Joy Dare 2013 - Day 2

Today was spent sweeping dust bunnies, washing curtains, washing floors, rearranging furniture, finding homes for new toys, and picking up a gazillion Legos. All in the room of the 2 smallest men in my house. Boys sure can be messy and dirty. But they bring me joy. Joy.

Todays Joy Dare = A gift outside, a gift inside, and a gift on a plate

A gift outside. We have 2 beautiful Thornless Hawthorne trees in our front yard. When we first bought our house I had no idea what these beauties could do. We looked at and moved into our house at the end of summer. Imagine my delight when our first winter we saw our trees do this!

And in the spring they have these delicate small white flowers which unfortunately drop with the rain, but they are pretty while they last. 

A true gift indeed.

A gift inside. Part of my toy purge clean-up in the boys room today consisted of a lot of clothes swapping. I go through clothes that Ty has outgrown to hand down to another little boy we know. Then I go through clothes my nephew has outgrown to refill Ty's drawers. Then I go through clothes that Zane has outgrown to hand down to my nephew. Then I go through clothes that have been given to us from friends and family to refill Zane's drawers. Now you see why it takes me all day to clean their room! It's a lengthy process...

All that to say, my joy inside today came from these-

Tubs filled with clothes for my boys. Given to us.

A gift indeed.

A gift on a plate. This one took me a while. I thought about it all day and figured it was going to be tricky since I forgot to eat breakfast, warmed up a leftover piece of pizza for lunch, and then had a bowl full of chili for supper. Lots of edible gifts, but no plates. How does that happen?

Then it was time for a snack.

And I went to my old faithful.

Which I don't usually eat off of a plate. But tonight I did. Because these things are a gift.

Please don't confuse this with a Pop-Tart. This is most definitely not a Pop-Tart. 

This is better than a Pop-Tart. This is a Toaster Tart. And you'll never guess where I get them.

Aldi

That's right. Aldi. Grab a quarter (for your cart, of course) and go get yourself some. 

A gift indeed.

Thank me later.

Seek Joy! Be Grateful! Love Jesus!

Joy Dare 2013 - Day 1

Truth be told, I'm a little nervous returning here.
Truth be told, the date on my last post makes me a little sad.
Truth be told, I've returned just for me.
Truth be told, I'm probably the only one here anyway. I've been gone so long it's probably a ghost town around these here parts.

I'm coming back to the roots of my blog. I originally started blogging back in 2006 because I was lonely. We had just moved to a new city where I knew no one. But I saw and grasped on to the glimpses of God in my life...of what He was showing me and teaching me...and I wanted to document them. And by documenting them I started looking at life through a new lens. A healthy and fun and grateful lens.

I have no earth shattering prose or analogies. I offer no recipes for success or fortune. But I will find joy...daily...and I will share. I take the dare and will do my best to share.

January 1 Joy Dare: 3 Gifts Heard

The sound of my boys sorting through Legos (and believe you me we have a lot of Legos to sort through)

The sounds of Uno Roboto during Family Game night (unfortunately Mr. Roboto didn't drown out the sounds of the 4 year old crying every time he had to draw another card)

Hearing this girl say "I love you, Mom". The older they get, the less they say it (embarassing!) but I'll take it every chance I can!

And in my true procrastinator fashion, I'm posting this one just before the deadline of midnight.

Happy New Year!

Seek Joy! Be Grateful! Love Jesus!

Letter From A Friend

Dear Friend,
Thank you for being my best friend. I really appreciate what you do for me and for being respectful, helpful and caring. You are the only friend that has been faithful and you are fortunate that you have a lot of caring friends.

From your friend,
Jane

I would love to be able to share that this letter was addressed to me, as this is the type of friend that I aspire to be. I mean, shouldn't we all strive to treat others in a way that would result in someone writing a letter like this to us?

Yes. Yes we should.

But last week, I learned that there is one thing better than reading a letter like this addressed to me.

To read a letter like this that's been addressed to my child... now that's worlds better.
To read a letter like this that's been addressed to my child from a girl in her class at school... Universes better.

I tell you.

I could learn a thing or two from my girl.

My Text Message

I had a realization today. It's kind of silly. It's kind of fun.

I'm fairly new to texting.
And no, that was not my realization.
I know I'm behind the times and there's probably some newer more fandagled way to communicate than texting. I'll probably get to that when it's outdated too.
So, I sent a text today and at the end I was running out of room. All I had left that I needed to say was "thank you" and I only had 3 character spots left to use. Is "character spots" even a legitimate texting term? Probably not. But I don't care because the spellchecker on here keeps putting that red squiggly line under the word "texting" every time I type it. I guess I'm not the only one behind the times.

