can i please give a shout-out to the 12 people that have visited this blog in the past month from searching the term 'hot ta mollie'.  you're either a little bit odd or you remember the hilariously awful title of this blog when i started it at age 23.

either way, big kiss... MWAH!

okay all. have you joined Pure Charity yet? basically you sign up, buy great stuff you probably already buy, and get a portion of your purchase back in a fund to donate to awesome causes.


sometimes it feels like there is nothing you can do to help.  that any impact you can have is too small to matter.  that is, until you hold the hand of a child who goes to school because you care and eats a healthy meal every day because you love.  then you realize that every little bit really does help.  maybe i can't change a country, perhaps i can't fix what is truly broken, but i can love and i can hold those hands.


check out pure charity and see what you think!  specifically i am funding the haiti tent city project.  a tropical storm had its way with haiti this past week and no huge damage was done (whew) but a lot of tents were damaged.
 

i've been to this tent city.  i've worshiped with them.  i've seen the indignity of their living situation.  and somehow it is now even worse.  i have to do what i can to help. 

lily's drawing from today.  she said the girl is 'remembering our bubba'.  be still my heart.

dear annie,

i'm planning to put you in footie pajamas as long as the morning sun lights up your white blonde hair and makes you look like cindy lou who. my apologies to however this affects your social standings in middle school.

love,
mom

we packed into the minivan this afternoon and headed to a discount store in search of back-to-school shoes.  the girls are in sandals and stinky worn-out toms most days.  we went to find closed toed shoes that wouldn't make their teachers want to banish them to playground and it was a success!

i was surprised at lily's choices.  not by the bling bling, light up shoes i immediately nixed, but at the sensible platinum gray ballet flats she chose to go with her blue and silver nikes. (i told them to pick a pair to run in and a pair to wear with dresses)  she passed up the pink glittery ones and the flower adorned ones in most mature fashion.

eve however went for the sweetest raspberry pink pair with flowers to accompany her purple accented nikes.  i can still count on her 3 year-old taste at least!

lily and eve wanted to wear a new pair out of the store so the clerk took the stickers off the bottoms and clipped the elastic bands to separate the shoes.  annie took one look at the girls putting on their new shoes and in disgust at being relegated to hand-me-downs yet again she asked 'shoes?  shoes?' as she took off her third-hand crocs.  i handed her lily's worn in pink toms and said 'sure annie!  you can wear these!'  she looked at me with a horrified look on her face and said 'no!  SHOES!!'

kevin and i laughed and hugged her.  we hadn't figured she was astute enough to be upset about it, but being third kids ourselves we know how it feels.  it was pretty darn adorable.

and thank goodness for discount stores.  holy heck i don't want to imagine what four pairs of shoes at the mall would have cost!


addition:
it was brought to my attention by a friend that this sounded awfully mean for sweet annie.  i would like to add that she has several almost new looking shoes from her sisters that just started fitting that she will sport this fall.  if i had been a prepared mama i would have stashed a pair in my purse to give her at the shoe store but i plum didn't think about it.  next time!!

october 8th i will get to hold those sweet faces at yahve shamma orphanage in my hands again and say 'i missed you'.  i'm going back to haiti!

how many times in the past few years have i felt put out or annoyed by our dog, eating the girls' food or digging a diaper out of the trash?  how many times have i shoo'ed him away from the dinner table with annoyance in my voice?  if i'm honest, it was more than i can remember.

but he was our casey bubba.  our sweet dog that i once waxed poetic about on the blog before three certain little girls took over our lives.  the boy that i once in confidence confessed to my sister that i was afraid i wouldn't be able to love a child as much as i loved him.  and i meant it.

i loved him so much that when pressed to find the perfect gift for me, my sister had a painting of him done.  and it has hung proudly in my home ever since.  i loved him so much that i slept on the laundry room floor next to him the night of his knee surgery knowing he couldn't make it up the stairs to our room.  i loved him so much that i would take him on walks to meet up with kevin as he finished bike rides just to see casey's tail wiggle with delight at the sight of his best friend.

he loved me so much he tolerated my three little girls that loved him and tormented him in turn.  he loved me so much that he pretended not to notice when they took more and more of my attention and he got less.  he loved me so much that he licked the salty tears off my face- more than once.  i wish he was here to lick my tears one last time.  i seem to have unending supply today.

the girls threw him a 'goodbye bubba' party at lunch.  complete with cheeseburgers, tres leches cake, and several renditions of 'for he's a jolly good fellow', it was a fitting tribute.  i'm not sure kevin and i were ready to say goodbye.  we went together to the vet.  we fed him treats.  we held him tight.

