waves.  ENORMOUS waves!

And of course Mark had to scare me to death getting much further out in the rough waters that I wanted him to.  I love jumping waves with the best of them, but one tug of that current and I was done!  There were three red flags flying....and here's my husband.

Not to be outdone by Mark, Pop and Grandpa wanted a little piece of these waves.  It seriously scared me to death to see them all out there!

After about an hour we headed up to the pool, which after about 10 minutes looked like this from the wind!

We had obvoiusly planned to watch the Auburn game around lunchtime, but with the nasty weather the entire day ended up being filled with football watching, snacking, and napping.  My sister and I sat on the bed for a long time and perused our Pintrest accounts - something we would have never taken the time to do together if the sun had been out.  It was a restful rainy day, and we capped it off with some afternoon shopping at the outlet malls. The White House Black Market outlet is a dangerous place, I tell you!

Late Saturday night I had laid down with Turner and she asked me if we were going to be able to go back to the beach the next day.  Fearing the worst as TS Lee raged in the Gulf, I told her we might have just a little time in the morning.  Rain was predicted at 100% for the entire day.  As I left the grandparents condo and walked back to mine, I breathed a very small and almost halfhearted prayer (that I honestly thought would be answered with a "no") that we would have "just a little" time to enjoy the beach on Sunday.

Can I tell you that I laughed when this is what I saw the next morning?  God loves to surprise me when I have limited faith...I asked for a "little" time, and we had 6 great hours of beach time on Sunday - mind you with a 100% percent chance of rain!  I was so, so grateful!

There were water gun fights!

Granny got in on the sandcastle building!

And there was a lot of sun bathing - this one is learning her Mommy's bad habits early!

Mark drew Turner's name in the sand...

...and then Matt wrote her FULL name in his most meticulous non-doctor-ish handwriting.

Then, somehow an almost 4 year old convinced three grown adults over age 60 to stand "guard" over her name to try to protect it from the chasing and erasing by the powerful tides as they came in.

Turner loves Matt and it's really fun to watch him play with her!

These two men and this little girl...the connection is so powerful.  She tries to appease me by saying she's "both Mommy's and Daddy's girl", but its no secret she's really a Daddy's girl.  And I am ok with that, since I can relate in my feelings toward the man in the red shirt below.  :)

This beach weekend was the perfect retreat after a busy, busy summer! Thank you to our families for joining us for this special weekend!  There are already rumblings in our house about about "same time same place" next year!

I know...I know....we are still alive I promise!

It has been far too long since I have posted, and for that I do apologize to my faithful blog readers.  I know there are many - especially from Andalusia and St. Joseph - who keep up with us mainly through blog and our absence has been noted.  But, you see, we've been just a little busy.  Ok, a LOT busy. (It's no coincidence that the last post was right at the end of July - just before school got back in full swing and things got a little crazy around here!) But, thanks to some child-free down time this weekend I've been able to whittle down my to-do list and catching you all up on our lives will be my priority for the next few evenings after bedtime.

Summer ended in a whirlwind and because of that our garden was a little overlooked at times...and our friends (as in Mr. and Mrs. Deer) revisited our yard for a midnight snack.  Several times!  We did manage to salvage one watermelon and we definitely enjoyed the fruits of our labor!  You'll also see a picture below of Turner in her cowgirl attire, complete with a new gun and holster that our friend Cynda brought Turner from Texas.  Turner kept saying, "If you see any of those pesky deer, or anything you need me to shoot...just let me know!"

We made a late summer trip to Andalusia and my sweet girl and I both got much needed haircuts!  I thought this was an interesting way to get your hair washed!  (Excuse the poor picture quality!)

I don't have many pictures of our weekend, but I did snap this one with my phone...that would be my Dad's hand on the left.  I swear Pop will do ANYTHING Turner asks him to do.  (Except eat a pickle.)  He's always been a good sport about this, one time he let us paint his toenails and then he wore flip flops to the hunting club with his nails painted.  What daddies will do for little girls.  We love you Pop!

I'm probably going to do an entire post about my new job...honestly, I could author a book and I've officially been in my new administrative role 3.5 months.  But, summer was much of a transition period for me personally, professionally, emotionally, and just about any other word you can insert here that ends in the suffix "-lly".  In the midst of the transition, I tackled the project of recovering my office chairs with some really fun fabric I found at Hobby Lobby.  It wasn't the toughest project I've tackled, but it was mighty time consuming and labor intensive since there were a total of 11 chairs to cover.  That's 22 separate chair pads if you are counting.  But, the results have made me so very happy and I am actually pretty proud of myself for making this workout so nicely!  See the before and after pics below!

Last spring I was asked to serve on the Board of Directors for the Lee County Distinguished Young Woman of the Year program, formerly known as Lee County Junior Miss.  As a former Junior Miss myself I have always wanted to get involved with the program, and I really enjoyed reacquainting myself with the program and getting to know some wonderful other ladies on the board. Turner joined me for the program (or at least the first half) and she and her friend Francie had a blast listening to the talents and watching the routines.  Francie's mom, Ashley (also a board member), was Covington County Junior Miss in 1995, and I was CCJM in 1997.  We are excited that our girls take dance together and will grow up in the Junior Miss family together here in Lee County!

I'll devote an entire post to Turner's first day of school and how "our" plan for Turner's school experience didn't turn out to be God's plan...just another gust in the whirlwind!  Stay tuned...