The joy that is Maggie

mags from missy doll on Vimeo.

Happy Anniversary to Us

Seven years ago today, I married my best friend.

Literally, I am not just being cliche. He was my best friend, my "straight-gay friend", who replaced my gay-gay friend and surrogate brother Tony, whom I had palled around with since high school until he moved to LA. Walker was just as funny and fun as Tony. Only thing lacking was his decorating skills. (I still miss Tony's decorating advice every time I have to pick out paint.) In fact Walker and I hung out so much and did so many fun things together that my mom had it in her head that Walker really was my Tony replacement, in every since of the word, so when I told her I was in love with Walker, her first response was, "but isn't he gay?" Not based on his personality, she had only met him once. Although if you met Tony, you might not know how well he can rearrange a room right away. Anyway, Mom was wrong, Walker can't pick out paint to save his life, I have four babies to prove it.

But I digress.

Seven years ago was the very best day of my life.

Truly it was. I have had four other very important days since then. But they weren't the best days. If you get down to it, something really wonderful happened on each of those other four days, but the days themselves weren't anywhere near as fun as my wedding. And had I not had four big glorious needles in my spine, those four days wouldn't have been any fun at all. Plus I much, much preferred my wedding dress to a hospital gown. Most importantly, without this day we are celebrating, the other days would never have come to be. Which brings me back to my original point: my wedding day was the best day of my entire life.

Seven years ago, I walked down the aisle and found my soon-to-be-husband with tears running down his face.

I hadn't expected that at all. In all my many (many, many) visions of my wedding, I never expected the groom to cry. I always expected me to cry, which led to paranoia about black mascara stains on white besequined bodices. When I saw him crying, I was so shocked, it made me giggle. That plus the joy I felt at marrying my best friend - my best straight friend - caused me to giggle throughout the entire ceremony. Which probably was some kind of foreshadowing: my giggling, him crying. Tee hee hee.

Seven years ago today, I giggled "I do."

I still do baby.
You're the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me.
Scratch, scratch.

Thursday link love

So, I'm just gonna leave you with a little link love so I can, um, go finish some Christmas decorating.

Tomorrow is Friday Faves - either or both - your favorite Thanksgiving recipe, and or plus in addition to or your favorite leftover turkey and or plus by the way your favorite crockpot recipe. Because it's getting down on into the chilly 70s in Houston - oh yeah baby, it's crockpot weather!!

On to the links:

They say men think about s*x every seven seconds, but I have always wondered how they could actually get any thinking about college football or trying to recall Def Leppard lyrics if that were true

The Vatican recently produced an online visual tour that is absolutely stunning

This Thankful Tree is so cool (everything Kimba does is so cool)

I've really been enjoying these Ask Pastor John podcasts with John Piper

Speaking of podcasts: this my new favorite. Look in their 2009 archives for the one on motherhood

Preach on, Amanda

And last but not at all least, this will bless you.



The flames are hot, but their heart is chill...

But for now, my down comforter and 14 pillows are a-callin

I remember when Shepherd was first born, I would hold him in my lap and gaze at his beauty. I delighted in every squeak, every gas smile, every jerky little hand motion to his angelic face. I could stare at him all day.

After about two weeks of this, my husband glanced at our precious creation as I inhaled another hit off my son's silky head. Then Walker yawned, stretched, scratched, and asked, "Soooo, when's he gonna get fun?"

Aghast, I cried out defensively, "What do you mean?? He is the most fun thing ever! Did you hear that burp? Did you see him try to suck his thumb yesterday? He is SO! FUN!"

Walker shook his head dismissively. "Nah. Seriously. When's he gonna get fun?"


I think my husband would agree that now, six years later, his son has fully achieved Fun Status. Because at this moment, they are in Bastrop State Park getting their Father/Son/Father's Best Friend From High School/Father's Best Friend From High School's Son Bonding Fun On.

And just as I felt a sweet stirring in my heart the first time Eva Rose and I went shoe shopping together, I believe Walker is having A Moment.

It all began with a trip to REI last night for supplies (if I find the receipt, I have said I will not look at it) while I washed the sleeping bag that has been sitting in our garage for lo these seven years, and a borrowed backpack (mean wife would not allow an investment in a new one until circumstances proved that camping would occur more frequently than once a decade.) Then, early this morning, they were off into the wilderness.



I have seen several facebook uploads like this one


and received one phone call, describing a meal of freeze dried lasagna and lots of giggles. "Are you having fun?" I asked. "Momma, I'm SPAZZING!" Shep assured me. I can only imagine.

