It’s been months since I shared a Gratituesday post. Today I’m feeling all sorts of grateful, and would you look at that? It’s Tuesday.

Last night our oldest packed up and moved back into the dorm. Over hugs, excitement, and a big sigh I was overcome by these two realizations:

1. This year is a million times less difficult than last year. In line with her freshman son last year, I was the mom bawling hot tears like a baby while trying to sign registration papers. Me. The one moving her son five minutes away from home. We were entering a huge time of transition last year, going from The Coppinger6 to whatever it was this new thing was with only three boys left at home. Happy as I was for Asa, I cried as if I’d just closed the cover after reading the last page of my favorite book. Because I had.
2. This year brings a whole new flood of emotions. I am so excited for Asa this year!! I remember the beginning of my sophomore year of college and it was my very favorite. There are way fewer unknowns, and everyone gets to reunite with their amazing college friends after being apart for the summer. I was practically jumping up and down in anticipation for him last night (while handing him soap, granola bars, kleenex, a pillow case…).

So here we are. We survived the first year of sending our oldest away from home. He’s grown. We’ve grown. But I’ve not gotten less nostalgic about traditions with my babies (three of whom shave regularly).

You knew this was coming, right? Year after year, we take pictures while school supply shopping. Year after year, I share the pics with you. You’ve watched these little boys grow into men.

Last year, I told the boys we had to do it just one more time. This year I told them to forget about last year being the last time because I just couldn’t not take the traditional shopping picture. They didn’t even argue – probably because we told them we’d take them out for burgers after we shopped.

First, you have to see their school shopping pictures through the years. 2008…

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013 (The year I told them that I am going to take this picture, but you can all look the other way if you want to.)

2014

2015 (The year I cried while standing with the notebooks and markers and the son getting ready to leave for college)

And now this year. 2016. Gone are the days we need 25 cent glue sticks. They all needed shoes and the aisle with the 50 cent colored pencils was all out of shoes.

I tried to talk Malachi into a nice, normal face. He was well aware that this picture would be posted for the world to see. Second time’s a charm?

C’mon, Malachi. Give me a good one.

And so he did. But then Asa wasn’t ready, but I didn’t realize it until too late. He woulda not appreciated me sharing his face in this one, so I did what any nice mother would do. I cropped his head off.

After spending $5,824,481 on shoes, we headed out for burgers. I decided to hold my phone as high as I could over our table full of family to get a picture of all six of us.

Two and a half. Okay. Try again. Because maybe my arms are longer than they were two minutes ago?

Three of us, plus the nice family in the back. Wait, wait. I’ve got this.

I don’t even.

This is the point at which I gave up, stood up, backed up as far as I could, sat in a stranger’s lap, and took a pic of my men. Oh, these guys. How did we get here? 

When we got home, we loaded all of Asa’s stuff into his car, and sent him on his way. There were no tears this time, unless you count the ones I’ve shed since looking at these “through the years” pictures.

What a great God we serve. I see these pictures and I’m reminded of all God has brought us through. There are more than just crayons and growing boys in these pictures. These pictures are reminders of life, and sorrow, and growing pains, and struggle, and love.

We grow. God remains the constant, faithful, gentle, loving God. Praise Him for His goodness this Gratituesday!

Nothing much usually goes on around here, so I always have a hard time knowing what to talk about. Life is so boring. (She says, as she looks at her to-do list and passes out.)

We’ve been running and running and running since the Youth Rally in January. Life is full, life is fun, hard stuff happens, and I am forever behind. While I’ve known this for a while, I am absolutely convinced now that loving relationships are more important than keeping a perfect house or staying ahead of laundry. This is my sweet and precious way of saying, “wow my house is a mess.” Slowly but surely, we’ll get caught up. (You know, since life slowed down and we have nothing to do.)

I thought I’d share some of the fun events of the past couple weeks, and guess what? Thirty or so thousands of years after most everyone else on the planet, I am finally on Instagram! Please come follow me and you’ll be rewarded with something amazing like one photo from my life every month or two.

So what’s been going on in my life? Well, for the past few weeks, our family has been working hard preparing for an annual church event – Leadership Training for Christ. Our boys have been studying for a Bible Bowl, working on some individual projects like photography, speech, and sculpture, and getting together with groups to prep for choirs and dramas. Below you’ll see Malachi (in blue) painting a car for the “Terror 2000” – part of the roller coaster the 3-5 graders are using for their drama.

All the kids loved how it turned out, though one of the boys came in later and suggested, “It’s okay, but I think it would be better if we painted on a skull.” Yeah. I’ll get right on that.

Two weekends ago our family traveled to Kansas where our middle two boys competed in the NDII Homeschool Basketball Tournament. We spent three days cheering for our kids and having a blast with friends. I went all out and painted my fingers and toes green in support of our team. I felt a little sheepish about it as I pulled out my fingers to show one of the other moms at the first game. She smiled and pulled out her fingers WHICH WERE THE SAME COLOR! #momsofboys #gogreenorgohome

My dad and his wife met us at the tournament – such a blessing to have their love and support! Then my brother’s family surprised our boys and came to watch their final game. It was fun to see the boys’ faces when their cousins walked in!

