Guest Posting : 'Snapshots'

I may be in a slight blogging drought, but when asked to 'guest post' for someone I deeply enjoy and respect, who inspires me and challenges me and makes me wish I could spend long hours over coffee with?

Well... how can you say no?

So here's my latest via the amazing Anjuli...thanks for inviting me to be a part of your 'Week of Snapshots' friend :)

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My snapshot is from months ago, but it's one I hope I'm lucky enough to remember when I'm old and wrinkled and gray. Even as it was happening, I knew it was nuzzling itself into my bank of favorite memories, the ones I store away and plan to treasure for years and years to come. It was one of those.

It was early morning. Probably around 6:30am. The house was quiet, Ryan and I still asleep; when suddenly from the living room, Matchbox 20 'Rainmaker' comes blasting through the silence. Ryan and I sit straight up in bed and look at eachother, he races to the door while I wait for the pounding in my chest to slow. He opens the door and freezes, and the he turns around as his faces cracks to a wide grin and he motions me to join him in our doorway. There in the living room, my 5 and 3 year old are dressed in a ballet tutu and superman costume. They are rocking out to an old CD mix I'd made in Highschool; it's playing on my daughter's Hello Kitty CD player.

With hands over our mouths, our eyes danced with laughter while we watched. We only witnessed a few moments of their secret world, the tiny window of time when they didn't know we were watching, but it was magical. They were each other's silly sidekicks, there was the safety and freedom of sibling friendship in that room, and they were enjoying it to the fullest. And so were we.

Once they saw us, our little performers bee-lined for our room and the four of us hopped in bed. By this time I could hear Cooper starting to stir so I quickly went into the twins room and scooped him up and out of there before he woke up Jude. The five of us corralled in my bed, the kids crawling all over each other, two of them in costume, one in footy pjs. (Jude continued to sleep soundly as evidenced by the still row of lights on my trusty monitor). And Ryan and I lay next to each other soaking it all in, sleep still crusted in our eyes, alternating between yawns and giggles while the activity swirled around us.

This is my snapshot morning. It doesn't always go like this; most often it's too rushed to even remember through the haze of cheerios and sippy cups, missing shoes and running late for school. But this particular morning was preciously perfect, right down to my sweet Jude who slept all the way through it (he was definitely the champion sleeper of the two in those early months). I won't always be tired, I won't always remember what it's like to not need an alarm clock because you know for certain your children won't ever let you sleep past 7. I won't always have those crazy mornings of racing around in exhausted delirium dealing with tears and tangles and itchy clothing. But I also won't always have mornings with costume clad dance parties, proud big sisters holding baby brothers and silly 3 year old boys making me laugh til my sides hurt. My kids won't always fit in my bed, and Ryan and I won't always have constant and endless entertainment at our fingertips, someday, it'll just be us again.

So I took a snapshot this particular morning, and I hope I can still see it clearly in my mind, even when my eyes go a bit blurry.

(fuzzy iphone pics, no way was I missing the moment by getting out of bed to get a real camera)

Haley, Clint and Sweet Baby Hudson

It's time.

Actually it's long past time. But finding the time to write my heart for this sweet little boy and his precious parents, has been much much harder than you would think. Maybe it's because my heart is wrapped up in it and I want to find the right words. Maybe it's because when I think of what I want to say my mind goes to mush, my emotions take over and all I can get out is a deep sigh from the pit of my stomach and the muffled words, 'just pray.'

My precious nephew was born on December 9th. I haven't told you about him, but his mama and daddy are Haley and Clint, my brother and sister we own Bellybou' with. Hudson has Spina Bifida, he's still in the NICU and we are all waiting anxiously, prayerfully for news from doctors every day and most importantly, for his homecoming date!!

I have struggled with an aching desire to be there for them in this time, while my responsabilities, both at home and at Bellybou', keep me away. But I'm praying and thinking of them all the time, wishing I could do more. I know the way God has made me, and while I wish acts of service were higher in my love language talents (and that logistics allowed me more opportunity to practice it), I do know God has also created me to show my love through words of affirmation. So Clint and Haley, it will be brief because time is not my greatest luxury right now, but please know, I love you, and my heart is right there with you. Hang in there, cling to Him and trust. You are doing amazingly and I am so proud of you.

To the rest of you, meet a tiny bit of Clint and Haley...

