Mackenzie's 5th Birthday Royal Tea Party!

Craft Time!
Princess Mackenzie and Nana Examining the Table...


WOW! A new Puppy Purse!

Our little princesses

Little Mommy

GIFT TIME!
Cake Time!

Our Castle

Tea Time!

The Snake Charmer

Our "play tea set table"

One Happy Birthday Girl!

The Queen Mum's Table

tired expectancy

I have to be honest and say I have no idea what I should or shouldn't write about tonight! I frankly am tired. I have had a busier than usual week -- one that has been both rewarding and scary all at the same time. The kids have been in a constant fall party mode for the past week and a half and high on sugar from all of the cookies and candy and cupcakes and ....you name it, they have ingested it! AND amidst all of that, I miss my husband. I think we have had maybe ten minutes all week to talk -- and that was mostly done over itching and lathering of anti-itch creams while discussing the possibility of adding a puppy to the household! HOW ROMANTIC is that! This is our life. Jackson, our new addition, is a blond lab mix puppy that has been so much easier to train than I had imagined and is fitting into our crazy household very easily. Spoiled already by not only the kids and Eric but by family friends as well. I am not sure yet that he knows our house is now "his" house! Amidst all of this activity I have this sense of expectancy of what the Lord might bring next into our lives at the rise of the new day. This new town of ours (or mine since Eric actually grew up here and seems to know just about everyone), is full of discoveries and possibilities -- and at every turn of a new day, I see so much that the Lord is blessing my family with. New friends, new opportunities, new eyes to see the lost and broken, new ears to hear the hurts and victories won. And now (thankfully) a larger heart, that is being healed and opened to love people for whose they are and not for who I perceive them to be. The Lord is good, and we are blessed. May you sleep well knowing you are loved and cared for by your creator and lover of your soul. I know I will! :)

Another new "normal"

Normal. hmmmnn. That is what someone wrote on one of my kids' test scores for a check up once. Normal. If you are like me, Normal just doesn't do it for you anymore. What does normal even mean? Average? Usual? Normal temperatures are not even "normal" for everyone any longer. There is now a normal "range". Our post modern culture seems to be getting away from defining everything as a status-quo or bringing anything into a "melting pot" -- and deciding this is the Norm. Wouldn't you just love to have a name like "Norm" just to announce to everyone by your name tag that you are indeed normal! I can just see it, "Yes, my name is Norm! I am Normal because my name says so!" Who is it today that decides what normal is? Who are these experts that state the average status anyway? No one for sure has asked my opinion or polled my family to help decide what Normal actually looks like in flesh and blood! And if I or anyone I cared about were to be in a Normal "line up" to say this is what normal looks like, I would be appalled! John Ortberg in his book, Everybody's normal until we get to know them, says it best when he states, "Everybody's weird....Because we know in our hearts that this is not the way we're supposed to be, we try and hide our weirdness. Every one of us pretends to be healthier and kinder than we really are; we all engage in what might be called "depravity management". In trying to pretend all of the time and striving to be something that we want people to perceive, we can completely exhaust ourselves! And yet, "the yearning to attach and connect, to love and be loved, is the fiercest longing of the soul" (again John Ortberg).

Dallas Willard once said, the natural condition of life for human beings is reciprocal rootedness in others." ...."To make a start where we are, we must recognize that our world is not normal, but only usual at present."

We need each other. We were made for each other. And don't we all breathe easier when someone else stands up and says, "hey, I really need a REAL friend right now --don't you?" No one wants a normal friend, they want a real one. One that loves us so dearly that they can be honest with themselves in our presence and we can then reciprocate and be honest with them and walk away knowing we were just loved by Jesus at the same time. That is what we all look for. That is what we all desire if we are truly honest with ourselves. I am blessed in that I am finding more of Jesus and his love and grace in others these days. For so long, being too full of fear to show the "real Amanda" and becoming too "perfect"--- striving to be someone or something I was not -- "NORMAL". These days, I now know that my Jesus is the only perfect human being that ever walked the planet. AND, BABY, he was FAR from normal. If He loves me, (and He truly and deeply does) then I know I am unique, special and precious in His sight. If the creator of the universe, the painter of the beautiful canvas of life thinks I am precious -- then who can ever tell me otherwise?? Hi -- My name is no longer Normal. It is beautiful.

Someone once said....

Just some questions to ponder tonight...
Why is it that the tongue of another person can carry such weight within our hearts? Weather it is an encouraging word that we hear and are lifted to the highest elevated sense of affirmation which we as human beings are so conditioned to listen for; or weather it is a word of criticism either for our good or harm that deflates us and defeats us in an instant. Someone asked me last week, why it was, that what someone once said to me held such importance ---that when Satan whispers it in my ear, all movement (from either forward or back) is halted and fear paralyzes all motivation to continue. My response: A lie from the Pit of Hell itself, was at that moment believed and I reject the truth of the Lover of my Soul.

Why is it so much easier to believe the lie of Satan that deflates and defeats us than to relish the truth and bathe in the goodness of our Savior who created us and knows us intimately? My response? I just know that Satan is the master of deceit and knows how to use our human tendencies to take the focus off of Our Lord and put it on our own interest. What a easy way to fall. We then begin to judge God -- we begin to doubt his love and his holiness and therefore doubt everything. The beginning of destruction of truth to relative truth......??? Only if you think so...or, is it only if I think so???

Why is the last Oreo cookie always stale? My response? what last cook...mmmmm.

Fun Farm day tomorrow -- rain or shine, snow, sleet or wind (weather calls for all three). Two kids, a preschool class and a bunch of cold parents toting around pumpkins. And I can't sleep...again. I can't wait until this medication is finished! My eyes and brain are finished! I wish I could just convince my heart and mind of that! My poor friends have probably had enough of the Durbins on steroids! :)