the dirty house

Today I worked.

I came home. The house was a wreck. Cardboard play houses were erected in the middle of my living room.
Shoes were everywhere.
Clothes, socks and jackets were strewn across chairs and stair cases.
The cushions of one of my couches were all out and the pillows were thrown on the floor.
Books were messy.
Food was on the table.
The kitchen sink was a disaster.
My room and the upstairs hallway was hit by a tornado.
my toddler hadn't taken a nap yet and it was 3 something in the afternoon (way past nap time)

Stressed out and frazzled I was to say the least. I gulped down a Starbucks and started to get going.
But it was negetive energy I was putting out ...... and I didn't realize it until Seth, my sweet sweet Seth stopped me in the kitchen and asked why I was so upset.
He said "Mom why are you so upset and stressed?"
I replied "I just have a lot to do"

and he put his hand on my shoulder and said .... GET READY FOR IT....
"LETS PRAY ABOUT IT".

(which I'm in tears about even now)

Then Shane gets my other hand and they both lead me to our dining room table.
They both pull out chairs and put them in a mini circle and then we all took each others hands and prayed.

God used my dirty house to shut me up, slow me down and appreciate where He has put me, the kids I have been blessed with, and show me how my kids turn to Him when they are in a tough situation.

OVERCOME WITH EMOTION.
just overcome.

My kids taught me today. they gave me goosebumps, made the hair on my legs grow and made me cry like a baby.

God is working people.. even our dirty houses... He's working!

Love coma

Christmas here at home.
The last few days has embodied love .... the way God designed it.

Love is meeting at the park with other Moms, that are good friends, good company, and is a good feeling. Its eating dinner at a friends house while your kids play together and watching another woman's testimony on how God worked in her life.

Love is seeing my 7 year old daughter raise her hands in church as an act of praise and worship to her Heavenly Father... and watching her dance to praise music and clap and cheer complete strangers on to get baptized.
Love is watching your sons get tears in their eyes because God is working and are moved by other peoples outward expression to love and honor Christ.

I saw people come to Christ right before my very eyes.
Love is sitting in church with my Grandma and loving on her during this awesome holiday season when it's hard for her because she is missing her daughter and Mom that have passed on.
Love is making cookies for Santa.
Love is eating more candy and sweets than we should have, watching the Polar Express, Miracle on 34th St., and It's a Wonderful Life more than a 1/2 dozen times.
Love is drinking my morning coffee and sitting and talking with my Grandma.
Love came from making my first ornaments, skirts, and aprons and giving them to the people I love the most.
Love is wrapping presents until 2am, getting cranky & snippy with my Danny and feeling his overwhelming love anyways.
Love is singing Christmas carols in the car, in the kitchen, in the shower, and swooning to a Michael Buble Christmas album that I knew my brother, sister, and Mom were swooning to too.
Love is getting kidnapped for a late night Starbucks run and never having more fun in getting coffee.

Love is seeing the most amazing Christmas show, dancers, lazer shower, the Green Man group (something like the Blue Man group) preform.
Love is swatting glow in the dark bouncy balls with your church family.
Love is attending a Christmas eve service that brings me to tears (again!).
Love is seeing kids dress up as the Nativity Scene.
Love is in Danny's baking GINORMOUS cookies that oozed chocolate and love in every bite.
Love is holding my sweet baby niece and thinking how I can just squeeze the snot outta her and then find a way to hang her on my Christmas tree.
Love is an heirloom that comes in the form of a heart-key necklace with my initials inscribed... love is giving it to my daughter and then my granddaughter and my great grand daughter... love is telling that story of when my sister gave it to me and the love it symbolized on Christmas.
Love is watching my Grandma cry over a photo in a frame of her and her new great grandbaby.
Love is watching my sister see how much it meant to our Grandma.
Love is excitement of a roll of mentos.
It's the comfort of slippers and its the comfort of just being us.
Love is my family.

I slipped into a total LOVE coma that came through the phone in wishing long distance family "Merry Christmas".. wishing with all my heart I could just reach through the phone and grab them and love them to pieces..
Love is just being able to feel the power and presence of God at Christmas dinner with my family.
Love is the food made with love, the conversation, the laughing,
Love is just being all together in the same room together
Love was and is unforgettably beautiful.

God is so utterly amazing ... so amazing that he makes me a big blubber McBlubber face. The greatest gift God gave was His Son... and the birth of that sweet baby that lay in a manger and made it possible for me to and my family to experience this HUGE love and all the blessings of just being together.

We say "just being together is enough" or "as long as we are with the ones we love, that's what Christmas is about"..... and it is. Whether family is far away, passed on or live down the street... family is my gift. God is the ultimate gift giver... and He never gets it wrong.

God is Love.

Happy Anniversary to my Danny

I remember when I married you.