I would say I wish I were there, but that would be a big fat lie. Yours truly is way, way, way too attached to indoor plumbing and white noise machines to be an outdoorsy kind of girl. I'm an indoorsy, hot showering, DVR watching in air conditioned comfort type of girl. And not ashamed to say so. As I flush my Cottenelle Ultra far, far away.

While the boys search for trees on which to pee, the girls and I have a mission. And a challenge.

For as my husband reluctantly lugged the many, many, many boxes of Christmas decorations down from the attic late last night, he declared, "I bet I come home and you haven't done jack. I bet all these boxes are still sitting right here unopened."

All right, Mountain Man, I'll see your decorations and raise you a load of laundry.

Here's the current status (excuse the crummy iPhone pix, my camera is currently sleeping under the stars):

The dining room:


The living area:


The kitchen table:


And oh, heaven help me, the garage:


I've miles to go, but I CAN DO IT!!
I am the little Christmas tree that COULD!!

Check in for an update tomorrow.

I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can...

Tension

Today we had a guest pastor at church who preached on Habakkuk. That book you've probably never read - me neither. He asked, when is or was the Kingdom of God among us? a) When Christ was on Earth, b) now, or c) at the Second Coming of Christ? And the answer is: yes, yes, and yes.

He compared where we are now - in this period between to two comings - using some World Series baseball analogy about rings or something. So as I must always do when pastors use such analogies, I created myself another that made sense to my sports averse brain.

I thought of this one: when we adopt, there will be a date that a judge in Ethiopia declares our baby legally ours. All of our work and prayers and groaning will have officially accomplished the goal with the thud of a gavel. But - we won't have traveled yet, we won't have even laid eyes on him or her. It won't feel complete. There will be an interim period where the child is ours, but not yet ours. Full hearts, but empty arms.

This is where we live now, in the Kingdom of God. Christ has come. Christ will come again. But for now, as we live suspended between those two times, there is tension.

I get it.
My entire life feels like that right now.
And I'm tense.

Our house is on the market, but garnering very little interest. Do we take it off and refinance? Do we leave it on and wait for the one magic buyer? Are we supposed to move? Are we supposed to sit still? Tension.

Much of the adoption is tied to the house. For now, I can't proceed until the house thing gets settled. But there is no clear direction on the house. I want to get a move on with the adoption. But my hands are tied. Tension.

One of my children is having medical issues. Nothing life threatening, but constant, aggravating, and serious. We've spent much time recently in the hospital having tests run. The results: inconclusive. The treatment: nonexistent. The prognosis: unknown. Tension.

Very, very important things are out of control. And the control freak in me is, well, freaking.

While spiritually, I am agitated, frustrated, and barren.

Because just as this tension exists on earth - between the rocks crying out that Jesus is Lord while the earth still groans for freedom from decay, between the glory of God being manifest before our very eyes to our encounters with the unspeakable evil that still reigns free - the tension also exists within me.

When times are very very good, I am full of praise for the Father. And when times are very very bad, I cling desperately to his feet.

But then there are the interim times.

In the interim times, when life is flowing, reasonable, manageable, my house of cards stays steady. But one small gust of wind in the form of a stomach virus or a husband out of town or a birthday party to plan and the tense rubber band snaps - and I snap - and my house collapses.

Because there is a tension that exists within my own soul between the old slave to sin and the new creation. I am fully redeemed, yet not fully transformed. Fully justified, but not fully sanctified. Fully loved, but not fully lovely.

Or as Paul said in Romans 7:22-25, one of my favorite passages:

For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Oh, who will rescue me from this wretched body of death?

I know the answers. I know the only antidote to anxiety comes from the One who will give me rest, yet, irritated, I turn away from Him. I know he offers the peace that passes my understanding but I cling to my chaos. The more I resist him, the more I sin. The more I sin, the more I resist him. My hospitality turns to hostility. Patience leaves me. I growl at my family, I berate myself, I nap more, engage less, watch more TV, read less, eat more Halloween candy, exercise less, and complain about the tension between my shoulder blades in this aching body of death.

Yet ironically, stupidly, the one thing I can control in this time of uncertainty is the way the tension snaps. I can snap away towards the things of this world that bring me no peace and make a difficult situation even worse, which is exactly what I have been doing.