when the end came i wailed.  like a child i just couldn't control myself and i shouted.  i wanted to take back the past few years and see him as a young spry fellow again and enjoy him.  i found myself repeating 'i'm so sorry bubba.  i'm so sorry.  thank you'.  then when faced with the inevitability of them taking him away i buried my face in the soft folds of his neck fur and just breathed in.

i miss him.  i know it will get better with time and the sadness in my husband's eyes will soften.  but he will be missed.  that part will not change.

okay y'all.  i need to update the blog header.  i am in denial.  those sweet baby faces have changed so much!

kevin took the girls out of town for the weekend and i have had sweet sweet silence (with the exception of casey's rather loud snoring).  i got a haircut (a much much needed haircut), i met friends for happy hour, i ventured downtown with my fabulous friend brenda and met some new people.  i worked a little and now i'm thinking about heading to barton springs.

really a girl could get used to this. 

i miss my little ones- i will be crazy excited to see them when they get home.  but really i have cherished this quiet time more than i thought i would.  here's hoping kevin loved his weekend alone with the girls enough to do it again.

it is true what they say, the days are long but the years are short.  except when your kids are out of town.  then the days are short ;)

someone asked if i was a writer yesterday and i shrugged and said 'not really, i used to be'

days when life overwhelms i seem to have a harder time putting it into words than before.  my sister and i love the saying 'may your life one day be as wonderful as you make it appear online'.  i find myself walking the tightrope between posting only the great things and posting the not so great things and being a debbie downer.

i have had an overwhelming week, feeling stressed and confused about the future and our direction.  letting my negativity take over is never a good idea and tends to end in a inwardly selfish spiral. 

then i was at the pediatrician for well checks with annie and eve.  they were well behaved and delightful.  as the doctor (that i adore and have known since lily's first 1 week check up) left the room with a hug she said 'life is good, mama'.  and i thought, it is.  it really is.

another year in pictures is now a book for my girls!!


i love blurb!!http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/2828914/a42865dbad5c4685785e88146a638d35d68c9a13

soooo glad to be caught up before i have yet another year to organize :)

***link fixed!!

happy happy birthday to my sweet lily margaret.  lily bird.  birdie.  lil lil.

no 5 year old by any other name could be as sweet.

a look through your birthday pictures from the past few years... my how you've grown.  i love you baby girl.

security is a tricky thing.  the false sense of it is normally all we really need- even when we know it is false somehow it can be enough.

i have always been a scaredy cat.  haunted houses and the like are my kryptonite.  i am 34 and sometimes still want to sleep with a light on.  but to my kiddos, i'm 'mom' and i am their sense of security (false or otherwise).  they don't know most of the time the noise that spooked them had me sweating too.

kevin has been out of town this week and i find myself in our new(ish) house alone for the first time.  it isn't a small place and its pretty dark out here in the sticks where there are few street lamps.  our fierce looking dog is beyond deaf and offers little in the way of protection these days.

i've been dealing with the girls' fears this week on my own.  afraid of the dark.  afraid to go upstairs alone.  bad dreams.  and it has had me questioning and thinking a lot about fear and security.  i heard a speaker just this past week talking about the problem of having too many comforts means we don't really have to rely on anything outside of ourselves for security.

i just did my final rounds of peeking in on the girls before i retire for the night.  i went and pulled lily's covers around her and gave her a kiss.  it roused her enough that she fluttered her eyes open and said 'goodnight mama'.  i said 'i love you' and she replied in a dreamy sleep voice with something i have never heard her say...

'i know you're always with me.'

i hope so, lily.  always.

as my crazy wedding season winds to an end, i'm trying to be deliberate about taking every day snapshots of my girls.  here's just a taste of our crazy bathtime :)

real conversations with a almost 5 year old

lily: where's the ipad?
me: its dead. you killed it, remember?
lily: but i killed your laptop and it came back to life
me: yes because i paid for it. it was three hundred dollars. the ipad would be two fifty to fix. you have two hundred and fifty dollars?
lily: i'll pay for it. i'll save it in my piggy bank
me: good luck. i'll make a genius bar appointment for three years from now.
lily: yeah... piggy probably wont cut it. i'm gonna need some of that money that's green.

me too lil. me too.

yes..... or no

lily just asked me if snow white was 'really REAL' and i pulled an eddie izzard.
i never know what to say in these situations. yes! nooo.... i mean of course! but not really....



how do you all handle the little white lies of childhood? is seems magical at times but just plain absurd and setting their little hearts up for disappointment at other times.

lily directs her first movie

to be honest the girl knows how to use the ipad better than i do.

her happy place. 
creating.
day dreaming.

i have a confession.  my name is mollie and i think i've become a winker.  i know, i know, who AM i?  what is going on here?

i am really not sure but i have caught myself in the past few weeks winking at people at least 3 times.  thankfully two of those times were to little kids who probably just thought i was some weird lady.  is there a cure for this ailment?  please tell me this is temporary...

i might eat her.

