Living a Miraculous Weekend

For the last couple of days, my phone was beeping and vibrating in a game of text messages back and forth to a friend who had graciously offered us FREE tickets to Legoland (a place we’ve been wanting to take the kids but haven’t quite yet justified the price tag) as I was in the middle of a tug-o-war with myself. Yes we’re definitely going, no the kids aren’t feeling well, maybe they’ll be better by Saturday. It was a tear-filled morning before kindergarten on Friday and the return to tears that night that settled the final text, we can’t go tomorrow. Instead of Legos and coasters, it’s been a Saturday of recovering from the beginning-of-school bug that’s going around while we get in cat naps and cover our babes in essential oils.

And you know what? It was really good. I almost feel guilty saying that… After talking with friends this week that have lost a loved one and have been facing so much through it all. After visiting with another friend who has spent the week in the hospital with her just months old beautiful baby boy; a little one who has been in and out of the hospital for a over a month because doctors haven’t figured out what to do, and in the midst of it all, while my heart hurts for her, we just love, and stand with them, and pray and trust that God really is bigger.

So instead of waving hello to guilt and settling into it’s big and plush cushions, I’m waving goodbye, knowing that each and every moment, even the ones filled with snotty tissue and eucalyptus baths, are ones to cherish, really cherish. I consider myself one who embraces even the smallest of moments, and then something comes along to remind me of how precious life is and I have to reevaluate. Sometimes the most beautiful things can come out of the dark. And sometimes, those dark moments make the good ones, the sweet ones we have with our family, look so much sweeter.

“There are two ways to live your life, one is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ~Albert Einstein

I choose the latter.

So please, if you haven’t yet today, tell someone you love them, sing a song no matter how off-key it may be, squeeze a little tighter with your next hug. Live like everything is a miracle.

In the meantime, it’s been awhile since I’ve done a 10 things post of some of our favorite enjoying moments, so pull up a chair and I’ll pour you a mug of hot spiced cider and have an orange helenium flower for your hair. After all, today is beginning of Autumn, and that fact needs to be celebrated!

And since I’ve got lists for my lists around the house full of home DIY projects, decor ideas and cleanup to-dos for #PROJECTdecor… so much so that now my husband just replies, “I adore you, but no thank you,” when I asks if he wants to hear another idea, let’s just consider this an anti-list with what we’ve been enjoying lately in no particular order, with many photos and few words.

The Little Teacher

She excitedly asks, “Brayden, are you ready for school?!” And then before he even has time to respond, she’s writing out the alphabet to teach each letter to little brother. He sits and repeats.

House Guests

Birthday week rewind… Internet, this is Amanda, our good friend, babysitter and child entertainer from Michigan. She flew down for Aliyah’s birthday week, and though it was torture, we kept it a secret from the kids until they saw her in the airport terminal. Surprise!

Nothing like bubble prezzies from Amanda’s suitcase.

Birthday Morning Tradition

A candle lit breakfast. Though these candles don’t last long.

Low Tide

Our favorite time at the beach comes when the tide rolls out low and kisses the coastline goodbye as it reveals plenty of soft, rippled sand in it’s absence. The Gulf is slowly cooling from it’s almost too-warm temps to the perfect mix of refreshing and calming.

Tracks in the sand…

This is why.


Love notes in the sand from my man = Heart smiles.

Quite the collection of hermit crabs.

And afternoons cradled in this salty embrace are a soft transition into evening’s daily show.

Craft Bombs

As soon as September hits the calendar, I can already feel the effects that Fall brings with the turn of the page. Craft lovin’ starts to run warm through my blood and my mind starts racing with plans for the holidays, birthday parties included.

This is what happens to my house the day before a birthday party, when a craftastic bomb goes off. 

Dusk

And the mesmerizing beauty of rolling waves and my wee ones bobbing along the coast is like a box of rainbow unicorns, too good to be true. Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I live here. I live here.

Happy first day of the week! Enjoy the miracles that life brings you this each day, even if you have to pull that unicorn out of the box and wake her up. Just do it.