Or instead of resisting God I can resist the dead woman inside of me, and snap towards the one who longs to gather me unto Himself, and remind myself of the things He has promised.

If God is for us, who can be against us? And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Oh, snap.

Friday Faves - Best Toys for Kids, In Case Santa Should Ask

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I am coming out of my unintended bloggy slump to do today's Friday Fave's because I really do want to hear your answers on this before I get my Christmas shopping on.

A note on Christmas shopping. Here is my advice: if you go to Target one day round mid October with only a clueless two year old for company and feel oh so proud of yourself for knocking out half your Christmas shopping, be sure and get the loot out of the back of the car. Because when the kids find half their Santa toys on Halloween, it puts a massive kink in your ever so impressive plans.

Back to toys.

I can tell you the ones that have stood the test of time and torture at the Naptime household. Really, Fisher Price, Little Tykes etc should use us as a test market. If it can last two weeks in this household, it is solid. Because my kids are de to the struct to the ive. Every stinkin one of them. Eva Rose is not as bad as the others, but even she tied every blind cord in the house together the other day. I know the blind cords are supposed to be kept out of reach. THEY WERE. But these kids have super powers. I am pretty sure Maggie can shoot laser beams from her blue eyes that will catch any toy on fire.

That would explain a lot.

And since we have children of all ages and stages, my favorite toys are ones that everyone can enjoy. It can happen.

Toys Which Have Withstood The Torture and Time Test include:

1) Leap Frog Learn and Groove Musical Table



The thing is sturdy, the music is so cool and jazzy, you will sing along (onetwothreefourfivesixsevenEIGHTNIIIIINETEN!) which will impress your children, and they never, ever get tired of this thing. Shep played with it from the ages of 5 months to 5 years, when we lost the battery cover. But he would use the piano when he played "band".

2) Bristle blocks



Babies teethe on them, two year olds learn to manipulate them, and 6 year olds still use them to build cars and rockets and, of course, guns. Target carries a nice set by Parents.

3) Legos
This goes without saying, right? My brother used to build the most amazing cars while I built little stages with little Donny and Maries holding little microphones. And now, Shep builds the most amazing cars while Eva Rose builds little parks with little people playing in them. Although last week Shep came up to me holding a square built of Legos and asked if I had any wire. Why, I asked. For my bomb, he replied. So I guess he's graduated from guns now. We're very proud.

I also used to walk across my brother's legos when they were spread all over the floor and pretend I was walking across broken glass like some lady on TV used to do - what TV show was that??

4) Big Ole Box of Art Supplies


Recently I did a happy dance in a dollar store (it happens more than you might think) (I HEART dollar stores) (it's a sickness I come by honest. My mom will call me on the phone to rejoice over a newly discovered dollar store) because I found a huge bag of google eyes along with a plethora of other awesome doodads like popsicle sticks, seashells, colored straws, wires for bombs, pipe cleaners and construction paper. I spent about ten bucks and have bought my daughters and occasionally my son HOURS of creative fun. Independent fun. (Read, Mommy gets a break fun.)

5. Musical instruments

They never grow tired of them. You, however, will want to take the bomb wire and poke out your eardrums. But Christmas is a time of giving until it hurts, right?

Some good news: you can skip the kiddy drum sets. They all have a shelf life of about three days.

I know there are more, but it is 2am y'all, and I have a busy day tomorrow.

I've got preschool toys covered. I really need to know some great gifts for boys and girls ages 6 and up. Santa was last seen lugging this out of Costco. I think if Santa brought this, a certain little boy would faint. Any other suggestions?

Link away, Sister Santas...

Next we'll crank up the air conditioner and light up the fireplace

This morning Shep woke up and requested pancakes for breakfast. And because since daylight savings time we actually are waking up in plenty of stinking time to make a real "brestfast" as my kids all call it, I decided to indulge him.

And I decided in my pre-coffee haze that pumpkin pancakes would be a fantastic way to kick off Fall.

And if you just said, "Kick off Fall? What? It's been Fall for a month now!" then obviously you must live near Kelly, not in live Houston, where God blessed us with different seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer, and Oh My Skull It's Christmas And It's 85 Degrees Outside.

But the calendar does say Fall, so I'm feeling pumpkin-y. I am not a pancake person (I know, I know, how unAmerican of me) but I LOVE these:

Pumpkin Pie Pancakes

2 c. Bisquick
1 c. canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 c. milk (use more if the batter's too thick)
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 large spoon Karo
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 t. salt

Enjoy the masquerade!