5 is the best

i was first introduced to brene brown when my friend bonnie sent me a link to a fabulous talk she gave at TED and i was intrigued.  i love the way she tells stories, paints a picture, makes you think.

i watched this video on her return to christianity this morning and it definitely made me laugh.  i love her perspective.

http://thenewcreatives.posterous.com/brene-brown-interview-love-is-controversial

what i love most about this is how intelligent she is.  how critical and analytical her nature is as a researcher, but she still sees jesus the way that i do.  as a child.  with faith.

i hope beyond hope beyond a shadow of a doubt that we can be love to people.  that i am love to people.  this year has been harder than i expected so far.  i thought with annie's first year under our belts life would settle, but that was before i knew she was what we affectionately refer to as 'tank'.  aka: no obstacle can get in the way of what i want.  it is hard to feel like you're loving others when you don't have any time or energy to love yourself.

so today this has to be enough.  'may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer'.  i won't be serving the poor today.  i'm not in haiti.  i'm not at a shelter.  i'm a mom.  and i will have to do my best to love my kids the way i am called to.  and hope for them and pray for them.  and love.  

Annie's fake sneeze

debbie downer alert.  consider yourself warned.

casey bubba has cancer.  that's right the one and only c-c-c-casey bubb bba (to the tune of la la la la bamba)

as much as i have let that poor animal get on my nerves in the last few years, i have had some good cries about his diagnosis.  i remember clearly telling my sister before i got pregnant with lily that i was genuinely concerned i could never love anything, including a human baby, as much as i loved casey.

now of course i see the humor in that statement seeing as the relationships are not as similar as i once anticipated.  but it does stand to show you how devoted and doting i was.  the day we met in 2003, he was still a mere 4 year old pup and we wrestled till my arms were covered in harmless scratches.  i'm not sure who enjoyed it more- me homesick for the boxer at my parents' house, or casey who was probably used to his dad's girlfriends giving his 90 pound self the side-eye.

i have always been a little sad to have missed out on his true puppy-hood, though the stories i have heard scare me enough to want to an adopt an adult of whatever pet we have next.  the sheer energy and destruction (he ate a sofa once.  the whole thing.) baffle the mind.

'bubba' was in the top 5 first words for all 3 girls.  he was their first best friend.  his face licks have made each of them squeal with delight.  his tolerance of their ear grabs and petting (that seems more like a gentle beating) has increased with his age and annie is hopelessly devoted to him.

we have told the girls that casey is sick and will not be with us too much longer.  lily declared in the car yesterday 'oh i know!!  bubba will just wait for us at the house that God is building in heaven!  he will be so happy to see us when we get there!'

aaaand tears.

as you may have picked up from posts, i am somewhat of an avid gym-goer.  and by avid i mean that i try to finagle a daily trip into our schedule one way or another.  it is my hour of babysitting, my hour of peace.  or is it?

i tend to gravitate towards the high impact cardio classes.  kickboxing and the like are my poison of choice.  however my need for quiet and a break from my kids' constant chatter has been filled lately with some of the most inane platitudes shouted at me from the front of the class.  i really don't know where the instructors come up with some of this stuff, but i feel compelled at times to either shout 'please be QUIET!' or 'i'm not a deathmatch competitor, EASE UP!'

i started taking stock of the completely silly things they call out during class last week and instead of being annoyed started a mental list to blog.  i'll start with my favorite...

"do you WANT it?  yes or YESSSS??!!"

(i mean i guess i DO want it, but i'm not a child.  i am quite sure 'no' is a viable option)

"we don't want to be SKINNY!  we want to be LEAN!"

(ummmmm.  skinny works for me too.)

"WHY are you HERE?!"
(last i checked i wanted an hour of 'free' babysitting)
"don't you know bathing suit season is HERE?!"

(why yes i do, hence my blouson mommy one piece)

"this is ONE HOUR and you have 168 this week- USE IT!"

(thank you very much, i will now spend the rest of class trying to do the math on how many of those hours i slept this week)

when we were in haiti the house we were building was around the corner from a terrible place.  a terrible no good awful, give you the creeps every time you drive past its walls sort of place.  it was an orphanage that was trafficking kids into slavery and mistreating the children in its care.

we got the amazing news this week that the orphanage was shut down!!  amen hallelujah and a million other fabulous exclamations :)  if you are able and interested, please consider giving to support the 23 babies and kids that were rescued and in need of pretty much everything.

you can read more about it on the HELP blog!