I have meant to tell you about Haley in a post about my awesome Bellybou' partners that I have intended to write about since we opened. She is strong. She is smart. More than smart, she is wise and even tempered and measured and thoughtful. She is an amazing business partner and friend and she is already an increduble mother. She has a patience and 'unruffled-ness' that baffles me. She and Clint dated since they were 15!! And they both graduated college before they finally got married. Persevereance, determination, incredible will, commitment and endurance. These were traits this family started out with, before they even brought baby Hudson into it. You can see the Lord's hand any which way you turn. He is most definitely at work in their little family. And Clint, well he's already the world's coolest dad. He's had alot of practice as a super uncle and the Lord has prepared him well to be a husband and father full of wisdom, patience, compassion and strength. He also has a vitality and love for life that is inspiring, an excitement that is contagious. He was made with a passion that can never and will never be squelched. He is a hard worker and a fierce protector. His son is in the most incredibly perfect place, resting comfortably between these two. God is so good.

I tell you all of this because I am watching them be shaped and stretched and formed right now. Before my eyes the Lord is molding them and writing a big part of their family's story. He's unfolding a piece of thier lives they didn't previously know He had planned for them and they are opening their arms and embracing what He will do through them because of it. I am so proud of them. I am so moved by their full of faith response, by their deep dependence on the Lord, by their leaning in and bearing down to one another and to their father in Heaven.

I may have been their age when I had my first child, but I had a tenth of their maturity and wisdom if that. And so I want them, and the world to know. That they are doing well. God is sustaining them. And He will continue to. Please pray.

I love you guys.

So I wanted to tell you...

Maybe it's for the sake of venting... although I'm really not intending to be sassy and rant uncontrollably.

Maybe it's because I really think people out there must not understand... and therefore maybe I can actually help enlighten.

Maybe it's a little of both. But for whatever reason.. I just wanted to tell you...

1) If you're in a little store that is obviously one of a kind and not owned by a huge corporate chain, you probably shouldn't comment how you 'think you'll wait and see if you can get an item cheaper at one of the big chains before you decide to purchase it'.

2) If you're talking to the owner of a retail store, they probably don't want to hear you go on and on about how sad you are that their competition just went out of business.

3) If you're talking to the owner of a retail store, they probably don't want to hear you go on and on about the existing competition that you think is just peachy.

4) If you're in a small boutique, and you continue to comment how you love it, and you think it's soooo cute, and you really really hope they hang in there through this 'rough economic time' and then you walk out without buying anything, you may have given a few warm fuzzies to the owner, but you really shouldn't complain if they do go out of business.

5) If you want to know if there are any other stores like the store you're shopping in, that aren't the store you're shopping in, don't ask the store you're shopping in.

6) You may think you are helping when you tell a boutique owner that it's a shame they don't carry a certain item or you'd buy it right then. But you are not. You are actually being pretty mean and making that owner feel discouraged and frustrated. Because though you may SAY that you would buy it, there is a good chance if it were sitting right in front of you...you'd change your mind and NOT buy it, you would think of something else that's NOT in front of you and tell the owner that THAT'S what you really wanted and it's too bad they don't carry it. But she's not gonna tell you that, she's just gonna bite her lip and apologize, and she will feel frustrated!

7) And even if you really would buy whatever you were talking about in #6, there is no way you could possibly know if you are the only one in the whole wide world who would, and store's don't carry just one of things, for the one person who wants them; they have to buy LOTS of them and then they get stuck with them because YOU were the ONLY one who wanted them. SO please, just stop shaking your head at the poor store owner, and close your mouth.

8) If you want your local small businesses to survive this economy, shop there yourself and tell your friends, tell your friends, tell your friends.

Um...that's it. Thanks for playing and have a nice day :)

Dream Weekend

A couple weeks over-due but I'm finally getting my pics up from the amazing weekend I had away with precious friends to celebrate my birthday. Ryan coordinated with some of my college girlfriends whose wonderful husbands agreed to let them get-away for the weekend and he got us a hotel in San Francisco. He then brought in my local (what what!) girlfriends to kick off the weekend right by spending all day Friday with me as well. It was incredible to get to have so many faces I love all in one place, talking and laughing, being silly and serious, with no interruptions, no time restraints, and very little agenda besides soaking it all in. I am finding it hard to really write any more about how wonderful the weekend was without just spewing a bunch of ooey gooey words all over you, so to spare you..I'll just inundate you with pictures.

Here you are: My birthday weekend, in snapshot form.

Starting the wknd off right.

Mikala

Ellie

Colleen

College Friends

Roseville Friends (little double dose of Car - I looove it when friends cross through multiple phases of life with me!)

Colleen &Kaitlyn

Oh yes, did I mention Ghirardelli was probably the one non-negotiable agenda item I DID demand :)

The Group

More shopping.

Erica

The price of our fancy Saturday night bday dinner. We know how to celebrate for sure!

No seriously you think I'm kidding but we went to see an improv show and there wasn't a restaurant in sight when we got down there...Safeway it was.
Yum.


