"mom, i need some butter!"

several weeks ago, cale and his we-are-like-brothers-best-buddy, mason, decided to prank lilybug. 

unbeknownst to us, they got the butter and slathered her doorknob. 

it was pretty funny. we were impressed. 

lily was not.

fast forward to last week. it's 9:45 pm. past my bedtime. 

lily comes to me with and says, "hey mom, i need some butter!"

what?!?!?!

"yeah, i'm gonna prank cale!" 

(that comment was followed by a laugh that would rival any cartoon villian. oh how i wish you could hear it.) 

what?!?!?!

"c'mon mom!"

ummm... ok!

it was funny. especially cale's reaction. he freaked, ran away, and came back with a towel completely puzzled until he saw us laughing... then he realized lily got him. 

quite amusing for 3 little kiddos, i'd say.

as a bystander, my advice to cale and mason would be this...

you boys should really watch it. 

cause i'm pretty sure you have no idea who you're messing with...

she's paying attention.

happy 5th birthday, bug!

five years ago today we were blessed with sweet lilybug. 

i truly cannot fathom life without her amazing perspective.

she reminds us to take the time to discover the sweet little moments of each day... 

she greets each adventure with an abundance of enthusiasm... 

and the joy that overflows from the very depths of her being speaks life into each soul she comes across.

lily is a living example of and my daily reminder that God's plans are better than my own. for that, Papa God, I am beyond grateful.

dinner drawings...

tonight daddy took aunt b and me to dinner... 

we let the kids tag along. 

we were discussing our days and trying to decide what to eat as lilybug was coloring away on a note pad.

our sweet server came to get our order and as she was finishing up, lily said "hey, i wanna give this to you!"

as lilybug handed the paper to our server, i caught a glimpse of what she'd been working on. it was a cross, colored in pen, and about the size of the piece of paper. the server was gracious and thanked lily for the pretty picture. what came next made us all tear up... lily very proudly exclaimed, 

"that's for Jesus dying on the cross!" 

i want to be courageous... 

i want to be bold... 

i want childlike faith.

national siblings day... a week-ish late.

i heard last thursday was national siblings day. so this makes me a little late to the game... but i thought i'd give a little whirl anyway...

that one there... the one with no hair... he belongs to me. 

my big, little brother.

that kid can (still) push my buttons like no other person on this planet... i mean it. like. no. one. 

he makes me want to call our dad and tattle sometimes... and i'mma big girl... 

his words can come out a little prickly... 

he will throw me under the bus in a new york minute... 

his face is always what i think of when i am digging through my spice cabinet and come across the jar of "dill weed"... 

BUT...

he's brilliant... really. 

he cries when he opens his special christmas presents...

those prickly words... most of the time they're full of truth...

he'll defend me, regardless of the issues, if anyone else were to try to throw me under the bus...

he's a phone call away, any time of the day or night... 

and i love him dearly...

i 'spose i'll keep him.

not just a memory verse

to our sweet teachers, 

thank you... thank you... thank you. you may be teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic... but there is so much more. i cannot imagine how long some days must be, but there is purpose. daily you are planting seeds in the lives of our precious little ones. seeds that are already beginning to bear fruit... seeds that will continue to bear fruit... you are impacting generations.

these may be a couple of gracie's memory verses from january, but i see so much more.

i see a declaration. 

i see a declaration Gods' promises. 

i see those promises of His words in her own sweet handwriting. 

in that handwriting i see the words of her Heavenly Father being declared over her own life.

and, it is priceless.

tea for two

over the weekend lily asked if she could have a tea party outside. 

sure! fantastic! great idea! 

we packed up the plastic tea set and she headed out to the garage while the other kids and daddy were playing basketball.

i stepped out into the garage to find this... and i decided to hang around with the camera to see how it turned out... 

she instructed him on the "proper" way to drink his tea... "pinkies out!"

so he drank and she refilled...

and they laughed... 

and talked about tea parties and what it's like to be four... 

and then he told her she could never get married... ever.

and she told him she was never going away to college cause "who'd snuggle with mommy?" ummmmm, well...

then he asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up to be a big girl. she answered and told him that she wanted to take care of animals. he told her he thought that being a veterinarian was a fantastic idea! this was her reaction to being told someday she could be a vet...

yesp... sweetest thing... ever.

it's the little things...

it's the little things... 

like an escalator ride down and back up...

that make me stop and think... 