UPDATE!!!  head to THIS blog to see the kids and read more about them.  i can't believe these precious faces were on the other side of the wall we passed every day.  i wish i could have just hugged and loved them.

Chat with Annie

just a little chat with annie girl to remember her at 18months



love how she climbs onto my desk at the end. sooo annie.

from the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.  the good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him.  matthew 12:34

i'm feeling out of good things to say lately (poor ali had to hear an earful of it on the phone yesterday) and this was my first word to read this morning.  how timely of you, God.

i just wanted to send all you mamas a hug and say, i'm there with you.  i'm empty most days and i'm out of goodness when that third cup of water is already spilt on the ground at breakfast.  i'm bone dry by the time one of them whines at target about a little fancy doll i will not be purchasing for them.

its time for me to fill 'er up. there is so much goodness to be had and love to share and all i have to do is go to the source for a refill so that i have my own abundance to pour out.

kevin and i were lucky enough to get to go run errands and have dinner by ourselves yesterday.  i thought up a bunch of fun ideas of activities for us to do, but in the end all we really need is each other and quiet moments to be together.  i am acutely aware of how nice it is to have so much fun with my husband when doing something as boring as couch price shopping.

at dinner we talked about goals for our summer.  i talked some about wanting to work on strength at the gym.  i said something about schedules.  i didn't mention storing up good.  i'm glad to have been reminded this morning where my real strength comes from.

when i was little i loved to wear big t-shirts as nightgowns.  whenever i was in trouble my dad noticed i would tend to wear one of his old shirts just when i knew he was angry with me.  he would come in at bedtime for my 'talk' and there i was innocently wearing his worn out 'lone star beer' ringer tee.  (my favorite had a scene of armadillos drinking beer.... i know you're shaking your head right now and that's okay with me)

it was totally subconscious.  i really wasn't that smart, but dad noticed it enough to finally point it out.

today i was in a crummy mood.  just grumpy all around yuck and i noticed for the second time that when i'm in a bad mood i keep wearing my haiti clothes.  i have on the t-shirt i wore during most of the trip and the bracelet i bought at heartline.  i guess i figure somewhere deep down that was a time i found simple joy.  that i had perspective.  that i thought less of myself.

i'm not sure the outfit helped today but it made me smile when i realized the more things change, the more i seem to stay the same. 

this year for the christmas i gifted my dad with the promise of an experience.  we've done this before and always enjoyed it.  i loved the year my sister and i took him zip lining!  the promise was a trip to the shooting range. 

i have never been to a range, never shot a handgun.  two things he is very experienced with!

moon is in town helping my sister and knowing the littles would be at preschool today, i decided it was the day for our outing!  i picked him up 9:30 after finding out the shooting range is open 9-9 7 days a week.  (because of course being in a shooting range at 8pm on sunday night makes total sense.)

the indoor range is located logically next door to a pawn shop.  so clearly we're talking a top notch joint.  the folks at the range helped dad guide me to a small semi-automatic pistol.  we donned our earphones and protective eyewear and headed for our target!

we opted to share a 'lane' (is this the correct terminology?  is it like bowling??)  i have to admit for the first 10 minutes every time someone shot their firearm i flinched.  it is freaking LOUD in there even with the headphones on- and the air pressure changes every time someone shoots.  its a little unnerving at first.

i would like to brag that i'm a pretty good shot.  maybe its all that time i spend staring down the barrel of my heavy 70-200 zoom lens sure-ing up my hands?  ha!

the most 'mollie' moment of the morning came when a bullet casing flew out of my gun and into my cleavage.  wearing a glamorous sports bra (as usual), the thing was burning hot and stuck to my skin.  i turned around to shake it out of my top, unwittingly while pointing an armed gun at my dad and the shooting range attendant.  neither of them were amused.  and i have the battle scars to prove it.

(taken 5 hours later!)

all in all it was a fun experience.  i'm glad to have shared it with moon and i still love 'experiences' as gifts.  now i just have to think of what to give him for father's day...

if you haven't caught on yet, we now live in what someone recently referred to as 'the sticks'.  now to be fair, it isn't exactly country living seeing as we are 15 minutes from downtown but on the other hand we DO have a septic tank.

to me in many ways it seems the best of both worlds.


until you take the bugs into consideration.  wait, not just bugs-   don't forget the vermin.

we were out on a walk yesterday in the rain.  it was just barely sprinkling when we headed out and the girls were loving it!  kevin was pushing annie in the stroller and i had a firm grasp on eve and lily's hands.  i was so happy when we got to meet another neighbor who was also outside- we haven't met as many as i'd like quite yet.

then as we round a bend in the road eve nonchalantly said 'that's kinda a big spider' and i glance in the general direction she is facing and HOLYFREAKINGSHIT i screamed 'KEVIN!!!!'

