Month: June 2016

The Dishes Can Wait

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I’m sitting in Annabelle’s room. I should be doing dishes. I want to be doing dishes. The dishes have bred. They have become a horde taking over the kitchen. If I’m not careful they may rebel and try to take over the house using forks and knives as weapons. 

So I really want to restore order to the chaos that is my filthy kitchen. But my daughter woke up halfway through her nap and was upset her daddy had left for work. So here I sit. 

She has gone from sobbing to quietly dancing with her baby doll. At some point she spit in her hands and rubbed them together just to see what would happen. Now she is in the best of moods because her brother has snuck out of his quiet play time to make faces at her from the hallway and they are both giggling. 


I should be doing dishes. Or getting her out of bed and finding an activity for the kids to do. 

But instead I’m just going to sit here and bask in the giggles and the joy and the chaos for a few minutes. 

My life is beautiful even when my kitchen isn’t. 

Come & Listen To What He Has Done

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Eight years ago we exchanged rings and vowed our vows. We washed each other’s feet while our friend played this song.

We wanted to remind ourselves & our friends and family of what God had done in our lives. Of how He brought us together. Of the grace and the love He had shown through our relationship.

How much more He has done in these eight years since that day.

He has given us joy. The sense of humor we share has been a precious gift through the years. The laughter and the choice to be positive has made the good times beautiful and the hard times even more beautiful.

He has given us grace. When we have chosen anger and yelling and bitterness, His grace has given healing to our marriage. When we have failed each other and fallen short, His grace has enabled us to love each other with selflessness and forgiveness.

He has given us faith. Oh how He has given us faith. Faith that we will still have a roof over our heads tomorrow. Faith that we will have food in our bellies. Faith that our circumstance does not define the character of our God. Faith that there is hope for our relationship despite our weaknesses and failures. Faith that allows us to humble ourselves and thank God for the many difficulties we have faced, knowing that “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

He has given us strength. We have had more than our share of hard times. And I thank God for each hard road we have walked. Through it all, as we learned the hard lessons and found what is truly important, as we struggled and cried and complained, as we chose to praise instead of curse, as we chose the road of faith and trust instead of fear and anger, He has given us His strength. He has developed our character and grown us into better people than we were eight years ago.

He has given us beauty. We see it in the faces of our kids. In the laughter in our home. In the antics of our silly pets over the years. In our tear filled eyes as we say the hard “sorries.” In the dance parties we are constantly having. In the story He is writing for us. We see it in the daily bread He never fails to provide. In the friends and family and church He has given. In the comfort of sleeping side by side. In every thread that is weaved into this rich tapestry that is our marriage. The better. The worse. The sickness. The health. The richer. The poorer. Til death do we part.

I’m so glad it’s you by my side. I’m so thankful for what He has done for me. What He has done for you. He has done for us.

Happy Anniversary, Anthony.

Always a Silver Lining

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Miss Priss wasn’t feeling so great today. She was becoming increasingly more fussy as the day wore on, and by the time nap time came around she was running a low grade fever. 

None of this was very concerning considering she’s two. Viruses and bugs are a common occurrence. 

But then I changed the mother of all nap time diapers and noticed something blue gleaming at me from her nostril. 

My brain didn’t quite know what to do with this information. I was stuck on the thought, “Why is her snot blue?” for quite some time. And then I realized my child had pushed a blue craft bead up her nose. 

After two seconds of trying to hold her down and get it out I made Anthony call the nearest urgent care to let them know we’d be there soon. 

The entire family accompanied Annabelle to the doctor so mom and dad could assist in restraining her when the time came. Noah was very pleased to be visiting the doctor and couldn’t stop touching everything in sight. Annabelle was enjoying the experience until the evil nurse made her stand on a scale. From then on everything the poor man did was pure torture in the eyes of a toddler. Checking her blood oxygen? How dare he. Taking her temperature? Surely something the Geneva Convention should have addressed. 

By the time she calmed down, it was clear she wasn’t feeling well at all. She was no longer smiling or laughing and just wanted to snuggle closely. 

She gagged. 

We panicked. 

The nurse, God bless his soul, gave us a barf bag and promised we were the next to be seen by the doctor. 

Everything was fine for the next five minutes. 

Annabelle then violently threw up. Mercifully into the barf bag. 

Unmercifully, she then decided to be mortal enemies with the bag and violently threw up again. On my shirt. On my pants. Puddles of vomit collecting in my lap. The stench left me unable to do anything other than clench my mouth and eyes shut and pretend I was absolutely anywhere but this hell. 

Our friend the nurse, may he live a long and blessed life, sprang into action with gauze pads for clean up and brand new t-shirts for us to change into. Another nurse grabbed vomit covered Annabelle and cleaned her up. 

She grabbed her. With no gloves on. She grabbed someone else’s vomit covered child with her bare hands. Mother Teresa has nothing on this woman. 

Within five minutes Annabelle and I were in fresh clothes and the bead had been removed from her nose. It only took four adults to do it. 

What was a nasty, smelly mess of a doctor’s visit was saved by the kindness and care of the doctors and nurses at our urgent care clinic. 

And we got two free t-shirts out of the deal, so we’ve got that going for us. 

Meet Bella

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If you come to my house, you’ll notice a haze on my windows that makes it difficult to see through. This is thanks to Bella, my three-legged dog. 

Bella is a German Shorthair Pointer who lost her leg when she got stuck in a fence as a puppy. She’s gorgeous, too smart for her own good, and has puppy dog eyes for days. 

She joined our family a little over a year ago after her previous family started looking for a new, less stressful home for this sweet girl. She was very anxious, so much so that she was eating six cups of food a day because her nervous energy was burning it all off. 

Within ten minutes of being in our house for the first time, this dog fell asleep with all three legs in the air and turned into an extremely mellow dog. She loves our kids and lets them lay all over her and play with her. She adores snuggling on the couch. She loves to chew on bones and rub her back on the carpet while making ridiculous noises. She growls and barks when she’s happy and excited. She lives for the times we forget to close the pantry door and she can sneak food out of the trash. If there’s a pillow to be found, her head will be on it. If there’s a blanket around, she’ll be curled up underneath it. She’s extremely lazy. 

Until we leave the house. 

Bella has separation anxiety, which is very common for her breed and causes her to lose her mind when we leave. We quickly learned that crating her was a terrible idea after she escaped from and collapsed our metal dog crate and scraped up her nose doing it. So now we leave her in the living room with the curtains open so she can drool all over the windows and watch for our return. 

I don’t clean the windows very often since the dog will just slobber all over them the next time we leave, but this crazy sweet dog is totally worth it.