Daughter of the King

Claire has been obsessed with princesses for almost 2 years now. It's not something I completely understand (I never had that phase) and it's not something we really encouraged either - it just sort of happened. The term "princess" has so many negative connotations in my head. I never wanted my daughter to have that "princess" mentality/attitude. There's not much cute about it as far as I'm concerned.

However, I've really come to terms with her love for all things princess-like. It even has given me some great opportunities to teach her about God being our King and how we are his children. In January our church held our annual Cabin Fever Luncheon, where ladies put together a themed, decorated table. Claire and I attacked this together, of course with a princess theme!

 The centerpiece was my glass cake stand with her pink tutu around the base. We made some purple and pink cupcakes (and didn't take a picture) to go around the stand and then just a simple vase with wands in it. I even found ribbon with pink crowns on it!

I was originally going to put one of Claire's many dresses over each chair as the chair cover, but most did not fit. So, instead, I tied purple tulle around the chair backs for a little "extra". I stuck with paper products this year for simplicity, but also because I knew there'd be some young ones at the table. Princess Sofia is not my favorite, but we were having a hard time finding things without a specific character on them. And she matched. So we got crowns and stickers for each place setting, too.   

The little girls all dressed up in their princess dresses and were very well-behaved. We had a great time and I was so thankful for the opportunity to do something together with Claire. I could tell she felt special, which was exactly what I wanted. It was one of those moments when it just really struck me how big she is.
Sniff.

Cleaning Convictions

Our household has been in the midst of yet another remodel project, except this time it was forced on us because of water damage. It's always something! Anyway, the biggest piece of this project was putting in new flooring in the dining room and kitchen. One day while they were working on it, J called to inform/warn me that the workers ended up creating a huge dust storm. I was not planning on construction dust. I thought it would be a "clean" project, as far as that goes. It was not.

The rest of that week, much time was spent cleaning off surfaces. I looked in at the adjoining bathroom and it didn't look bad at all, so I didn't give it a "special" cleaning - instead waiting until I would just normally clean it anyway. As I was working through my normal bathroom cleaning routine, I took my damp towel and wiped the floor. The towel was completely brown. The more I looked and the more I wiped, the more dirt and dust I found. I marveled at how something that seemed so clean could "secretly" be so filthy!

And then, right there - 7 months pregnant, on all fours, trying to reach that spot behind the toilet - God used my current condition to shed some light on my life. The thought and words struck me like Cam driving his dump truck full-force across the room and into my legs (a real problem at our house): MY HEART.

I want my heart and my life to be genuinely clean. That the goodness would be clear and that it would hold up even when someone comes in and gives it a wipe down, looking for evidence of dust and dirt. Sometimes the sin in our life is the toothpaste trail in the sink, but sometimes it's just a thin layer of dust hiding on the top ledge of the mirror. Either way, it needs to be cleaned up.

Speak the Truth in Love

I've had a couple of people make comments about my lack of blogging lately. Truth is, I just haven't felt like it. And because it's my blog, I felt like that was a good enough reason. My head and my heart have been more than overflowing for quite a while now, and so when I sit down to write, those things are all I can think about.


Some time ago, I really evaluated my life and my heart and asked myself who I wanted to be...and more importantly, who I was called to be. I was so convicted that I needed to be honest (always!) and genuine, but so loving that people would understand my heart. My life changed that day. And then it has been followed by MANY difficult times of being honest and speaking the truth in love. This is what I learned really quick:

         Even though you mean it with love. And pray over your words. Doesn't mean it wont hurt         
         someone's feelings.

So, that's where it gets messy. The truth hurts. It has hurt me and it has probably hurt you. What do we do about it? Are we responsible for hurt feelings? Having your heart convicted hurts. I just simply can't tell you that you're doing great and everything's going to be great and let's just put on a smile if that isn't the truth. I'm positive that I have a responsibility and conviction to say something else. To speak biblical truth, even when it's hard and even when it hurts.

It's so hard to help people understand that you love them enough to be honest. Trust me, I'd much rather just smile and say it's all okay.

Perfection

No, I did not schedule this post to go in the middle of the night - I'm really blogging at 1:30am. I feel a bit weird even writing that because let me tell you...I LOVE TO SLEEP! Nothing gets in my way when it comes to my perfect pile of pregnancy pillows. Unless I dont feel well or I cant turn my brain off.

This Christmas night it's both: full brain, full belly (too many meatballs!)

Since I couldn't sleep, I was reflecting on what a beautiful Christmas season it's been and what a great day today was. My heart went so far as to say "Perfect." Then that little voice reminded me that no, it was definitely not perfect. For starters, I ate too much.

