Be Beautiful in 2014

I'm still catching up on my posts, but in the meantime, I had to share this one. I feel like this is good read for anyone, but especially you ladies… be beautiful. I love this so, so much. I am SO beautiful, thanks to my darling kid, wildly amazing friends, and most loving momma. :)

"Tish and I were walking together on the beach last week. She stopped to look out at the water so I did, too. She put her hand in mine, looked up at me and said, “Mom, am I pretty?”

Luckily, I’d been thinking about that word for a couple of decades, so I was ready.

I sat Tish down in the sand, took a deep breath, and dove in.

“I think you’re pretty, Tish. I think you are very, very pretty. But pretty is a weak word, because it means different things to everyone. You really don’t have much control over whether folks think you’re pretty or not. Spending a lot of time asking the world if you’re pretty – it’s just not a strong position to take. You will have to keep changing yourself for everyone you meet, and eventually you won’t know who you are. I know because I used to think pretty was really important, so I felt confused and weak a lot.

What I want you to be, Tish, is beautiful. Beautiful means “full of beauty.” Beautiful is not about the appearance of your outsides- beautiful is about what you’re made of. Beautiful women are women who spend time discovering what they love – what sings to them –what their idea of beauty on this Earth is. Then they make time each day to fill themselves up with that beauty. They know themselves well enough to know what they love, and they love themselves enough to fill up with a little of their particular kind of beauty each day.

That’s why we’re here today, honey. I was feeling a little empty this afternoon and so I brought you here to the beach to fill myself back up with beauty. This place is beauty to me. So I come here to fill up with the Gulf of Mexico. With the sound of the waves rolling in and the sight of the pelicans fishing and the feel of the cool sand on my feet. When I leave here I feel really beautiful. And I brought you with me because you are beauty to me, too, Tish. When you smile at me – I am beautiful .

Many of the things you see me do each day, honey – I do them to be beautiful.

It’s why I take out to spend with good friends.

It’s why I read and look at art and always have that music I love playing in the house.

It’s why I light candles in every room.

It’s why I watch you climbing those Banyan trees in the front yard.

It’s why I roll around on the floor with Theo and Meadow and why I’m always smelling the top of your head.

It’s why I drag you to sunset and to church every week.

I’m just filling up with beauty- because I want to be beautiful.

Tish, you will meet plenty of people in your life who are pretty but haven’t yet taken the time to be beautiful. They will have the right look for the times- but they will not glow. Beautiful women glow. When you are with a beautiful woman you will not so much notice her hair or skin or body or clothes – because you’ll be distracted by the way she makes you feel. She will be so full of beauty that you will feel some spill onto you. You’ll feel warm and safe and curious around her. Her eyes will twinkle a little and she’ll look at you really closely, Tish- because beautiful, wise women know that the quickest way to fill up with beauty is to soak in another human being. Other people are beauty, beauty, beauty. So you will notice that the most beautiful women take their time with other people. They are just filling up.

Women who are concerned with being pretty think about what they look like, but women who are concerned with being beautiful think about what they are looking at. They are taking it all in. They are taking in the whole beautiful world and making all that beauty theirs to give away to others.

Does that make any sense, baby?”

And Tish said, “I think so. It’s like, when you first wake up, mom. You look really,really bad. Your hair is messy and your face looks weird. But when you see me, your eyes get twinkly. Is that because you think I’m beauty?”

“Yes, baby. I’m filling up with you. Because I want to be beautiful.”"

-Glennon Melton

- See more at: http://momastery.com/blog/2013/12/31/6676/#sthash.4sx8s8aM.dpuf

McWane That Thang

There is something so fun about surprising your kid. I think it's fun to surprise anyone really. I love to be surprised! More on that during my bday post! 

The Friday before Thanksgiving, I surprised Lu and checked her out of school early to go spend the afternoon at the McWane Science Center. You all know I love finding cool places to play here, but for 5 years and counting now, nothing beats the McWane Center. It doesn't matter if your a little kid or 30 year old kid, this place is a full out blast. I was expecting a crowd, but there was hardly anyone there so we got to take our sweet ole time at every station. It was relaxing, fun, full of giggles, and just a great way to spend some QT with my favorite person on earth. 