Anyway, I was running out of room....I couldn't leave off that important part and I didn't want to send a whole other text. Suddenly I remembered the shortened text for "thank you."
TY

And then it hit me.
That's my little man's name.

So today I declared that my youngest is now my daily and eternal text of gratitude to God.

If God had a cell phone, I'd send him this text daily:

TY for TY.


But God doesn't need a cell phone, so I'll just be praying it instead.

The Sounds of Silence

I'm not normally one for those long-winded-photo montage types of posts. But there's no hiding the fact that I haven't been around these here parts for almost 4 months now. I hope that you'll excuse my absence and excuse this photo-recap of a Fuller Summer. Believe me, I have more important things to blog about, but I feel that I won't quite be able to move on until I do this. This was My Fuller Life after all.

First of all, I kicked off summer with a bang - literally, and landed myself in Urgent Care on Memorial Day with these:

And about 10 days later they turned into this:


I probably don't have to tell you that bandaged hands aren't very conducive for performing any sort of task, let alone changing poopy diapers. I have never been seriously injured or operated on or really been in any situation (besides giving birth) that has required me to depend on others for help. So let me tell you, this "burn victim" thing was a huge lesson in pride for me. And I stand at this end of it able to look back and be so thankful for my amazing husband and servant-minded friends and family who gave and helped so selflessly. Amazing.

With bandaged hands I was still able to run with my Anna in her first 5K. She did amazing and wasn't the least bit embarrassed to run with her mummy-hands mom!


I also made 120 of these puppies for my dear friend's wedding! I think my house smelled like honeysuckle for the rest of the month, but it was so worth it.


Half of our electricity bill this summer has been from charging the batteries for these:


Charge the batteries overnight - put them in the vehicles in the morning - drive around the yard all day - bring the batteries inside and plug them in. Repeat.
The good news is, both boys are excellent drivers and should be able to pass their drivers exam by the age of 8. The bad news is they sometimes suffer from road rage and will resort to chasing one another down. Ty has been known to carry part of a fence post in his vehicle which he has tried using as an offensive weapon on occasion. We're working on that...

We've also spent a lot of time here (bonus points for the times we went with cousins!):


Tony and I are working hard to raise our kids to have great taste in music. So far we've been successful! We were excited to take Anna to her first official concert this summer. She loved it and sang along with these guys to every single one of their songs:


And those guys are NeedToBreathe. If you haven't heard them, I suggest you go take a listen. Now. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you get back.

The biggest excitement of the summer is that this little man...

IS TALKING!!! Prayers are being answered....speech therapy is working! And I just can't tell you enough how much I love his voice. Love it. Love. It.
I don't always understand what he's saying yet, but he's trying and that's the most important part.

And finally...just a few days ago...in a matter of minutes, my sweet daughter went from this:


To this:

Yikes! They grow up too fast!
Case in point:


When did I get old enough to have a 3rd grader and a Kindergartner?!?

In closing, I wish I had a picture to share of a big fat "SOLD" sign in front of a certain house, which shall remain nameless.
Ugh.
I don't.
So we keep praying.
One of these days I think I'm going to make the persistent widow in the Bible look pathetic.

I Wonder Wednesdays - Episode 3

• I wonder if you wondered if I'd ever wonder again.
• I wonder why my neighbors have a light up palm tree in their yard.
• I wonder if I'll ever be able to formulate the blog post that has been swimming around in my head for 2 weeks now.
• I wonder if I will ever feel organized.
• I wonder why my 2 year old keeps getting up at 6:15am.
• I wonder what our house will be like when we're finally able to buy one again.
• I wonder if I should keep my bangs or grow them out.
• I wonder how my kitchen floor gets so dirty so quickly.
• I wonder if there is a connection between #4 and #5 in this list.
• I wonder if Anna and I will have a good relationship when she's a teenager.
• I wonder why I'm not in bed already.
  

Could I Get Some Help Here?

Have you ever been faced with a "task" that seemed pretty doable?


The kind of thing that you've seen others do plenty 'o times before. And you're sure that you are perfectly capable of doing it too.


It just seems so easy when someone else does it.



But for some reason, things don't seem to work out the same for you.



And, dagummit, you just want to scream!
So you do.


But then Someone steps in and gives you a hand. And then you realize that if you would have just asked Him to help at the beginning, things maybe wouldn't have had to be that hard.


And suddenly life is happier again.



But maybe next time you might want to ask someone to wipe your nose too.
Just sayin'....