I wasn't scared. I didn't think twice about it. I didn't second guess it. I didn't feel nervous.

there was never any question walking down that tiny aisle, on that carpet runner, overlooking the harbor, smelling the fish, on the second story of that small white wooden church.

I remember loving you more than anything in the world.
I remember our world falling apart, coming back together, ripping at the seams, crying babies drowning out the sound of anything else in our world...
I remember our world crumbling, being pasted back together, and then pieces missing in our world. I remember God re-molding and reshaping our world... through all of the phases, next levels, and lessons through our own little ever changing world.. and being the big cry baby I am, sitting here thinking and typing about how our world has transformed....

I still love you more than anything else in this world.

I love you baby. Happy Anniversary.

Love is..

I never imagined my life the way it is now

and I never imagined myself as grateful as I am now. today. in my life.. I could have never imagined.

I dont know if there are any words to make anyone understand the love in my heart.

A strong, infinite love that feels more powerful than anything I've ever experienced...
I'm sitting here and crying over how grateful I am. how thankful.and how I can't even articulate the words to convey how awesome God is and how, grit your teeth, clench your fist, cant get the words out, beautiful He makes things.

Knowing my babies, big and small, are warm in their beds, waiting to wake up and give love. knowing my family is growing, healthy. knowing the relationships I have are God centered and are built on the rock, and not sinking sand.
God's timing, His plan, His provision... everything that I can't get out because I can't type and wipe my face at the same time. ....
the love in my heart feels so big.

I came across this song and I felt like I wrote the lyrics to this song. No song lyrics has ever fit me so well.

Christmas has never meant so much, winter has never felt so warm.

LOVE has never felt so big, poured down my face so quickly, or tasted so salty.

the birthday gift of LOVE. Happy Birthday Scotty.

3 years ago I got to hold a brand new baby boy that couldn't wait to be born. I had planned for him to have a different first name, a different middle name and I had planned to have an epidural. ...God had a different plan.
My super screamer, train adoring, cupcake lovin', Toy Story watchin', biggest heart in the whole world 3 year old takes over MY world every morning with little arms wrapped tightly around my neck and with a hundred thousand million kisses.... which makes my world pretty sweet to live in.

Scotty's stache' - thanks to Aunt Laura we all had a lot of fun with this silly stache'!


when I sing happy birthday to my kids I fight back tears. I fight them back as hard as I can. Looking at their face lit up by those candles, knowing they are growing right before my very eyes becomes very real when I sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY.


seee.. told you we had fun with the stache'!


God had blessed us so much just in having each other.


It was cold outside but so warm inside. Kids, yelling, screaming, not sharing, laughing, dishes clinking, footsteps running upstairs, crowded kitchen. I couldn't have dreamt up of a life so full of love. This is only God's work.


We enjoy birthdays, holidays and ordinary days are extrodinary because of each other. Hand painted ornaments, from Aunt Laura, every year, show love and tradition. I can't tell you how overwhelmingly awesome it is to sit and basque in love and watch it happen all around you.


We are love. ... and I am so happy I am apart of a family that oozes love and busts from the seams with love... I love that we are harvesters of love.

Letter from Santa

So there are many of us in this house that still believe in Santa.

Seth was on the fence, which was okay with us. Until he went to school one day last week one of his teachers asked the class to pick a little one they knew and write a letter as Santa.

I'm sure you can see which side of the fence he landed on. =)

Seth soon came home with a letter addressed to (my suprise) Rozzy.
He put it in an envelope, waited for the mail man to come and after Rozzy came home from school asked her to go get the mail. (Not uncommon for us to ask the kids to run and get the mail.. they **love** to get the mail)
We were all watching through the blinds and she came bolting in the house so fast we had to scatter and act natural. She bursted out "SANTA WROTE ME A LETTER.. HE WROTE ME, TO HERE!!! SANTA WROTE ME HERE!"
It was one of the sweetest moments I've ever been apart of. I looked and Seth and he had tears in his eyes. The excitement and joy of that moment took us all to the highest part of the tallest mountain.


not only do I get to be apart of life changing Santa moments but I get little gems, like these below, to fill up our home.


and I love to bake it up...


Letters to Santa, from Santa ;) Christmas artwork, and endless holiday baking.... and a whole bunch of "WANNA HEAR MY LETTER FROM SANTA, AGAIN? ??? " followed by a huge smile, with some missing teeth, from a 7 year old girl who believes with all her heart.

3 times as sweet

I had the extreme priviledge of meeting Yanely, Junior, and Noel.
These three awesome people happen to be related and just ooze love, fun, happiness, laughter... anything magical and good came from these three siblings.... and I had the pleasure of working with them today.

p.s. which really wasn't work because I had WAY. TO. MUCH. FUN!

**ENJOY** and feel free to leave a comment.