it was a full on huge tarantula just casually making its way across the street.  i jumped back and pulled the girls with me.  kevin reverted to his 11 year old self and set a fabulous example by spitting on the spider (which in the rain you would think it might not even notice?).  the thing literally charged kevin and thankfully 11 year-old kevin is a pretty quick runner.

we turned around on the walk since it was starting to actually rain rather than just drizzle and i promptly announced 'if we ever find one of THOSE in our house, i'm moving downtown'

i knew this house we just moved into has to have some kind of story.  it has enough little quirks and personal touches that i have been curious about who planned this out.  our next door neighbor and kevin struck up a conversation tonight and we found out the original owner was a guy named blake neely.  a texas-born composer.  (you can see more of what he has scored here) very cool!

he also said those all important words that every neighbor longs to hear.... "feel free to use the pool any time you'd like"

i read this post sent out by a friend about trusting money more than we trust god.  i couldn't help but chuckle into my coffee cup as i feel like this is perhaps the first time in my life that isn't true.

and the weirdest part of all is the peace i have about it.  what paul said to the phillippians is eerily true- god's peace surpasses all understanding.  i can't explain it.  i am not responsible for it.  this peace i have just IS.

and really i don't know what i'll do with myself when kevin does go back to working because frankly i like having the guy around :)

eve's musical genius

her quirky personality wins me over every day.

Best Job | P&G London 2012 Olympic Games Film

i read an article a few days ago that said after interviewing high level athletes the most common thing they claimed as the best thing their parents said about their sport was 'i love watching you play'. that really got me- not 'great job' or 'you are so good' but 'i love to watch you'.

i love everything about that statement. good or bad, win or lose, i LOVE to watch you is what it boils down to. and along that sentiment, here is the best commercial i've seen in a while...

i stood outside on the back porch of our new house today staring up at the stars. they sure are bright out there. i thought they were pretty darn bright at our old house, but i see now that i was wrong.

as excited as i am about this new chapter, i have a twinge -okay maybe more than a twinge- of sadness. y'all know change and i aren't exactly friends! the truth of it is, i have lived in this house longer than any other in my life that i can recall. we moved a lot growing up and 5 years is oddly enough a record.

the girl moving out of this house is so starkly different from the girl who moved in. i was giantly pregnant, managing accounts from home, eager to meet my first baby and still in many ways a newlywed. i move out as a self-employed mom of three beautiful little ladies finding my way as a community member and happily married to my best friend. i never would have dared to hope for the amazing blessings we have experienced while living here. i am so eager to see what this next chapter holds, but nervous that nothing could be as wonderful as these years in our little house on the park.

i'll leave you with this precious iphone shot of my girls at the new pad today.  i can't wait to see them on these steps on christmas morning!

happy happy third birthday, miss genevieve

there are blog posts being shared around lately about not letting pinterest and other over achieving moms make you feel bad about yourself. some answer that your worth is in your kids' eyes.

i'll be honest, its a sweet sentiment, but i just can't get on board. kids let you down. no matter how dearly you love them, your family will disappoint you. building up my worth based on people who are imperfect does nothing but set myself up to be let down.

certainly it is easier said than done but if i am comparing myself to moms who make fancy bento box lunches while my kids eat room temperature turkey, i'm making that mom into an idol. transferring that valuation of myself to my kids' eyes or my husbands' doesn't change that i am only seeing my worth as a reflection of how someone else needs/loves/values me.

i heard an old song today while driving. isn't it weird how you can go 10 or 20 years without hearing a song and the lyrics still in some magic way find their way to your lips? the song belts out "I want to leave a legacy, How will they remember me? Did I choose to love? Did I point to You enough to make a mark on things? I want to leave an offering."

so i will continue to try my darndest to not compare myself to other moms. i will also try to not find my identity solely as a mother or wife. i will call myself a child of God because that is who HE calls me. i am loved for that simple and most important of all reason. thank God.

i remember the distinct feeling as our flight home from haiti descended towards the fort lauderdale airport of how organized everything looked below us. straight streets and grids of houses with orderly traffic signals. i hadn't seen anything like it in haiti. chaos. there everything was curved lines, crowded, houses on top of houses on top of houses.

the woman next to kevin and i on our flight was on her first trip to america. she had the window seat and in her broken english and my awful creole we conversed upon takeoff long enough for me to teach her to use her seat belt and her to say it was the first flight she had ever taken.

as the plane flew beneath the clouds, i saw the florida landscape through her eyes. so flat, so intentional, so clean, so vanilla boring. oh how i wished we spoke the same language. i had so many questions for her.

kevin's version of packing his bedside table:
open box, move contents of drawers to box. close and label box.

my version of packing my bedside table:
open box, open drawer, make stack of all hair bands and miscellaneous earrings that have found their way into the top drawer. open book to the folded page and try to remember when i was reading it last. thumb through an issue of the discontinued 'domino' magazine and lament its untimely demise.

you see, this is why it takes me approximately 10x longer to pack anything than my husband and might just drive him a little bit crazy. it is also how i came to spend an hour on saturday reading my journal from 2003.