A little pampering for sure.

Pedicures

More shopping.

CUPCAKES!

Oh delicious cupcakes. I can still taste mine.



Maybe too much sugar for us? Or just too much fun.



Yes, this was my strawberry cheescake cupcake, with real cheescake in the middle and graham cracker crust.

I may just drive all the way back to SF for another one.

Oh wonderful friends. Thank you for such a perfect weekend. It was unreal. Love you.

The Obligatory "Reflections on Turning 30" Post

So I'm pretty sure if you're the type of person I am, and you handle and process and live life the way I do. It's kind of impossible to NOT have alot of introspective thoughts and reflections as you come up upon your birthdays. But especially when you approach a new decade; it's almost a rite of passage into the next decade to pause and reflect on all that has taken place in the chunk of time you are now leaving behind.

Well, I've lived three decades now, moving on to the fourth (Hoooly cow, that just felt a little too much like I was saying I was 40..yikes!). And I just felt like I couldn't begin to digest that notion without taking a second to blog about the journey each decade has taken me on so far and who I am because of it. Starting all the way at the beginning...

"0"

1980-1990: I don't remember much between the ages of 0 & 10. I was born. A pretty big day if you ask me. I learned to walk and eat and talk. I learned to read and write and play and make friends. I developed fundamental skills like potty training and complicatedly obscure things like personality. I played soccer and softball, I did swimming, gymnastics, dancing and theatre. I took singing lessons and was awful at them. I entered speech contests and drawing contests and writing contests; I won some of them. I tested the waters of the social world with first sleepovers and best friends and itty bitty crushes. In 3rd grade I made my first traveling softball team, in fourth grade I wrote a book called 'Life on the Streets of New York' (an incredibly sad and twisted tale that somehow came from the innocent minds of me and my best friend Kelly), in fifth grade I played a lead role in the Christmas Musical Wise Guys and Starry Skies and by the time I was 10 I was pretty convinced being '2 digits' was the coolest thing ever.

"10"

1990-2000: I remember ALOT between the ages of 10 & 20. So much life change, it seems impossible that it all occurred within one tiny decade. I moved from private school to the world of public junior high and high school. I learned what words like insecurity meant and I dabbled in my first social dramas of hurt feelings and passing notes and crying over boys. I also learned what it meant to really care about people. I prayed earnestly for my friends and I took leadership roles in my youth group. I took ownership in my relationship with God and tried my tiny tweener best to follow Him. I made a decision to switch high schools after my freshmen year and I never looked back. I continued to play softball and dance and do theatre. I experienced the feeling of belonging, and I learned a new word called confidence. I had my first brush with love and I made deep friendships, ones that have lasted through multiple decades now. I also hurt people I really wish I hadn't. I graduated high school. I left the safety of my parents' home for college where I experienced independence and loneliness and many many tears. It was here I learned the words rebel and regret, and here that I experienced true repentance for the first time. Just a couple years shy of two decades into this thing called life, I started living, in a way that was no longer about me. I learned about vulnerability, and sacrifice and I was given the gift of friendships that formed more of who I am today than anything in my life had thus far. Yes alot happened between 10 & 20. In one tiny decade I was both a 5th grader and a junior in college. I had my very first kiss and met the man that I'd end up kissing forever. I spent summers playing softball and flirting with boys on beaches; I spent summers at desk jobs in offices and serving university students in Australia. And on the night I turned 20, as I opened a gift (of buttered popcorn flavored jellybellies and a guitar tuner) from my brand new boyfriend named Ryan, I felt fairly confident that my "20-something's" were gonna be pretty sweet .

"20"

2000-2010:

It's funny. This last decade changed up all the rules on me. While I can clearly identify the difference between a 0 and 10 yr old and I know I felt much much older at 20 than I did in the 5th grade. Between 20 and 30 I'm tempted to believe I've hardly changed at all. My life circumstances, however, tell me differently. Infact they SHOUT (and cry and whine and temper-tantrum) all the differences at me every single day of my 30 year old life. :) And I can not for one moment deny that quite possibly this last decade has presented the MOST life change for me thus far, inside and out.