Laying on the bed of nails.

Dancing in front of the color screen

More dancing. So cool, right?!

Optical illusion of a tiny kid in a big room. If you run to the other side of the room you look like a huge person in a tiny room. This is totally amazing and only got 1,000,000 squeals from London as we played Giant Mommy/Tiny Mommy and Giant Lu/Tiny Lu. So much fun!

Finding Nemo. 

Catching simulated pebbles in her shadow. This blows my mind. It reads your shadow and the visuals either stack on top or manuver around your shadow. HOW DOES IT KNOW?!?!

A centrifuge of sprinkles. Also known as the best thing on earth to my 3 year old girl. 

The hurricane wind simulator. You can see the miles per hour of the wind speed ticking up behind her to about 79 mph then it starts to come back down. 

Such a sweet day with my little lady. Both of us learning and exploring together. My heaven on earth. 

November Everydays and Londonisms

On to a MUCH less serious post! Londonisms!! One of my favs! I hope yall don't think this is annoying, but she's so funny to me and I want to have a place to remember all her quirky conversations! Since the good ole family blog doubles as my diary..... here goes!

I spent the morning doing laundry and London handed me a stack of sports bras. She said, 

'Mom, here are your ninnie nets'. 

I laughed for 2 solid weeks over this one.  

She helped me unpack the car recently and this was our conversation afterwards: 

Lu: 'Wasn't that sweet of me? It's called making love.' 

Me: 'It is?? Who told you that?'

Lu: 'My teachers. Mom and Dad's love it when we make love.' 

...........

When she asks someone to spell their name, she says it like this: 'Mom, how do you spell yourself?' She asked Chuckles to 'spell yourself' on Christmas eve! :) 

This is past due but I forgot about it. We bought two mini pumpkins around Halloween. A white one and an orange one. She decided they would be our pets and she named them Funkis and Punkis. 

I was forcing her to eat her dinner one night after she had lost interest and she said, 'Mom, you are such a killjoy.' Hahaha! She used it in the right context and everything! WELL DONE, CHILD!

London: 'Did you know that a caterpillar goes into his raccoon so he can be a butterfly?'

She thinks boy Grandaddy long leg spiders are called 'Andaddy Long Legs' and the ones she deems girls are 'Booper Daddy Long Legs'.

On the way to school one day: 'I dreamed about the day that Mary had a little lamb. I was in it. I was Mary and Knox was little lamb." (poor kid!)

Another car convo: 'I'm going to pray to God about these clouds. Dear God, thank you for the orange clouds and thank you for being my best friend all day long.' She also told me the other day that Jesus was her boyfriend. YESSSSSSSS! :)

We have plowed straight into the questions stage. Some days I just need a break from fielding all of the thousands of questions that come flying at me so I'll ask her to tell me a fairy tale. Every single one starts like this: Once upon a time there was a princess named Taylor Mommy. :)

Last one. The other day like a total SILLY HEAD, I decided to take a bath instead of a shower. I put a movie on for London, then took my devotional with me to the bath. The devotional is all of about 4 pages long so it should've only taken a minute to get through. I got settled in and immediately I hear pitter patter footsteps and..... 

'Mommy. you are in the bath. I'm just going to put my foot in.' 

'No, baby. Mommy needs just a minute, okay?' 

'Okay.' and she leaves... then comes back..

'Momma, are you reading a book?'

'Yes baby. You can stay in here but I'm going to finish reading my book, okay?'

'Okay.' The she went to her stool, sat down, and started singing as loud as she could 'lalalalallalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaa.'

'Baby. Go watch your movie.' London exits then enters 30 seconds later.

'Mom. Im just going to look at your face.' 

And of course that ended with her in the bath, me in the shower, and the devotional put off for a later time. Silly me. 

But then there are Saturday mornings like this where my heart swells and grows to have even more room to love every ounce of her...

'I want to come get in bed with you so we can watch a movie and kiss a lot.' 

We put up the Christmas tree 2 or 3 weeks before Thanksgiving because I could not handle all of the Christmas excitement any longer. Some little joker was super on board with that idea! :) We had so much fun decorating it together. Our house was in GOOBER OVERLOAD. 

