recent pics

Today is the day before Thanksgiving, and we have a sweet friend over. Her name is Audrey, and she's wonderful. We all adore her. She's the daughter of a friend of mine, Nicole. Here's a shot from a photoshoot that her mom and I did with the kids recently. Our girls have been friends since they minute they meet. Very sweet.

Nicole and Audrey. Aren't they adorable?!

Gillian was invited to the birthday party of a friend from kindergarten recently, and they had bubbles. Lots of bubbles. I love these shots. I also love the one with Jack on the little vehicle expressing his excitement.

I saw a photo online of a lady with a peacock feather over her eye. It was so cool that I tried to replicate it. I must have bought a super feathery peacock feather because having the feather over my eye looked weird. but the Speak No Evil look works. Dontcha think? :)

Giving Thanks

Two years ago, I got to drive down to Houston for Thanksgiving to be with my side of the family. My Mamaw was in the hospital, and I was able to spend a good deal of my visit at her side. And every Thanksgiving since, I find myself preoccupied with thanks to God for allowing me to say the things I'd always wanted to say to her. To spend all that time with her. Because it was soon after that she went home to be with her Lord.

I miss her so much. I am a very blessed granddaughter to have had such an amazing set of Grandparents. They modeled for me what unconditional love meant and made it easier to believe that I could receive that kind of love from God. They modeled sacrifice and love and honor and respect. My Mamaw and Papaw were married more than 50 years, and because of that, it is my goal to love my own husband in a way that he'll keep me around for us to celebrate our own 50 + years together. If you're married, you understand that it's not always easy to work through the arguments and disappointments, to not give up and just throw in the towel and believe that you 'deserve' better. I've been there in my own head at times. But I am determined to honor God and to show my husband the love that God wants him to have. For God to teach me all He wants me to learn through sacrificing and compromising and admitting my shortcomings and failures with someone who will support and encourage me through it. All because I first saw that kind of love modeled to me by my grandparents.

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful for so much. God has made my cup overflow. I am praying to know what to do with the excess that keeps collecting at my feet. I want to live simply. I want to share my blessings. I want to love more, learn more, give more, see more. When you have as much as I do, you get real uncomfortable. At least, I do. It just doesn't make sense for me to have all this and for someone else not to. You know? My Mamaw would have given her last drop of blood to someone else if it would have helped. Jesus DID give His all so that I may have what I have.

I have a lot for which to be grateful. And today, I am counting my blessings and praying for those who are going without because I didn't step forward and share enough. Lord, forgive me.

Water for Christmas

Every day, 4500 mothers bury their children due to contaminated water. They are forced to sustain their families with a diabolical liquid that contains both life and death. This lack of clean water is the leading cause of death in underdeveloped nations. And it just doesn't have to be!

So as we gear up to scurry through department stores and browse endless catalogs in search of new jeans, Tonka Trucks, gadgets and dolls....we are pausing.

And today, November 13th, we are buying water. Clean, life-saving water. $10 will provide one person in Africa clean water for 10 years.

It will literally change and possibly save someone's life. A mother. A child. A brother. A grandfather. We are rallying together for a cause. Clean water. One day. $10.

Asking everyone to let this be their first gift. Let water, let life be their first gift of the season.

I did.

Oink, Roar, Splash, Waddle and Snort

You may have noticed a pattern with my most recent posts. They're all belated. Happy belated birthday, Jack. Happy belated birthday, Gillian. I've just been busy. My bad.

Here comes another such post. Happy belated Halloween.

Not that it's a big deal in our house, but I do find it fun to dress up with the kids and gather candy from neighbors. I don't talk to our neighbors as often as I'd like. Mostly because I am inside, making sure the little ones don't destroy one another. But Halloween marked a night where we went out as a family and got to chat it up with the people we live next to.

Last week was also Fall Break for Gillian's school district. I had never heard of Fall Break before. I know all about Spring Break, and Winter Break and Summer (woohoo), but a break in the Fall? Didn't we just start school? Why do we need a break already? whatever. It just means that while all the students from the other school districts are enjoying the sunshine in the middle of the day at the end of May, my daughter will still be in class for another week or so. (boo)

I had all these plans to drive an hour north for a couple of days during Fall Break to visit with some of Gillian's kindergarten classmates and their mommies who I miss dearly. The kids and I raked the leaves in our front yard Monday afternoon, and by Monday evening, Josh was a pile of sneezing, wheezing goo. He was miserable, and I wanted to kick myself in the rear for not considering his poor allergies. I'm sure that jumping around in piles of leaves isn't the greatest idea for someone who reacts everytime he plays outside.

But then came 4am, Tuesday morning. I heard Josh up, wandering around, crying and sneezing and coughing. He sounded delirious. Is there any other way to sound at 4am? I went to check on him, and he was burning up. I took his temperature, and it said the poor boy was 102 degrees. Yikes. There was something besides allergies going on. I cuddled on the couch with him, and we fell asleep for a few more hours. When his pediatrician's office opened, I called and set up an appointment for him to be seen later that morning. Turns out he had the dreaded swine flu. Which freaked me out only a little.

When we got home, Gillian was coughing, and I noticed a tickle in the back of my throat. As the day went by, Gillian's cough was accompanied by sneezes and fever-induced aches, and that tickle in my throat had grown up into a fairly large iron noose! By the next morning, Josh, Gillian and yours truly were all battling it out with the piggy flu. We all got really high fevers, coughs and extra portions of mucus. Gross. Gillie and Josh planted themselves in front of the tv and spent virtually all of the next two days there. I put Jack in his walker, let Ben - who was working from home - put out all the minor little fires that cropped up, and I laid in bed and napped in the afternoons.