2003 was the best of times and the worst of times. 'a tale of two cities' had nothing on my life that year. what pulled me in when i casually thumbed open the spiral was how un-like me the writing sounded. how sad, distant, lost. i started wondering how i ever got to such a low point in my life and how absolutely broken i would be if one of my girls ever wrote the things i was reading.

i was in a terrible awful no good relationship and frankly it was a close call. i made it out by the skin of my teeth and within a year i was healthy again, training for triathlons, making new friends, moving into a positive living situation, and meeting my soul mate. reading it was fascinating and made me so thankful that God has a plan and that it was for me to prosper and not to harm me.

last night watching 'glee' i love love loved blaine's version of 'somebody that i used to know' and for the first time in a long time i feel like i could maybe possibly let go of the anger i have held onto in the back of my heart for the last 8 years. anger at myself mostly for getting myself into that place. letting go means i can see those choices as a part of how i got to be who i am now.

(and as i type this last sentence my children are dancing 'ballet' to the song linked above and i can't be anything but thankful.)

oh boy. where do i begin? longstanding silence aside, things are good around here! we are moving in just under two weeks, work is absolutely insane (in a good way!) and i've been working on lots of side projects as well (seriously what am i thinking?!).

today was our last real holiday in our house. eve's birthday party will be the last hurrah next weekend then we are closing the chapter on this little house that has loved us so well.

looking through the very few pictures i took today of our easter celebrations i laughed at this one. it is so telling of their personalities. lily already dressed to the 9's for the day in pink. eve wearing whatever in the world it is she is wearing (clearly following her own unique sense of style) and annie is along for the ride in halloween footie jammies- just happy to be included.

my three. i couldn't love them any more than i do right this moment!



after a day of packing and hanging out at home, we headed downtown for our church's grillout with the homeless. it is a semi-monthly event year-round but a tradition on easter. the girls enjoyed themselves for about an hour before the lack of food (sorry, i wasn't going to let them cut in line for a burger in front of people who may have not had a hot meal in a while).

it was fun while it lasted though. lily danced a jig with a crazy bearded guy. annie begged for peanuts from a homeless guy on crutches. eve danced to her own music as usual (which was proven when the band stopped playing and she danced on!). i'm sad we didn't get to stay longer, but we were there long enough for communion and to share hugs with friends.

we ended up pinch hitting with a spaghetti dinner at home and got the girls in bed a good half hour before their usual bedtime. note to easter bunny: no candy in next year's basket. we seem to have paid the price for their giant sugar crash all afternoon :)

i hope your easter was memorable and meaningful. he is risen!

i was sitting at a client's house amazed by her sweetly behaved 5 year old twins when i spied a sticker chart in the hallway. i asked the kiddos about it and they excitedly said 'its our HAPPY HEART CHART!'

i asked mom more about it and she told me that when the kids started getting older, she wanted to tackle the attitude that starts to pop up along with their molars :) around 4 my struggles with lily started to be more about HOW she obeys, not IF she obeys. at one point a few weeks ago she actually crossed her arms and gave a loud 'humpf!' when she didn't want to do what i asked.

the chart is about spirit, about not just obeying but doing so with a positive, happy heart! needless to say i went to the store for posterboard and stickers and made two identical 'happy heart charts' and got lily and eve schooled in the wonders of a sticker chart immediately. we practiced a few common requests on my behalf (ie. can you please take your shoes upstairs and put them away?) and role played what their responses might look like with a grumpy attitude and then with a happy heart. eve particularly liked the over the top grumpy answers :)

both girls got on board and have been super excited to earn stickers. i have a 'surprise' box (aka old shoe box) that they can select one item from upon gaining 10 stickers and both girls chose candy necklaces as their first reward. i remind them often that we are ALL still learning to 'obey all the way, right away, with a happy heart'.

the proof is in the pudding- here is eve tonight with her booty. she earned 10 stickers this week!