I literally brought my pillow in the room and just laid on the floor admiring the tree and listening to Christmas music for a good hour. Christmas trees are good for the soul.  

London was invited to a princess tea party birthday party. The cute hostess flipped paper bowls inside out and the kids got to hot glue fake flowers to the tops to make proper hats for the tea party! It was so adorable!

My favorite picture I've taken recently. I blew this up and hung it in my kitchen and I'm in love with it! 

School drop off. This was surely one of the mornings with hilarious conversations because I spent the whole day missing the ever-living-stew out of her. Gah lee, i love this kid. 

At Thanksgiving, Dad informed me that I would be coming back home the following weekend because he had signed me up for a hand gun training class. So, off we went, back to C-town. This was a 4 hour Friday night classroom course then early Saturday morning at the gun range. I didn't realize it at the time, but about 30 minutes into the class, I remembered that Dad had already gone through this whole class. So, he got off work, met me at the meeting, then sat through a 4 hour lecture just to be with me. Dad might scoff at me bragging on how amazing he is, because his awesomeness manifests itself in unusual ways at times, but I felt so loved by my Daddy this weekend. He sat in an awful medal chair by me for 4 hours just to be present. Then made the grandest deal over my shooting the next morning. The class was a blast, I left with a very healthy fear of guns, felt much safer about protecting my family if ever needed, and was overflowing with the fun, valuable ways my Dad loves on us. He's such a great Daddy. 

Take THAT busters. (Related, i went back and looked at moms shooting when she went through the class and we shot almost identical boards! We both pull to the left a tad!)

This is London practicing the Hallelujah chorus for her school Christmas program and it's one of my favorite things that I've ever heard. Halle-youlah. Priceless. 

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Oak Mountain with Hannah Banana

This post is going to be long and you're just going to have to deal with it. So there.

A few months ago, I asked what it was about sunsets that was so moving. I asked if the emotional response was a natural change that happens as you move into old age....where i find my old bones these days! :)

Well, lo and behold, the amazing bible study that I'm in right now (Beth Moore's Beloved Disciple study) addressed this exact topic in one of my homework days this week and she NAILED IT. So, I hope Beth is okay with it, but I'm about to share my favorite thoughts from this day's reading. Hang with me. This thought has snatched me up from the wonder of it all.

The verse of the day was:
"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." John 14:21

Bar none, the words I pray most often are 'God, show yourself to me. Reveal yourself.'

From the homework: 'Show myself." The original word, emphanizo, means to let oneself be intimately known and understood. So, Christ promises to reveal himself to us when we obey his commands, but as we studied the scriptures on what this meant, the 'revealing' often times was displayed through nature. Paraphrased: Psalm 19: 1- the heavens and skies declare his glory. Acts 14:17- He did not leave without leaving His testimony- He showed us His kindness by giving us rain and crops and food and He fills our hearts with joy. Romans 1:20- since creation, God's invisible qualities have been clearly seen... visible to the eye.

Sometimes, Beth says, our soul craves a display of His glory. 
YES.
We crave to be overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. Don't we? Don't we find ourselves in the middle of a sunset, or on a fall hike through the woods, or on the beach at daybreak and we just think,
'I can't speak. This is holy. My soul is overwhelmed. My eyes FEAST on His glory."

GOD'S REVELATION. Amen and Amen. I am ravenous for it in the moment.

Beth again: "I believe John 14:21 implies that the more we obey and love God, the more vividly we may see, experience, and enjoy demonstrations of His love.... We are often unable to recognize the demonstration until we obey the wooing of the Spirit in repentance and sprout the firstfruits of love. Like you, I have always been loved by God, but I have been more aware of the demonstrations of His love (what we might call favor) when I've been loving and obedient.... The eyes of the Spirit within us see these manifestations or ways He makes Himself known and understood. Christ perpetually surrounds us with means through which He can show us His worth, His providence, and His presence. Don't miss it!"

I am overwhelmed by this. Glory revealed. Invisible God making Himself visible. A gift to His beloved. There is a reason there are no words. This pure display of who He is leaves us speechless, right? And insatiable for more of it. For heavens sake- make me mute if it means my eyes can look on His glory. O-ver-whlemed by Him today.