I might should get the 'flu' more often!

Thursday afternoon, Josh was acting like he was feeling back to normal. That night, Gillian joined him in running around the house, appetites and energy levels back to normal (for a 4 and 7 year old). It would have lasted a lot longer had we not taken the meds that we did. I'm sure of it. We all had lots of echinacia, Emergen-C, oscillococcinum, and lots of fluids. I made sure to keep our fevers down since we were all too miserable to drink or eat anything while we were achy and sore.

By Friday morning, I was feeling better too. Well, enough to do some crafts, put some finishing touches on the kids' Halloween costumes, and cook dinner for the first time that week.

So our plans to visit friends was obviously cancelled because of us not being well, but even if we hadn't been contagious, sticky whiners in fetal-positions, we wouldn't have been able to drive an hour north anyway. Or go to Awanas on Wednesday. Or to Kids' Camp at another church...

because we got over 2 feet of snow in two days! yep. Not kidding. And it wasn't even November yet.

But by Saturday evening, a lot of the snow had melted away, the kids and I got all dressed up in our costumes (I was a nerd. Jack was a turtle. Josh was a shark. And Miss G was a lion) and hit up our neighbors for some of their sugar-coated sugar. Sunday started with a hangover vibe in everyone except Ben, who got up early to go celebrate one of his all-time favorite days of the year by going to Walmart and buying three large grocery bags full of half-priced candy. He came home, hauling his loot over his shoulder and looking jollier than St. Nick himself. I think it's silly. He thinks it's the best thing since, well, since anything.

Being the silly shutterbug that I am (no matter how sick), I documented our week in photos. So here are a few.

First off, I had said that I would show you my version of a Martha Stewart Living Magazine cover. Here it is.

And here are the kids in their costumes. For Gillian and Josh, I just took a hoodie and embellished them with felt. And then the kids wanted me to add eyeliner noses, whiskers and teeth. For Jack, I took a paper plate (no kidding) and sewed a piece felt to it that I had drawn on to make it look more like a turtle shell. Then I just pinned it to some of his pajamas. Instant turtle. And mighty cute.

The next photo was taken while the kids were sick. They were snacking on apples and watching one of their favorite shows, either Phineas and Ferb or Chalkzone, I'm not sure which one. When I looked over, Gillian had her arm around Josh and he was leaning on her. I had to capture that moment, since, and I know you won't believe this, it is kind of rare. But a feverish mind will befriend just about anyone in its time of need.

Here is our backyard after the snow. Crazy, right?!

Nothing says blizzard like driving a snowmobile down the street! I also heard stories of people putting on snowshoes and going to the grocery store or Starbucks or whatever. Actually, that's kind of awesome!

Shhhhh. This is a project I'm doing for Christmas. I'm making many, many of these with various people's faces or phrases on them. Aren't they sweet?

Coward

I’m reading “The Hole In Our Gospel” by Richard Stearns. And yesterday, I went to Chipotle for lunch and brought the book along. (Chipotle gives away free burritos on Halloween evening to anyone who comes dressed as their favorite Chipotle menu item. Ben and I had planned to wrap our arms in foil – instant burrito – and get dinner there. But the line was soooo long that he told me that he’d buy me Chipotle the next day if I agreed to get something different for dinner that night. Of course, I agreed. And this is why I was having lunch at Chipotle, without any kids, on a Sunday afternoon.)

Chapter 2 is about how the author shrunk away from God’s calling for several months before he realized what he had to do. As I was reading, I found myself judging Mr. Stearns, and yet wondering if I’d be willing to be used by God in a similar way – in a way that would cause us to have to move, earn less money and be faced daily with the overwhelming need in the world. Of course, my knee-jerk reaction was “Yes, I’d be willing to do ANYTHING if I thought it was what God wanted.”

And then, right there in the middle of Chipotle, I got the idea in my head that I should stand up, ask for everyone’s attention, and then tell them that God loves them.

Simple, right? No weeks of training. No offering to spend money to buy them all lunch. No need to risk getting close to contagious germs or violence. No need to even talk any further after that.

But, instead of finding eagerness or even willingness, I felt myself collapse on the inside. If I could have made myself invisible for a few minutes, I would have.

I found out yesterday that I am a coward.

And I started to cry. So I packed up my things and left the restaurant.

If I can’t do something as simple as that, what in the world can God trust me with? I dream all the time of God calling me into the field – working in an orphanage, bandaging wounds and playing with fatherless kids, feeding families and singing with widows, attending home churches in Iraq, Vietnam, South Africa, Peru and China. I have dreams of working in an aftercare facility in Thailand to nourish life back into men, women and children who have been recently rescued and released from oppression – to delight in seeing their faces when it hits home that they are indeed free at last. I have dreams of advocating on behalf of the marginalized, of rallying churches together to make life better for billions of people. So that they can be free to understand that God is GOOD and that HE LOVES THEM!

But if I can’t even stand up and tell 7 strangers that God loves them, when I was (possibly) prompted by God Himself… well, I fear that God won’t feel that He can trust me with the stuff of my dreams.

How pathetic. How horrifying. How terrifying that I would cringe before man, but NOT before God!

Lord, forgive me for my ignorance and my cowardice. Please help me to trust you, seek you, and do your will above all else, regardless. Help me be eager to serve you and share you. Straighten my shoulders. Lift my head. And give me boldness for you. Take my shame and replace it with courage and gratitude. Wash away my fear. Listen to the desire of my heart and use it for your glory. Show me any other areas where I am letting fear get in the way of my serving you and/or others.

Take my comfort and strip me of it, if it is getting between me and you.

Lord, I believe. Help me with my unbelief.