A year long gone, a year yet to come. . .

In the midst of reminiscing about where we were a year ago, more than just the season has me feeling reflective. Zach was contacted by a job recruiter a few weeks ago and as a result he sent his resume out to a few additional companies. He is now interviewing with several companies in different [...]

Two Years Ago Today. . .

My dear grandmother died.  I still miss her a lot.  My family has been honoring her this month by writing about her in our family blog.  For those who knew her (or any who wish they did), you can read what we’ve written so far here.

Moving Out

(Here’s another cross post.  Our assignment for the Cochran family blog is to write about the first time we moved out so I thought I’d post a copy here as well).
I moved out for the first time about two weeks after I graduated from High school.  I packed my bags and flew to Utah for [...]

“Birds of a Feather Get-Together”

My mom is the one who gets credit for naming this one, for those who don’t know, my maiden name is Bird. It started out that Sarah wanted a chance to see as many sibs as she could while she was visiting with her family from Oregon and it ended up that all of my [...]

Unpacking

I get very impatient to get everything cleaned up and back to normal after a trip and today as I sat in my chair feeding Ila, I was surrounded by a mess of suitcases and laundry.  I felt overwhelmed and stressed and I thought of this analogy for how I felt. 
It was like I [...]

Impossible Moments

Some days seem to be filled with these impossible moments where I just can’t physically do everything that I have to do at that moment or multiple things go wrong at the same time.  In my head I’ll despair a little and sometimes leap to the worst case scenario, before collecting my thoughts and moving [...]

My thoughts on Motherhood and Mother’s Day

I used to hate it when people would wish me a happy mother’s day before I was a mom, but it wasn’t because I was frustrated by our inability to conceive.  Mother’s day was still about celebrating my own mother.  I was never offended or hurt by the holiday and I was annoyed when [...]

Nicole’s Birthday Celebration

When we were kids, my mom did lots of little things to make our birthdays great.  It was like the whole day was a celebration.  We got to sit in the front seat and mom would fix our favorite food for dinner.  I try to do the same thing for my kids, so I [...]

Elementary School Friends

We have an assignment to write about our memories of elementary school for our Cochran Family Blog so I dug up this post which it turns out I wrote, but never published.  I had my mother send some elementary school pictures to go with them.  For some reason, I thought that would be a nice [...]

How do you do it all?!

I get this question regularly.  The short answer is that I just don’t sleep, at least not much.  For the long answer, click read more.

Aprons

It’s funny how reading something sometimes reminds you of things that you might not have recalled on your own.  I was reading a post by my mother-in-law about her mother (Zach’s Grandma) and it reminded me of the aprons we had as children.  I remember me and Barb having aprons with our names sewn [...]

Homemade Treats From My Childhood

I think my favorite treat as a child was homemade fruit leather.  Both my mom and my Grandma O’Bryant made it.  I remember them making it in strawberry and in raspberry.  I loved the flavor and the texture of it and I never thought I got enough of it.

The family dynamics as they are now

Since moving to Tennessee and adding one more child, I’ve noticed some changes in how the kids relate to each other.
Isaac and Charlotte still get along very well and play together all the time.  It seems like they’ve been conspiring more and getting into more trouble since the move, but maybe I just think that [...]

The Car Top Carrier

There were eight people (6 kids, 2 adults) in my family growing up, but most vans only had seat belts for 7 so space was always an issue.  A car top carrier seemed like the perfect solution for baggage and it worked ok for us for a little while.  The straps would make this [...]

Quality Time with Nicole

I find myself with very little time during the day to spend one on one with my children, so I do my best to take advantage of any extra moments throughout the day.  I do things like play games with them while we wait in the grocery store line or at the doctor’s office and [...]

A Childhood Moment

I started writing my personal history on this blog, I’m far from finished, but I can’t seem to find the time to sit and write for an hour so perhaps I’ll write a few memories here  and there and later compose them into my history.
My family didn’t take a lot of family vacations that [...]

All in a day’s work

So I had this idea today that I ought to write down what a day in my life is like right now.  I think I’ll look back one day and wonder how I did it, because there are days now when I wonder how I managed to make it through the day only to wake [...]

Grandma O’Bryant’s house Then and Now

I’ve wanted to go see my grandmother’s house since moving to Knoxville a few months ago, but I didn’t want to go alone so I waited until my sister Krista could come with me.
This is what the house used to look like and except for the fact that there were a lot more trees [...]

Ila

I know you didn’t love your name, but that’s because to you it was just a name. To me it is the feeling of love that I felt when I was with you.
It’s a reminder of a great woman who I loved and admired. Who showed strength in motherhood through sorrows and [...]

Moving: Day 9 the drive to Knoxville

DAY 9:  On Wednesday we set off for Knoxville. It was a long crowded ride in my mother’s  Tribeca, but the kids behaved well and the trip was uneventful.  We stopped for lunch at Wendy’s and Nicole enjoyed dancing to the music and making faces with my mother.  She was in such a funny [...]