(part 2 of ?)

the first night in haiti i took maybe the coldest shower of my life. we're not talking just 'not warm', we're talking 'was this water steeping in ice before it came through the shower head'? starting the mental list of things to be thankful for... 1) traffic laws 2) hot water heaters

we spent our saturday at the yaveh shamma orphanage, run by pastor gaetan (who has been dubbed 'best smile in haiti' and he deserves it!). we pulled up in our van outside the gated walls and my heart was in my throat. we have been sponsoring one of the children at the orphanage and the thought of meeting her and her friends had already brought me to tears several times before even leaving on our trip.

from the moment the gate rolled back we were swarmed by little hands, hugs, tugs, smiles, looks of yearning for love and affection. it was breathtaking, literally. i was glad to have on sunglasses so i didn't have to pretend i wasn't crying. i had at least 4-5 girls holding my hands, arms, waist pretty much the entire visit. if i could have just stayed there all week i am pretty sure that would have suited me just fine. looking around at their little faces full of hope and love, recognizing the little smiles from families at church who sponsor them, i was beside myself.

it is the overall emotion of that day along with the little moments of showing the kids pictures of my girls and hearing their sweet voices learn the names 'lileh, eef, anneh' that i will hold onto. their stories are heartbreaking but hopeful and we will continue to do what we can to improve life and potential at yaveh shamma.

sunday we spent the morning at church. i have never attended a service in another language and i spent a lot of time observing the attendees, the details. i was blessed to witness the positive affects of a microloan on one of the families at church and see other micro loans given out. the smile on his face when he held the check that his paintings earned him- this wasn't charity, not a hand-out. this was money he earned that will support his wife and child. it was priceless.

the hardest part of transcribing any of this is that the experience is in the details. it is in the people you pass on the side of the street selling produce, the smells and sights as you drive through town, the little orphan boy one pew over trying to capture your attention during a sermon in creole, the smiles and stories of everyone you meet. it is in the beauty and hope of this country that is so close to ours.

we left church one day last fall and looked at each other and i think i said something like 'i really want you to go to haiti' and kevin said something like 'i really want to go. i really want you to come with me'.

so we made it happen. it was a clear decision- we were not worried or uncertain. it was one of the clearest callings we have experienced and because of that i was excited, anxious, READY. we chose the next planned trip, just 3 short months away and didn't have much time to fundraise or prepare. in hindsight i think that was a good thing.

the morning we spent traveling to port au prince was probably the most fun we have had in quite some time. just laughing and joking with each other felt like a vacation in so many ways. by the time we made it to haiti we were already enjoying the group we traveled with. we didn't know any of our teammates until we arrived- another blessing in disguise.

our crew consisted of three married couples and 5 guys. a missionary, a faith blogger, a musician, a photographer, a techie, a firefighter, a teacher, a soccer referee, a pastor, a stylin mom, and me.

we were in the country a whole 15 minutes when we saw a woman die in the airport of what seemed like natural causes. the cultural differences were suddenly very apparent. the next cultural difference was quickly presented in the form of traffic. trust me, anyone who complains about austin traffic has never driven in port au prince.

when we made it to the pastor's house that would be our home for the week we felt so thankful and well taken care of. the girls' room was fairly empty with just 3 of us. truthfully we were all such different gals, but we got along famously. we stayed up late the first night laughing and talking and it felt like one part summer camp, one part college dorm room. i just know i was feeling thankful knowing i had these two amazing women with me for the week.

every person we met had an amazing story. our translators, our hosts, our cooks, our pastors. i just loved listening to each of them. we were there in haiti not to come with answers or to show haitians how to do things, but to be the students and supporters of the wonderful leaders already working so hard at improving life in haiti. it was our gift to be in the presence of such thoughtful and gifted leaders and to be a small part of helping them achieve their vision.

this is my first attempt at putting any of this into words. i will keep writing when i have time and space. for now babies are crying which means i am back in reality and i have to go be a mom. and this makes me even more thankful that for those 7 days in haiti i got to be so much more than a mom for just a week.

honkey tonk eve

eve understandably loves son volt's 'tear stained eye' since the chorus mentions 'saint genevieve'. i love that she doesn't know the words to any songs on the radio but this one (and honkey tonk is probably only on the radio in austin!)

walking down the hallway at church this morning, jen hatmaker held my arm to stop me and said 'i really want to hear about your trip to haiti'. i gave her probably the most honest answer i've given anyone so far and just told her i haven't even really talked to my sister about it. that the whole experience seemed too big still. that it would be somehow not fair to dumb it down into words.

she smiled and said 'that makes total sense. just keep experiencing it'.

and i am.

i'm so thankful in a million ways for our life and the treasure of this awakening we are experiencing as a family and as a couple. i hope for so much i feel like i can't even wrap my mind around it. so i am choosing to do my best to press in to God in these moments and stay near to Him and keep my heart open and listening.

it is funny the things that made me sad as a mom as my kiddos got older. for some reason, the sharp i-teeth were a hard step for me. there is something about those teeth that make a baby look so much more grown up to me.

it made me so sad each time lily and eve got those teeth. it is a natural progression from the adorable two teeth on bottom first and so on for almost all kiddos. not for annie! it is as if she knew how to make something so small into a new and fun part of motherhood instead of something else to dread about them growing up.

enter my snaggle tooth. girlfriend got all her teeth in the most bizarre and abnormal pattern and you never know which one will break through the gums next. i admit i love her snaggly smile so much. i have tried without success to capture it in the past but i just love this snapshot of her in the bath showing her wonky teeth off with pride!