A bit over a month ago, we met Hannah Banana for a hike at Oak Mountain. Let your eyes feast...

"Its all a matter of keeping my eyes open. Beauty and grace are preformed whether or not we sense them. The least we can do is try to be there so that creation need not play to an empty house."

-Annie Dillard

"We must not go to nature to construct theology. She will fail us every time. Rather we go to nature once we have our theology and let her fill the words awe, glory, beauty, terror with meaning."

-C.S. Lewis

I'm so very thankful for Hannah. Hannah's faith speaks loud and clear. Not by her preaching Jesus, but by the way she lives in JOY and the way she is ALL IN and not afraid of anything. She is rooted, grounded in her Savior and she takes that God-produced overflow of Joy into the world and she LIVES. 

Hannah is one of God's many visible manifestations in my life. His grace and goodness with skin on. She has taught me to LIVE BIG and not take one minute for granted. All is Grace. Let's open our eyes and not miss any of it. 

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A Party of Thanks

Lordy. I have so many words to put into this post, but these jokers keep getting longer and longer so I'm trying to decide how to give you a brief summary of this day but allow you to leave the blog like I left the party… both feet still on the dance floor whilst being pulled into the car! :)

The Overstreet's were Mom and Dad's college best friends. Both Dad and Raymond's medical practices ended up in Columbus so their friendship continued. Mom and Karen both spit out babies around the same time, so Barry and I were naturally best friends with the Overstreet kids. Their extended family was our extended family. You get the idea. 

When the Overstreet's throw a party, they throw it well. They are always over the top- not in a fancy way, but in a more fun than you possibly could've imagined kind of way! They decided to have a 'Hatfield and McCoy's' themed Thanksgiving party. When I say over the top, I mean that there were horse draw carriage rides, hay rides, baby goats, hay bailers, horse back riding, shooting contest, hymn singing, bluegrass band and dancing. This party was LEGIT. 

Everyone was instructed to dress in 1890's garb, which mostly meant we all put on the most tan, drab thing we could find! I got to the party, and there stood Blair, my best friend, in bright red lipstick, corset, and fire red dress. She was a burlesque beauty for sore eyes and everything about her get up made me happy! That's Blair, being the red hot smokin' standout that she's always been! I loved it! 

I'm pretty sure London and the twins thought this was the best thing that had ever happened to them. They were all in for the hay rides and baby goats!

I don't want to make you jealous, but I got to hang out with Charley Rhea all night long. It was nothing short of awesome. 

Good gravy, these people. Also, notice London's socks. I have a weird thing about socks. I don't like white socks. What fun is that?! Neither Lu nor I own 1 single pair of white socks. The mildest flavor we had was neon green! I know that sounds really immature and silly for me to have an aversion to white toe toppers, but I kind of love it! A little hint of SPUNKY for my baby girl! I don't think they sported neon green socks in the 1890's tho….

So much fun!

The girls were on a hay ride but Caden and Charley were close by for the baby goat's dinner time so they got to feed them! These little dudes eat like they've never tasted food before! It took all of 25 seconds for them to suck down their bottles! They were loud and not at all polite about it! :) I was shocked over the intensity of their grubbing! Yowza!

Karen Overstreet and Sally. Isn't this a cute picture? Such fun, fun ladies!  Both of them are a total blast! Karen is the most exciting person you've ever been around and she tells big hand motion stories that are so dramatic and fabulous! :) I wish you all knew them both!

Look at these two grumpers. I guarantee they are both having a blast, you just can't tell from the look on their faces! :)

I spy a Christmas card in the making! 

The lovely, wonderful, delightful Overstreets! 

Thank you, Raymond and KO, for hosting a fabulous party! I missed photos of all the night time festivities due to a dying phone battery, but trust me, there was much square dancing, belly laughs, and moments caught still, thinking 'never, ever forget this happy." I left with a heart full of gratitude for friends we've loved for forever, for watching this little clan of ours grow and grow with beautiful children, and for family to share every second of our lives with! We are immeasurably blessed!