What a glorious day we had here in the mountains.  It was 60, sunny, and beautiful!  Somehow all seven of us made it outside and enjoyed some running and bike riding races.  I was the official "timer" ( not "old timer") because I'm still nursing this marathon induced knee injury.   Anyway, at some point our oldest two, Kelsi (9) and Gunner (7), slipped away and started making these creative little "houses" out of only "nature things".  Gunner was building a wigwam out of tree bark and Kelsi needed help pulling weeds so that she could have a nice smooth dirt floor in her home.  While I was snuggled up to her Daddy, quietly looking on, she asked me if I would help her pull those weeds.  Hmmm...  Casey and I are wrapped in each others arms, watching our children at play and for the moment my knee is not hurting.  She wants me to leave Casey, bend down to ground level (ouch!) and pull weeds....   Weeelllll, OK.

I hobbled over and SLOWLY lowered myself to her level.  At this point the little girls had joined in the fun too.  We made little stick fences, made people out of onion grass bulbs (sounds weird, I know, but they were all we could come up with), and I tied blades of onion grass to decorate our little house.  Kelsi and I were so close together, just enjoying every idea and every little nut or berry we could find.  We are close like this often through out the day but it is usually over a challenging math problem or because we're setting the table. 

After a long time of working together side by side, Gunner called us over to check out his progress.  On the way over I felt a hand slip into mine.  It was a child's hand but not a 2 year-old or a 4 year-old or even a 5 year-old hand, like I'm used to.  It was a nine year old hand.  Wow!  What a feeling!  Don't get me wrong, Kelsi and I still hold hands (and I hope we always do),  but this was different.  It was like a hand holding that said "I'm holding your hand just because I want to.   We're only walking a few feet but this is how I want to do it."  It said, "Thanks for taking the time to get down on my level and play with me.  Thanks for working quietly along side me just because you wanted to be with me.  Thanks for spending time doing something I like."  It said, "I love you Mom and I love being with you."  

All this was spoken into my heart from that not -too -little-anymore hand just because I took the time to, as my friend Deb said in an e-mail to me this morning, "tie strings" with her.  No, not onion grass strings,

We tied heart strings. 

(Thank you Deb and thank you, Lord. )

Posted by mrssulli

Just so you know - that brought tears to my eyes. I think I need to find some onion grass (?) with my big girls today. You'll have to do a search for bumbo on the internet. It can explain it much better than I. You can't see my hands when I try to tell you about it, so it loses the effect.

Posted by cammiemelisabray

What a sweet story. I have enjoyed reading your posts! I have been encouraged.

Posted by 5atkins

When I go to the store with all three girls, I usually hold the hand of the youngest and then make the other two hold hands and walk in front of me. The other day, I took the two oldest out to get presents for the youngest girl's b-day. Sarah, the middle girl took my hand and said she really misses holding my hand when we go to the store. I never thought she missed it. :) Your post made me think about it. I hope my girls always hold hands with me! Glad you had such a wonderful day! In Him, Eva

Posted by skdenfeld

I'm Just checking in on you to make sure you are okay. I noticed you haven't been around in a while.

Posted by ApplesofGold

That was such a beautiful post! This sounds like such a wonderful family day and I really enjoyed reading it. Holly