First Goodbyes

There are a few relationships in life that profoundly impact us and forever enrich our lives.  A few friendships that resinate with the very fibers of our soul.  We all have one or two...that friend who can complete your sentences...who loves your children as her own....whose tears have mingled with yours....and with whom you confide the deepest matters of the heart.

This is one such friendship.

One of my dearest friends in the world came to spend an extended weekend with us shortly after we announced our intended move to Asia.  Within hours of me sharing with her, she was scheming and looking at schedules to plan when and how we could get our families together before we left.  With the holidays fast-approaching, and the adoption of their sweet baby boy from Korea happening this week, our window of opportunity was narrow...but oh so sweet!

Little Evie, Big Evie and Maggie Jane

You may recollect the significance of our unlikely meeting and the special connection of our girls from this...or this...or this post.  Seeing our Maggie and Evie together never ceases to have some poignant and emotional moments.  

It was a motley crew...the 9 of our kids together......

gaggle of girls

The kids all got along great and surprisingly, there was only one near-miss-trip-to-the-ER when little Evie took a face-first tumble out of the red wagon that the kids were racing down the cement driveway...(ouch!) 

And when the long days of excursions and outings and bandaids and bathing dirty kids and tucking them in every horizontal nook-and-crannie in our house was finally over, instead of wisely getting some shut eye ourselves,  Faith and I sat up until the wee hours of the morning enjoying unbroken conversation and heart-to-hearts.  Faith’s dear mom who came with her even bravely kept all the kids one night to give us a mom’s-night-out by ourselves.  

C asked me what we talked about every night so late.  
Everything under the sun...
....but a lot about these two....

Circa 2010 left and 2012 right

Its been an immeasurable blessing to have some amazingly devoted and caring individuals who have come alongside and supported us through everything with Evie.  But Faith is one who needs no back-story or bringing-up-to-speed.  She gets it!  When we talk about our girls, the unspoken is understood and the verbalized is validated.  She has walked in the same shoes and Im unspeakably grateful for someone who shares the heartache and celebrates the triumphs with us.  These two lil' sweetheart angels slept like this every night.  
Melt. 
my. 
heart!

I had a photo shoot assignment while they were visiting and roped the Mahoney girls into some modeling.  How cute are they?  

I absolutely treasure these pictures of all our MO/SC cousins together!  The boys were troopers and threw the football contentedly while we did our froofy-frilly girl thing.  (they got some serious fishing time in later that day!)  

Faith’s amazingly talented photographer mom helped me a ton with the shoot and gave me some great tutorials on Photoshop!

"covergirls"

secret garden...my favorite!!

Evie and her namesake

We even squeezed in a visit to a pumpkin patch and enjoyed a lovely fall afternoon hayride.  Faith is as matchy/monogram obsessed as I am....another reason we are kindred spirits:)

True, we may only see our Missouri cousins once or twice a year, but Thailand is feeling like a LOT further away!!  We will miss them dearly.  Godspeed the day we see these two back together!!