Pen Pal Cousins

I have always loved writing letters. I love the feel of paper, the way a pen glides across the page, the sound of a pencil as it scribbles words. Writing letters is slowly becoming a lost art.  Emails are being sent, updates are given on Facebook, pictures are being posted on Instagram, and lets not forget texts and tweets. Communication is convenient these days. 

My kids go to school with a lot of kids who at 8 & 9 years old have cell phones. Mark and I won't allow our younger children to have cell phones for our own personal beliefs. I'm an older parent in the kids' school and I am very much an old school, old soul parent too. I try to teach my kids to appreciate the simple things in life. We like growing our food, getting our hands dirty, we like taking walks, we like unplugging, we like having lemonade stands, we like board games and card games, we like playing with lego and barbies. We like spending our time swimming during the day 

and gathering around the fire pit at night. 

We love simple. Cell phones will always be there, 

but these moments are fleeting.

Distance can't keep these two apart. Mary Kate lives in Arkansas and Keely lives in California.

And that's what gravitates me to sharing with my kids the lost art of actually writing letters...do you remember what it was like receiving a special letter in the mail? 

The excitement of checking the mailbox, seeing an envelope addressed to you. 

For those few brief moments you feel special, you feel excited and most of all you feel loved. 

Because someone took the time out of their day to write a letter to you. 

Letters will always be far more personal than any Facebook update, any Instagram post, text, tweet or email. Letters contain words written by someone's hand. They had to think of what they wanted to say before they said it, they had to have the supplies to write the letter. So much more goes into letter writing than anything else. 

These two girls are animal lovers. Mary Kate wants to be a vet and Keely wants to be a farmer!
Maybe they can work with each other one day!

And that's why my Sister-In-Law, Katy, and I are teaching our daughters to write letters. We have started something fun for them to share with each other by becoming Pen Pal Cousins, writing letters back and forth to each other. You see, just like me, Katy is an old soul and we love things like this. Sure it adds more to our already busy lives, but this is something we know will be special for our girls as they grow up. Mary Kate and I are even going to put the letters from cousin Keely in their own special pretty box. So Mary Kate will always know where they are and one day she will be able to look back on them and reminiscence with her cousin. And overall, it will help build their relationship to be stronger. It's my prayer and hope that even though our sweet daughters are far away, that their relationship will be a close one.

Friends Forever

As I was talking to Mary Kate about starting her letter to Keely, I realized, I had to actually teach my daughter how to write a letter. Mary Kate was full of questions, "Why do we ask how are you?" "What am I supposed to say?" "Why would she want to know about my basketball team?" I had to explain to her that these are things about our lives that we might find boring or mundane but others might find fun and exciting. They learn things about us that we didn't realize they never knew. And we ask how are you because that shows we care and that we've been thinking about them. 

The plan is, sometimes we'll send just a letter, sometimes we'll send a little trinket with a short note, sometimes we'll send a care package of some of MK's favorite things from Arkansas, we'll send postcards from places we visit big or small....we'll have fun with this and that's what matters most. We want this to be a positive experience for our daughters. Something they always look forward to. We want this to be something (we hope) our daughters 

continue to do on their own as they grow older. Even after they get their own cell phones one day! I said I hope...LOL! 

I'll write back soon!