Lord, help me to see my world through Your eyes. Help me to take time for the little things, find joy in the little moments, and enjoy every minute of each precious day You've given me with Your children. 

treasures in the birdhouse

this is the sweet little birdhouse lily painted while spending the weekend with andie sophia.

this is the glimpse of "um... that's-not-a-bird" i caught while attempting to tuck her into bed.

this is what the fourteen dollars i've been hunting for looks like after lily unsuccessfully "hid" it into the birdhouse... notice the $10 bill torn in half... "cause it just wouldn't fit!!!"

  ... and the barbie necklace she was hiding from grace.

oh... that... girl.

the little blue bean

 most conversations these days regarding lily start with "oh, that girl..." this is certainly no exception.

she was sitting in my lap at my office telling me all about her day. in true dramatic lily form, she tossed her head back during a particular part of her story and i caught a hint of blue in one of her nostrils. hmmm... she must have a runny nose i thought. but as she tossed that head again, i realized that was not the case. no, not at all. something was blue. pearly blue.

me: "lily, is there something in your nose?"

lily: "yep."

me: "um... what is it? did you put something in your nose."
(panic begins rising at this moment)

lily (as cool as a cucumber): "it's a blue bean. i put it there during P.E."

me: "what?!?!?!?! why????"

squirrel alert: why i ever ask "why" is beyond me. most of the time the response is a shrugging of the shoulders, and a realization that the truth is they don't know. there is no consideration of any consequences. there is (at this point) only a curiosity that drives them to do act. sorry... back to lily's story...

lily: "i don't know."

and the truth was she didn't know, she just did it. and she was very matter-of-fact about it.

i made a beeline for miss karla's office. in her ever calm manner, karla offered to help get it out. i'll spare you all the dramatic details, but i will say that there were four of us holding her down and one with the suction. it didn't work. finally mid-screaming, she was able to blow it out. yuck-o... yes. i don't think lily will do that again. oh, i hope she doesn't do it again...
  

"little blue bean"

you're welcome for the visual.

i can assure you there will be a sequel... just hoping it doesn't involve anything in the nose next time.

so long...

wigglesworth... out!

get lost.

meet wigglesworth, the tooth cale cannot lose. 

cale tried. i tried. aunt b tried. miss karla wants to try.

i'm pretty sure i can see wigglesworth's replacement when it moves to the side.

and yet wigglesworth insists on staying the course.

it sticks out, pushes in, and shifts both ways. 

it's holding on by a thread... root... whatever. 

wigglesworth... your days are numbered.

i get it...

i have had a VERY hard time facing this week... mainly because it's the week of my birthday. i am 

THIRTEEEEEEEEEE-FIIIIIIIIVVVVEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

actually, today is the day. in case you didn't know me then, ten years ago (and for many years before) we didn't just celebrate my actual birth-day. we celebrated my birth-month. and by "we", i mean everyone. everyone knew my birthday was on it's way. i made sure of it. then life changed and the pendulum, well it's been heading in the opposite direction for years. yesterday, that pendulum hit its end. i actually said i didn't want to celebrate my birthday. WHAT??? i know, grant and chay, the impossible has actually happened. 

i think a lot of this has come from quite a bit of self-reflection i've been doing lately. apparently i should stop. i certainly don't "feel" thirty-five, but then again, i don't actually know what thirty-five is supposed to feel like. i guess in my head it's a transition age.  things like no more babies, and actually old enough to have given birth to a high-school senior when, in my head i am only twenty-two. how the heck does this happen? where does the time go? how is it possible that my "first child" (hayden) is about to be 15? how is it possible that gracie is halfway to college? WHAT???? this is nuts. oh, there's more reflecting that's gone on, but you get the idea.

and then this morning, while in the shower, i had a God-moment... yep, the kind that aren't your idea. wanna know what the outcome of it was? it was the revelation that i today is not just another birthday i am obligated to, i get another day... because my Papa numbered them and He has good plans for me for today.

my Heavenly Father has blessed me with another day that i get to be His girl... i get the opportunity to say yes to Him and whatever He asks of me... i get to be part of a plan that brings Him glory...

today, i get it. 

tape and all...

i know it's hard to imagine, but my sweet little lily-bug got in trouble one recent evening and was sent to her room. i went in to talk to her once she'd peeled herself off the ceiling for having been sequestered, and found her sitting on her bed, leaning against the wall. it just so happened that she was leaning in the very spot i had taped up an art project she brought home from school... one of those sweet little finger/hand painting projects. so, as she was flailing about (oh, the drama), her hand caught a corner of the picture and it began to rip. i told her how much i liked it, and asked her to be careful so it wouldn't tear any more. wouldn't you know, that precious little angel that God gave me looked right at me... AND RIPPED IT INTO PIECES!!!! oh, girl... noyoudit-untt... SHE DID! i scooped it up and dramatically told her it was headed to the trashcan! and so i did. 

