A life of legacy

One of my dearest and closest friends recently blogged about doing something of "significance" with her life.  It resonated with me.  While I know that my girls are significant (and teaching them to be awesome, God-fearing women is a true calling), I know there's more.


I was reminded of that again when we found out that Brian's Aunt Joan had passed away.  She was truly a special lady.  She was an ordained minister with a passion for Christ like most never see.  She had an incredible prayer life! She is the reason that so many folks know of Christ's love and sacrifice.  She loved her family just as passionately.  She had a significant influence in Brian's life and I'm grateful for it!  I only got to know her for ten years, but her legacy will live on in me and many others.  She made sure that there were folks behind her that would carry the torch. 


She was a woman of prayer and although I pray, I know there's a need for someone to step into her shoes and pray even more.  They are big shoes.  By God's grace, I will make sure her life's mission will continue for generations to come.  


When I finally reach the gates of heaven, I want those left behind to carry my legacy too.  I want them to see my shoes as "big." 


What kind of legacy are you leaving? One of pessimism? One of anger or doubt or fear? One of being miserly? Unapproachable? Or are you leaving a legacy of love? Christ's love.  Are you leaving a legacy of selflessness and prayer? 


I want to leave a legacy.  


Lyrics to Nichole Nordemann's "Legacy"

I don't mind if you've got something nice to say about me
And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
You could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all who's who and so-n-so's that used to be the best
At such'n'such ... it wouldn't matter much

I won't lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an 'Atta boy' or 'Atta girl'
But in the end I'd like to hang my hat on more besides
The temporary trappings of this world

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
A child of mercy and grace who
blessed your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy

I don't have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthly list of all that I enjoy
It's an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy

Not well traveled, not well read, not well-to-do or well bred
Just want to hear instead, "Well Done" good and faithful one...

Joan Hack

September 22, 1941- June 8, 2010

Forgive me...

Sorry we've been MIA around here, but we've been playing....

...at the zoo....

and hanging out with friends....

Enjoying the summer...

at the beach of course...

and being silly too of course!

Hope you're enjoying your summer too! 

Daddy-o

I am so blessed to have a LOT of incredible fathers in my life.

My grandfathers
I had two grandfathers that loved the Lord, prayed for me, with me, and gave selflessly for years.  My Papa (dad's dad) passed away a year and a half ago.  I still think of him often and thank the Lord for his example in my life.  He used to call and ask if he and my nana could take me out to lunch when I was in college (they only lived 30 minutes away), and when they arrived, he would take a "quick look" at my car to make sure it was taken care of.  Of course if anything needed fixing, he took care of it right away and always left my tank on "full." What a blessing he was.

My other grandfather is 92 and no longer lives in Southern California near us.  But I know he still prays daily and is available whenever I need to call.  He has always been the spiritual pillar for our family and even at 92, he embodies that role.

Both were shining examples of family love, and commitment to marriage.
I'm so glad that my girls got to know both of my grandfathers.

My dad
Even though he made us eat meatloaf with too much nutmeg in it when he first started cooking, he has come a long way and is actually an incredible cook. :) I call him with my food dilemmas frequently.
He loves his family and gives so freely!
He's an avid sports fan, and is the luckiest man alive when it comes to Fantasy Football! (ha! love you dad!)
He's madly in love with my three blessings and that brings me more than joy than I can put into words.
He took the first plane he could after Reagan was born in Virginia.  Love at first sight.

He's stubborn and outgoing and hilarious (I know...the apple didn't fall very far from the tree...)
Thank you Dad for all the love you give!

My husband
I know my husband is an incredible father, but what I love is when others point it out to me as well. I love that others can see it too!

He's a very "involved" daddy and loves all of his girls so much! I'm so grateful for his example to our family.  He works tirelessly, with a great work ethic, leads our home spiritually, and has successfully turned our girls into sports fans! :D
His smile still melts me.
I love you honey!

