"YOU ALWAYS THROW MY ART IN THE TRASH"

"You always throw my art in the trash" was the statement that Lucy made with tears streaming down her little face when I cleaned out my car and dumped all her school papers in the trash can. I felt like the world's worst mom. BUT, in my defense, you can only keep so many papers from school since she is sent home with about four each night! I'd love to keep every single one of her masterpieces that consist of scribble marks, which she claims to be a giraffe or a tree or a clown. So, after digging them out of the trash and some apologies from Mom, here she is proudly displaying some of her works of art.

Eight Years With Maggie

Eight

Seven

Six

Five

Four

Three

Two

One

With Maggie turning eight on February 15, I started looking through old photos to post here and got teary eyed. Not only was I emotional about her growing up way too soon, but also because several of these birthday parties were meaningful to me for one reason or another. Her one year birthday was held at my home in Nashville where I grew up (my mom no longer lives there) and it holds so many childhood memories and celebrating many birthday parties of my own in that same dining room. We had Maggie's second birthday at Ian's parents house, which they recently moved out of, and it also holds many wonderful memories for both of my kids and Ethan too. Her third, fourth and fifth birthdays were in Benton. Benton will always hold a special place in our hearts for SO many reasons, but especially because that's where we started our family of four! It's hard to believe, but her sixth, seventh, and eighth birthdays were all spent here in Colorado. I remember for her sixth birthday we had only been living here a little over a month and Maggie was still making friends and I was torn over having a party for her. I couldn't bring myself to ask these parents whom we didn't even know to buy a gift for my child, who they had probably never even heard of! We convinced Maggie to have a family birthday party and I think it was one of the most special times that we've had. She also learned to ice-skate that day!

Maggie, at eight years, is the most confident, independent, smart, outgoing, funny, athletic kid that I know. She embodies every quality that I could ever hope for or want in my children and everything that I was not. My mom thinks that Ian and I were sent home with the wrong baby because Maggie and I are so opposite. Thank goodness that kids inherit genes from their father also!