Then the beast inside of me sprang to life and my brain got thinking about babies. Ohhhhh those sweet, perfect little newborns that just sleep all day. Siiiiiiiigh - it was only two years ago at Christmas that I had one and in another four months we get to meet this next perfect little creation. I did it again (we humans are slow learners). Perfect. That gentle knock on my heart reminded me again that I was so wrong. Those little lives are born into sin- not just a world that's sinful, but they themselves are sinners. Nowhere near truly perfect.

"Jesus, thank you for your perfection.  For entering this dark and fallen world to be my Redeemer. For giving me the only gift that matters in the end. For loving my ugly, selfish heart in a way that I simply don't understand. Thank you for being truly my ONLY example of perfection this side of Heaven."

Merry Christmas readers! My wish for you is that you are celebrating The King today. It's so easy to make it about family, gifts, food, and whatever else comes along for us (not that they aren't good things), but the things of this world eventually disappoint. Perfection does not disappoint.

Just Like Mom's

Around my house, if something you make is deemed "just like Mom's", it's quite the compliment. Maybe at your house it's more of an insult? Kidding of course!

I've been on a quest to duplicate my mom's perfect cookies for years. Not once has that quest been successful, so I've taken a bit of a break...maybe forever. The thing with my mom, though, is that she doesn't keep recipes (this shouldn't really surprise you if you know her.) I've tried many times to encourage this to happen...I've taken a break from that, too. 

It seems minor, but I'll never forget when my little sister was over for dinner one night and tried my chicken noodle soup. "Hey- this is just like Mom's!" SUCCESS! There are lots of ways to make chicken noodle soup, but I've never tasted one I liked better than Mom's. Now it was mine, too.

Last week we had 16 people over to our house for dinner. A big pot of chili and a big pot of chicken noodle was on the menu for the evening. When people compliment the soup, I don't have to confess that it's my mom's recipe because technically it isn't. I thought about sharing it with you all, but that'd just be too easy. I do intend to share some other family favorites with you though.

Someday I hope that my kids will experience the joy and success of completing a recipe and recognizing it as being "just like Mom's"... and have that be a good thing, hopefully!

Lost Days

How would your life look different if there were do-overs? I think it's easy to say we wouldn't do anything differently if given the chance, but is that really true? Maybe in the big picture it's true, but I've been struggling with these thoughts a lot lately. The truth for me is that I would do quite a few things drastically different.

On my third week home with the kids (or maybe the fourth? Shoot - I don't even know what day it is today to be honest!) I came to a startling realization: I had missed the very best part of my kids for four years. Not that the best part of them was gone, but that in our busyness of life, we got the leftovers. We only saw them at the worst, orneriest, most tired moments... and let me tell you- that's not pretty!

It happened one day while Cam was playing with his trains and out of nowhere, stopped what he was doing just to run over and give me the biggest hug and kiss. And then go right back to trains. That was immediately followed by Claire making some sweet comment expressing that she loved me too and was glad we could play today. And those two things were immediately followed by the Niagara of all crying sessions.

Our kids aren't total monsters! They're actually awesome little humans! How much of this goodness had I missed while lecturing about how we were late, and there wasn't time for playing, and mom has a meeting tonight, and we have to get dinner ready so we can get to bed and do it all again. And again. And again. Man, I missed so many hugs, so many chances to kiss ouchies, so many opportunities to ask questions just to get funny answers.

Now I get to treasure it. I keep a mental list all day of things that J would like to know, things that would make him laugh if he were next to me. Because, I'll be honest, sometimes by 5:30 they've converted back to something very monster-like some days and I'm not sure he'll believe me.

Unplanned Gifts...

I'm not a perfectionist, but I am most definitely a planner! I try not to let that make me rigid and unflexible, but to not be prepared just makes my heart want to explode with anxiety. So you better believe that I had a plan for this stay at home thing we were going to try.

And then sometimes God steps in to remind us of that whole "His ways are not our ways" business and puts us in our place. Well, He did it again...

VERY shortly after submitting my resignation, our family was blessed with the gift of life! While I was knitting together another plan, He was knitting together a life inside of me. We chose a long time ago to trust God's timing with our children, so it wasn't a complete suprise...but it wasn't exactly MY plan. Once I got over my self-centered plan, though, BOY WAS I EXCITED (everyone else was right away)!

So, in a blessing that I can hardly put words to, on my very first day home with our children we got to all go meet our third incredible gift together! We're excited to have you meet this incredible treasure in April!