Tears of joy!

The new apartmentThe tradition continues....these are my everyday dishes when we first got married.  All of my children have moved out with them.  Dustin completes the tradition.  Aren't they so cute???

Dustin(on the right) and his childhood friend, Justin.  He was such a cutie!

Dustin and his girlfriend Kayla in the new apartment decorated by Dustin.
He was so excited to be moving into his own place.

He raced motorcycles for 2 years.  What fun we all had at the races!

As a mother, you never think that this day will come. The day that your last child moves out of your home. It comes all too soon! Yester day was that day...our youngest, Dustin flew the coop so to speak. His wings were strong enough to take the first flight alone...as in moving away from home to an apartment and starting his college classes. This was a big step! My husband has been tearing up for the last two months whenever we talked about Dustin leaving home. Our baby is all grown up. These two have a very special bond....Dwight had time to enjoy Dustin as a baby and remembers many of the early times with Dustin. They are best friends...they think alike, laugh alike, have the same fears, enjoy the dreaming big and have talked through many a hard time. He was not the easiest child but we hung in there with him. We homeschooled him in 6th grade and through high school. He did NOT like school so that was a challenge and many, many other things were always difficult. Through it all...much of it done with much prayer, Dwight's patience and giving in to a strong willed child at times... we now see a maturity that hopefully will help him grow into the adult he wants to be. Dwight and I both wrote him letters of encouragement and before he left, he gave us one back. We were all in tears! Joyful, happy, sad, loving tears! We are now empty nesters!

Empty Nest

We have a week and a half until we will be official empty nesters.  You never think this day will come when they are little.  It's come too soon.   I'm feeling a bit sad this morning as I'm picking up the house and seeing the stuff we bought for Dustin's apartment yesterday.  It also makes me feel that I have done my job as a mother and my children are raised.  Raised enough anyway to try to make it on their own and isn't that what our job as mothers and fathers are.  Our older two are out on their own and married and starting their families.  It was also sad when they embarked on their own.  Danielle never really did come back home.  Dallas has been back a couple times and stayed as long as he could. (He likes to save his $$$ and he said he was saving ours because we did not have to pay for the dorm/apt.)  So now here I am, feeling sad but triumphant that we have come so far with our child rearing and I feel that we've done a pretty good job.  My husband has had tears this last month or so thinking about this day.  I think of God allowing Jesus to be born and  raised by Mary and Joseph and then they had to let go.  It's a part of life and I too will be better for it with a few tears is all.