but then as i stood there at the kitchen counter, i began to think about what had just transpired. i thought about my own life... i thought about times i have done the same thing in God's face. BAM! how's that for a little dose of spiritual reality? i had an idea. the kind of ideas that you know are not your own... i decided to take the pieces out of the trash to see if i could put them back together. 

as i did, i thought about how sweet my Heavenly Father is to do the same for me... and for you.

i thought about how we can make a mess of a situation, sometimes it's intentional and sometimes not, but if we will allow Him, He will put our pieces back together... regardless of how disastrous it might seem... He is bigger. 

and before we start feeling ashamed of our dirty, junky pieces, remember that the tape and the lines are nothing to be ashamed of... they are evidence of God's work in us.

lily's picture is on the fridge where i see it several times a day... what a reminder of the grace we are given by our Father who love us unconditionally and longs for us to allow Him to heal and make us whole... tape and all.

Part 2: God is faithful... period.

you know those songs you've heard tons of times that you can hum the tune and maybe sing a line or two, but you've never really listened to the words?

well, this song was one of those for me until very recently. familiar? very. point of the song? dunno.

then... i found myself really hearing it during worship while i was visiting a friends' church. i was minding my own business, singing along, when... BAM! one verse in and it hit me... 

smack-dab between the eyes. 

this was it... this is it. this is our anthem for this journey with cale. if how i have felt... the emotion, the supernatural peace, the gratitude towards my Heavenly Father for preserving my precious son... if i had the right words and could put music to them, this is what it would sound like... 

oh, tooth fairy...

i have a sweet little somebody who lost a tooth! 

i don't know anyone who could look at that precious crooked, toothless, 100% boy grin and not smile...

happy monday night!

 

happy 9th birthday, gracie!

this is hard for this mama to comprehend... 

my sweet girl is 9 today!

nine. n-i-n-e. like one-two-skipafew-NINE!!!!! 

  

what a blessing it is to begin watching her God-given gifts begin to really take shape.  i see love, leadership,   kindness, and compassion really beginning to flow from her. 

i tell her all the time that i'm glad God let me be her mama... and i am.  i wouldn't trade this for anything in the whole world. 

happy birthday, baby.

God is faithful... period.

This is where we were 4 months ago...

Here's where we were today...

God is faithful, and He is always good.

The end.

My heart has been so full today watching my sweet boy get back to what he loves. I tell people all the time, "if you didn't know what happened, you wouldn't know." It's so true.

But four (very short) months ago, even though we knew Cale would be ok , we didn't know what our journey would look like. What has been reaffirmed to us is that God has always been and always will be faithful to His word and to His promises to us and our family. Today was another huge leap forward in this precious journey.

"The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies."

Psalms 41:2

happy birthday, cale!

yummy birthday cake pancakes...

for this sweet birthday boy!

how is this possible? it seems like just yesterday. time flies, doesn't it?

happy 6th birthday to my favorite boy in the whole wide world.     i love you to the moon and back, one millionbazillionkajillion times. 

putt-putt... putt-putt...

for all who know that i always have a plan... how's this for spontaneous??? it was actually my idea to head out for a little game of miniature golf, last minute.

thank you. not part of the plans for tonight, i know. sometimes things work out just as they should, not as i have planned. i even walked away from the freshly-cut grass all over my house (the inside of my house) for this. worth it, you ask? you bet those sweet little bottoms it was. 

question? do you have any idea how hard it is to play and wait, play and wait, play and wait, play and wait, play and wait, and play and wait behind the SLOWEST family on the planet? thank heavens someone in their group lost a ball in the "pond", which gave us a tiny window to "play through". I don't even really know what that means but, after tonight, i like it. 

it was soooo funny when  they realized that on the 18th hole, their ball was gone forever. it only took one ball for them to figure that out and then it was a mad scramble to keep any more from getting close and disappearing forever. no more time for putt-putt... the bellies were growling.

there's no more golfing... only time for one more picture.

so i said it once this week, and i'll say it again...
i'm a very blessed girl. 

third grade, here she comes!

third grade. third. grade. that sounds so big. third grade means a new building. third graders have lockers. third grade requires colored pencils. third grade just suits her.