Recap

Okay, so most of my readers are family and friends, but I know that there are a few readers I don't know in real life and maybe new readers I don't know who are visiting my blog; so I decided to follow in Mckmama's clever steps in doing a recap.

A recap of who I am, what our family is like, and a bit of a glance into our daily life here at the Copeland house.

I don't know how long you have been reading, but I started this blog in May of 2007 as a means to communicate with loved ones, keep up with writing, and as a way of documenting our family life.

I am married to Matt, and we just celebrated our 4 year anniversary. We started our family right after we married(technically, before we were married), giving birth to Peach after being husband and wife for just 2 months. No, we didn't marry because we felt obligated to. We chose to marry. We knew what we wanted and God just proved our timing to be a bit off. In our 4 years of marriage we've had 4 children, lived in 3 houses, started 2 new & fulfilling jobs, and created 1 awesome marriage.

My husband and I were born and raised on the Kansas plains where tornadoes pop out of the sky starting in March. Where Jayhawks reign (don't doubt this fact) and golden wheat sways with the breeze. Where the western third of the state is a collection of small towns and the eastern third is more cities-- but still not many cities at that. Kansas is our home and guess what-- we are not farmers. We own no tractors, horses, acres, or any land other than what our house sits on. I think there is nothing wrong with farmers, in fact I think they're great for putting in long, hard, often hot days in order to feed our nation. We, as many Kansans, just don't happen to farm.

Instead, we make our living in education. He is a former language arts teacher who now works for the state-- still working in education. I mostly stay at home with our daughters, but you can also find me giving standards-based tours to school-aged children at the Kansas Museum of History. I graduated from college with a B.S. and M.S. in education--also to teach language arts.

We live in a great house and we'll send our children to the same schools we attended in our youth. The grandparents (even great-grandparents) live close by and we're all happy about that. I don't know what my kids would do if they couldn't see grandmas or grandpas within the half hour if needed.

And speaking of my kids, as you can see in my sidebar we have four little girls all under the age of four--none are twins. They are busy, busy, busy, and keep me busy, busy, busy. We enjoy our days by heading to the library or book mobile, swimming, playing with tubs of water and bath toys in our yard, baking, reading, or playing pretend and dress-up in our basement. With all of the social-networking and blogging going on around here, I decided to use nicknames to identify my kiddos.

Yes, they all have nicknames under their picture. I didn't create these names just for the blog; however, they are nicknames I gave them after birth. What can I say, I really like giving nicknames. The nicknames you see, Peach, Brownie, and Bug are just some of several nicknames I have for my children.

M is the first initial of our newest addition. I'm currently in the process of seeing what sticks for her nickname. This girl has some wild black hair that sticks up like a Mohawk; so some of her nicknames include Meringue (the girl's hair reminds me of meringue on a pie), Elvis Baby and Memphis Queen (again, her hair).

When my little people are sleeping and I'm not at the museum, you can find me researching and trying new recipes, learning what's best for my family as far as food and life-style are concerned, blogging, editing photos, watching the history channel or discovery health, going to the gym, taking a walk/jog, writing in my daughters' journals, and bumming around with my husband-sometimes with a glass of wine or some homemade veggie and bean nachos.

That sums up much of who we are. Did you get it all? Thought so!

Now, won't you share with me? Leave me some words about yourself or write your own post and let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!