God bless all the fathers today! In a time where the term "absentee father" is used frequently, thank you for sticking around and leading your children in the right direction.

Happy Father's Day!!

We're growing stuff!

We're growing stuff around here!

No, not this stuff.

But we are growing this stuff:

We were able to enjoy the first "fruits" of our garden.  

The peas and squash and lettuce were absolutely delicious!!

I can't wait for our peppers and watermelon to ripen as well.

It just so happens we're growing these too:

We are enjoying our summer and looking forward to company next week! 

Friday Funnies

We've had a busy week! The girls have enjoyed having their Yaya with them since Daddy has been gone.  Admittedly I haven't been writing down their quips this week but I do have 3 to share that I remember:
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Our garden has been growing by leaps and bounds and we've been able to enjoy some of the veggies already.  Yesterday Skylar grabbed a piece of lettuce and put it in her mouth.  Reagan said, "Skylar, you can't eat it until we wash it." Skylar said, "but I thought it was organic." Reagan replied, "It IS organic. But that only means we don't use chemicals. It doesn't mean we don't have bug poop." Then they both busted up laughing.
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For weeks now Bailey has been saying "SHREAD A BILE!" when she brings us her children's Bible.  I think she's going to be a fire and brimstone preacher one day. This morning she brought her Bible to me and said "Shread a bile?" I said "sure" and she said "Thank you GOD!" :D
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Last night Bailey said "I hear a gunk" (skunk). I said, "You hear a skunk or you smell a skunk?" She said, "No, I hear a gunk." Then I asked her what a "gunk" sounds like and she said "quack quack, ew!" :D

Have a blessed weekend!

Update on a project

Remember when I got all inspired and gave you a sneak peak at my hairbrained idea for curtains?
Well, I forgot to show you the nearly finished product. I couldn't wait any longer.  Having a plain white curtain hanging up just looked too blah for me.  So I took the few vintage hankies I had and attached them.  I'm thinking four more would be perfect but we'll see.  After I got it all done, I thought it needed more color so I tied some red grosgrain ribbon on top.  Voila!

I probably should have waited to take pictures until evening when the sun was not coming through the sliding glass door in order to get better shots, but I'm sure I'll have more to post later.  

I also realize I forgot to take a picture of the whole curtain opened up because we rarely have it pulled all the way across (whoops!!).  You'll have to take my word for it...they look great! :) It's a fun splash of color and adds to the vintage-y feel I was going for in the kitchen.  

Friday Funnies

Whew! Last week of school! Last day of school today! I'm so excited for our Summer!
The girls did not disappoint in giving me some doozies for our Friday Funnies this week.  And in case you were wondering, I text them to myself all week so I don't forget them.  This week I sent myself a text with one of the girls' quotes and then my phone beeped signaling that I had a text.  My first thought was "ooh, a text!" until I realized that it was from myself.  :D

Here ya go! Enjoy!
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Bailey still gets quite confused about phrases sometimes.  This week she has asked for "piggytails" when she actually means a "piggyback ride" and "piggybacks" for her hair when she means "piggytails."

She also asked if she could put on a "suitcase" at one point when she wanted to go swimming.
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Bailey has been standing at the back door and screaming "A SNAKE!!!!!!" about twelve times a day.  Thankfully she has never been right.
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While we were driving to the store one day Bailey was singing in the back of the van (that is not uncommon for her), but what she was singing is what cracked me up.
"It's a pillow...it's a pet....it's a pillowpet!" (Advertising obviously works!)
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Reagan was helping me make a quilt for her teacher as a gift and clipping all the threads for me. As we were sitting at the dining room table this is the conversation we had:
Reagan: I love clipping threads. I could do this all day.
Me: Well, there are places where kids sew all day long.
Reagan: (excited) REALLY? Can we go there?!!
(I guess I should stop joking that I'm running my own little sweatshop).
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I made a mistake with the math for the quilt so my seams did not match up very well.  While I was sewing I mentioned that I had messed up the math.  Reagan said, "It's ok mommy.  I mess up in math sometimes too." :D
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Reagan was "teaching" Skylar how to read words from her first grade "sight words" book.  She would show her a word and then have Skylar sound it out.  If Skylar got it wrong, Reagan would say "No, it's actually pronounced like this.  That word doesn't follow the rules."  After a few times of this conversation Skylar said "There are a lot of words that don't follow the rules." Then she turned to me and whispered, "Are the ones that don't follow the rules, the 'bad' words?" :D

Hope you have a blessed weekend!!