Like I said, I started this last decade out with a brand new boyfriend named Ryan. A worship leader with spikey black hair and hoop earrings. I spent the first year of my 20's falling in love with him and I was three days shy of 21 when he proposed. In the next 9 years I graduated college, I planned a wedding, I got married and I lived with a boy. In a tiny blue house in Pasadena. I went to auditions all over Hollywood and saw a world that could rip every ounce of confidence from even the most secure of girls. I led high schooler's and poured my heart into theirs, I slept in a hut in Fiji. I moved from LA to Bakersfield where I learned the roles 'Pastor's Wife' and 'Stay at Home Mom'. Two very foreign things that have now (in Roseville) seemed to nestle themselves comfortably into my very core, though I still wrestle with their implications almost daily. I dabbled in ridiculously distracting things like network marketing which taught me clearly what I desired to strive for in my life. I opened my own business and developed sides of myself that I never knew I had, out of a pure heart I produced something I am proud of, and God has used it to teach me many words including patience, grace, wisdom, perseverance and costliness. I learned even more so what I desire to strive for in this life. In one decade I went from thinking I may not have any babies, to having four. I changed a gazzilion diapers (and counting), I caught throw up in my hands, I scrubbed too many toilets to count. Shopped for groceries and hired babysitters, kept track of homework and saved art projects. I have watched the depths of my heart push down deeper with each child born, creating a larger capacity for love and sheer joy and I've felt the paralyzing responsibility of knowing I must teach and train them into adulthood. In one sense I have spent this last decade shaving off pieces of my independence, one chunk at a time. I have spent it unraveling myself into the things I now love more than my own agenda, more than my own wants and desires. I have learned the words sacrifice, pride and humility; I have said the words 'I'm sorry' many times over. I have learned that this is a hard pill to swallow and I have learned deeply the truth that marriage takes work. But that the work brings fulfillment and a change in me that is rewarding and solid and wonderful. I have had so much fun in my 20's, so much of me has grown up.. in my 20's. And sitting here at the end of my 29th year, (I started this before the big b-day) I feel calm and confident. I am convinced that my "30's" will only get better.

"30"


And just for fun...a few more pics from my trip down memory lane...

I may have slightly resembled Miss Piggy in my toddler days...

Me and little bro.

Baseball is serious stuff in our family folks.

Kindergarten

Oh, the Christmas sweaters...how did my mom manage to get us to all sit still?? And for a TIMER at that! Sheesh, I am failing miserably.

One of many 'Daddy Dates'

8th Grade Graduation

High School Graduation

Ryan popping the question in front of 500 college students.

And for comparison sake...The night we got engaged.
and...nine years later...


I had an amazing birthday btw. But more on that later... I'm too old to stay up past midnight anymore :)

Last Halloween Post I promise.

We always try to Trick or Treat in our own neighborhood because it's just such a rare thing that to have all our neighbors and kids out and about on the same night, we always end up meeting new people and chatting with neighbors we haven't caught up with in a long time. This year was particularly fun cuz Macy got to run into alot of her new Kindergarten friends on different streets!

Macy and Carter were trick-or-treating pros this year! It was so fun to see them enjoying running around together. They were such a team too, taking turns knocking on the doors and deciding which houses to go to next. They are really becoming such good friends. And they had the script down perfectly too, "Trick or treat! Thank you very much, Happy Halloween, have a good night!"
Every. Single. House. :)

Ryan followed dutifully behind with the wagon containing Darth and Yoda.
I realized as we were walking outside that I had completely forgotten to get the pumpkin buckets down from the attic this year. We have like 6 of them, and they are so bulky that this summer I finally got fed up with them and stored them in the attic thinking, no big deal, Ill get them down for Halloween, it's not for like 4 more months....welll, like I said, totally blanked until it was too late. So we went the old school route of pillow cases. This is what I used every year growing up anyway, but the kids took some convincing. It could have been disastrous, but they pulled it together and actually ended thinking it was pretty cool. Whew, crisis averted.
Cousin Jordan joined us this year which was fun! She did not however love being in the wagon with the boys... but we got her in there long enough for a quick pic.
Yes, you saw that right. I allowed my 2 baby boys, at 14 months old, to have tootsie pops while we were out. I originally gave them to them with the wrappers on thinking they'd just play with them...um... have I not already had two children? I don't know what I was thinking, I guess I was distracted. And then it was kind of too late, and they were so enthralled with them anyway, I figured, eh, what the heck? It's Halloween! Oh the things that have changed since my fist baby!
Who could resist these faces. Whats a little sugar gonna hurt :)
Jude giving Jordan's pink pumpkin a try.
And finally, here is my sad excuse for an attempt at one picture including all four of my children. I thought I would document the play by play for you so you can see for yourselves why there are rarely if ever, pictures of our whole family at once. This is literally Ryan clicking away one after another in hopes of getting something sufficient enough to allow him to be done with his photography duties for the night. It never really happened. But I finally conceded. Can someone tell me at what age your children (eh hem, boys..) finally actually DO "Stand there and smile." I am reeeallly looking forward to it.








This last ones the best you're gonna get. You can see 6 out of 8 eyes and all faces are atleast facing forward. Oh well. This is life as it really is. I'll take it.