Parenting Builds Character: The Circle of Life

Ok, this is seriously two weeks late, but it needs to make the blog! Two weekends ago, I went and saw Romana and Beezus. First of all, I read all of the Beverly Cleary books when I was younger, so as soon as I saw that the movie was coming out, I called to see if my two favorite almost teenage girls would go with me. They are Chandler and Cameron Hall and it just so happened that the movie was also coming out on Chan's 13th birthday! Anyway, our friend Maranda and me took the girls to the movie a couple Friday nights ago.

It was AMAZING! It was clean and sweet and all the actors we so cute/ hot. I seriously enjoyed that movie more than any movie I have seen in a LONG time. If you read those books when you were young, you MUST see it. And even if you didn't, it's still great. It's so rare to see a movie that wholesome and enjoyable. I've tried to talk Gabe into wanting to see it, so I could go again, but he isn't falling for it!

Here's the trailer just for kicks:

THEN, the next day, Chad headed over to the Hall's house to work for the day. The Halls include Stuart and Kellee and their kids- the girls mentioned above and their eldest, Grant. The brief backstory is that Kellee has been mentioned MANY times in this blog and in my every day life- she was my small group leader through high school and is a huge part of my story to this day. I've been a part of their family and been babysitting for them since before Cameron was born-- she is now 10! Anyway, I love these kids as much as you can loves kids that aren't yours. I've watched them grow and learned from Stuart and Kellee each step of the way as they parent them. Not to mentioned that they've loved me when I wasn't lovable! So anyway, the parents were out of town, our friend Maranda was keeping the kiddos, Chad needed to work, and the Halls have an awesome pool- so me and Max went with Chad and had a Saturday play day.

This is where the circle of life comes in- these kids that I took care of for years took care of my baby all day. They loved on him and entertained him and babied him and carried him around and fed him and and dressed him up and fixed his hair and soothed him and swam with him and on and on and on. Honestly, I just followed them around and watched because it made my heart so happy. And it also made my throat tight to realize just how fast it all happens. I remember when Grant went to kindergarden and now he's in high school and getting ready to drive and playing football- I took my baby to his game. I fed Cameron baby food and now she feeds my baby. I carried Chandler around and did all her favorite things- even when she wasn't a baby anymore because I just couldn't resist her cheeks and her eyes- and now, not only is she a teenager who is taller than me with bigger feet than me, but she also can't resist my baby and loves on him with all she's got.

Ah. I don't have anymore words to describe how wonderful this day was for me. It just was. And these pictures should explain why...

[caption id="attachment_864" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Chandler cuddling with Max"]