2012 has been a banner year so far for the b family. we ended 2011 on a good note, leaving behind one of the hardest years so far for our little family. we had more stress than we have experienced before- a new baby, two self-owned businesses, new convictions and callings to process. it was a lot and really, even though we made efforts to live & serve outside of our nuclear family we were mostly serving in an insular fashion.

this year we have committed to change that. heading to haiti together was the first step in a direction i am really excited about. the amazing people we met and served in haiti were inspiring and we are going to continue serving one of the local leaders from austin. we have committed (along with some fabulous folks in our church community group) to raise the funds to build another home similar to the one we worked on during our trip.

the home we are funding is part of a focused initiative to prevent human trafficking on the Haiti/Dominican Republic border. we will build a cluster of homes that will be dedicated to the most vulnerable orphans. each home will cost $6,000 and we will sacrifice in several ways this year to fund the project. we are still figuring out the details, but ideas so far include cutting back on our grocery bill and donating the savings, having a garage sale, donating our birthdays, being sponsored for athletic events, etc. other ideas are appreciated!! :)

so as lent gets underway we are asking ourselves, what will we sacrifice? what is God asking us to do with our lives? who is he calling us to be?

no answers yet, but i am enjoying living within the questions for now.

photo highlights from our trip are on the bloom blog at - http://www.bloomaustin.com/blog/?p=2681

we are home. being with my loved ones here that i missed all week has been all too wonderful.

our trip was restorative. it was burdening.

i'm not sure i'm ready to talk/write about it yet. i'm trying. i will. i appreciate your patience :) in the meantime, you can see pictures (some that need explanation- to come i promise) at flikr - HERE... but consider yourself warned- there are almost 500 images.

and because words are seeming to fail me today, i will refer to a blog post from kisses from katie that says more than i can about how i feel about the trip right now.

someone asked me the other day, "really? is it really as great as you make it sound?i could never do that! are you really happy?" for all of you who wonder, this is my response.

you know what i want sometimes? to go to the mall and spend a ridiculous amount of money on a cute new pair of shoes. i want to sit on my kitchen counter chatting with my girlfriends and eat a whole carton of cookie dough ice cream. i want to watch grey's anatomy, or any tv for that matter. i want to cuddle with my sweet boyfriend. i want to hop in my cute car, go to the grocery store, and pick up any kind of produce i want. i want to wake up in a house with my loving family, not all by myself. i want to go to blockbuster and pick out a movie to watch with my little brother and his friends and i want to cook for them at midnight. i want to spend mindless hours with my best friends talking about boys and fashion and school and life. i want to go to the gym. i want my hair to look nice. i want to wear cut off jean shorts. i want to be a normal teenager living in america. i do.

but. you know what i want more? ALL the time? i want to be spiritually and emotionally filled every day of my life. i want to be loved and cuddled by100 children and never go a day without laughing. i want to wake up to a rooster, my two africa dogs, and a splendid view of the nile river. i want to be challenged endlessly; i want to be learning and growing every minute. i want to be taught by those i teach. i want to share God's love with people who otherwise might not know it. i want to work so hard that i end every day filthy and too tired to move. i want to feel needed, important, used by the Lord. i want to make a differnce and i want to follow the calling that God has planted deep in my heart. i want to give my life away, to serve the Lord with each breath, each second. i want to be here. right here.

moon. where do i even begin? my siblings and i have been emailing this afternoon with classic lines my dad used to ALWAYS say to us as kids. these include but are not limited to:

'now say that back to me, what did i just tell you'
'i don't know isn't an answer. you DO know'
'look at me when i'm talking to you'
'just so we're clear let me say that back to you so that i understand what you're saying'
and so so many more.

despite his somewhat *achem* unorthodox parenting skills, we really are three very lucky kids. one of the things that stands out most about my dad is the way he loves my mom. you'd be hard pressed to find two people that are more different but so compatible at the same time. i remember his notes on her bathroom counter in the morning (always on index cards) and the way he made sure respecting her was our #1 priority as a family.

i can't wait until the day my kids torture me over email with all the ridiculous lines they tired of hearing as kids. because that will mean i did a pretty good job or they were at least listening at some point.