The very next week, we had not one but two weddings that we were highly involved in. I had our schedule carefully mapped out so we wouldn’t miss anything and we were blessed that both couples worked around our schedule so we could make it work. The craziness began on Thursday with a bachelorette party, then a rehearsal, then a bridal shower.

So the bachelorette party. Who goes to a shooting range to celebrate her upcoming wedding? Only my friend Jen. She loves all things sports and guns. Good friends that we are, we went shooting with her.

What do you think? Do I look almost ready to shoot a gun?

There. Is that better?

I had fun for about 20 minutes, then I announced, “Ok. I totally need to go bake something now.” I don’t know why everyone laughed. I was absolutely serious.

The weekend went fabulously while we celebrated with our whole hearts the marriages of our friends. I have very few pictures so far of either wedding, but what I do have…

We took this picture of Jen to send to her almost hubby just before their ceremony started. Really, Jen we just feeling warm and opening a window to get some air. But it looked like she was scared and making a run for it, so out came the camera. ;)

After three full days of running and celebrating, as all events were drawing to a close, I asked a friend to get a picture of my true love and me. I love this picture so much I can’t stop staring at it.

This man is my best teammate and serving with him is my greatest blessing and joy in this life.

Thanks for allowing me to share a snippet of my life the past few weeks. I’ve been trying to rest the past few days while catching up on everything I’m behind on. As always, my boys have been rock stars helping me out and in general, putting up with me when I can’t finish my sentences as a result of too many days with too little sleep.

Dare I mention that soccer season began about five minutes after basketball season ended? My life is blessed, full, and God is ever showing me His strength through my weaknesses.

Care to share what you’ve been up to this month? I’d love to hear!

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P.S. Sunday after the Saturday wedding, I still had great curls in my hair (and a lot of hairspray). I spent 30 seconds to pull it up in a Flexi-Clip and it looked great! What would I do without my Flexi-Clips?? Which leads me to…

This weekend Lilla Rose is offering 30% Off Select Styles and 10% Off Everything Else!

Sale starts Friday, March 18 at 7am PST, and ends Sunday, March 20 at 11:59 pm PST. Get the info here!

So it’s for real. Our oldest son has moved out and is living in a dorm. I learned that one can prepare for it and know it’s coming, but when it really does – well now that is something else.

Some of the mothers (okay fine, only me) were crying like babies in the registration line. Well c’mon. If all the people would have stopped being so nice and just looked at me with emotionless, cold eyes saying, “here is a pen. sign this form.” it would have been much better. Instead, they were all, “Oh here you are! Big changes for your family, huh? How are you doing with this, Mama?” Seriously. All the nice people were so mean. They made me cry. They are so heartless. (Love them.)

It wasn’t so much the fact that I knew I would miss him (even though I already do). I mean, he has been gone most of the summer so I’m used to being away from him. And good grief, he now lives a grand total of five minutes from our house and we’ve already seen him at church. My tears came from a place of joy mingled with sadness as I look back on the last 18 years.

This is the kid who made me a mother. Our family grew to include four brothers – all of whom have shared a room, shared the love of sports, shared hobbies, shared books, shared inside jokes, shared games, shared music, shared their school hours, shared so much over the years. This isn’t the end of the world – but it is the end of the lovely, beautiful, delightful chapter of life that has been The Coppinger6 for so many precious years.

The next chapter is sure to hold even more amazingness. I know it’s true. But I always cry at the end of a good chapter of a book. The same goes for this.

Remember our “back to school” tradition? For the past 10 years, we’ve made school supply lists and headed to the store together, then splurged on lunch out afterward. I’ve taken a picture of them with their baskets in the aisle since 2008. Would you just look at these sweet little boys? (More yearly pictures here if you want to take a walk down memory lane.)

Silly as it was, I asked if we could do it one more time before Asa moved out. None of the boys even really needed any school supplies. Sweeties that they are, they posed by the crayons for their sappy mom.

I told them afterward that I’d decided that this wasn’t our final year of doing this. We’re going to keep doing this, year after year, until the entire aisle is filled with my daughers-in-law and all my grandbabies. Yep. This is written in stone. The tradition must continue. This means, of course, that they must all settle with their families right here in York. All of them. Their wives will love this. None of this is unrealistic.

So the next chapter has begun. Asa is all settled in and consumed this week with three soccer practices and work-outs every day. Classes begin next week. He’s doing great.

There he is, at one of his first soccer practices. This picture was courtesy of my friend, the coach’s wife. Receiving this picture via text sure was a fun gift the night after he moved in!

We look forward to watching God at work in our kids as we begin this new chapter. And now I’d love to hear what you’re grateful for this Gratituesday. :)