Life on the Reserve

We are a suburban family.  There are over 100,000 people in our city.  Our backyard is landlocked by other backyards.  But you would never know it.  We've been in this house almost a year.  I have recently come to the conclusion that we were misinformed when we bought this house.  Little did I know our house was located in the middle of a wildlife reserve.

We had a chipmunk eating our garden so we had to "relocate" that little critter a couple weeks ago.

Then, we had a bunny find his way into our yard. And then into the girls' playhouse.  And then into a box. (And then he jumped out of the box, over Bailey's head, landed on the patio table, slid off onto a chair, landed on the dog, jumped onto the ground and then ran across the yard where it promptly jumped our six foot fence...but that's a whole other post in and of itself).

You know how I feel about mice.  And fuzzy, black, smiling, spiders that look like mice from a distance.

You may remember how I feel about lizards too.  Not a fan.  Especially when they camp out on my front porch like this behemoth.

He doesn't look scary? Well obviously you can't see him. That's ok...my camera has zoom.

Um, ew! 

And, as if all those little critters weren't bad enough, we had another visitor this past weekend.  I was washing dishes and saw him on the patio.  That's when the freakout started.  I started yelling for Brian and making sure the dogs and the girls were in the house.  Pardon me for not taking pictures of it IN the backyard, but here is a picture of it after Brian caught it.

That's right.  A king snake.  Apparently they are considered "harmless." (Can a snake really be considered harmless when you're a mother and it's close to your babies?!). Brian caught it in an old trash can and then took it down to the creek to release it.  

Needless to say I'm a little paranoid in our backyard now.  I've had my fill of wildlife for a while.  

I miss the bunny.  

Bubble blowing Bub

This weeks theme over at "I heart Faces" is "play."  My kids play all the time but this one wasn't as easy I thought it would be.  There were SO many to choose from!

In the end, I chose one of my nephew (nicknamed Bub) that I haven't shared before.  He was blowing bubbles for the girls on Easter. 

Head over to I Heart Faces and see the other great entries!

Friday Funnies

One more week of school! Woo hoo!!

Here are the funny things I remembered to write down this week.

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Bailey likes to play the Wii Fit and one of her favorite games is the "Birds Eye" where she has to flap her arms up and down to simulate a flying bird.  She is great at the flapping part but she narrates it with "Crap Crap Crap."  Obviously we need to work on her "f's" and "l's".  

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I found a tank top in a bin of my old clothes and gave it to Skylar.  I said, "Here's an old shirt for you Skylar.  It used to be mine when I was your age." To which she replied, "Oh, so it's a REALLY OLD shirt!"

Stinker.  It still looks cute on her.  

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Bailey tore up a bunch of paper and left it on the floor.  Twenty minutes later she came into the room and said "OH NO! Someone make a mess! That's NOT nice!"

I said, "Bailey it was you."

Bailey: "Me? Oh, I sorry. Skylar clean it up." 

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Bailey seems to retain everything she hears.  The other night she started reciting "Eeny Meeny Miny Mo, Catch a Tiger by the Toe...If he hollars let him go.  My mom picked the very best one and it is you!" After she finished it she looked at me and said "Mommy? I the very best one?"

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And my favorite this week....

Reagan and I went to the store and there was a larger lady next to us on an aisle.  She was reaching for some donuts as we passed her and Reagan said "She does NOT need those.  She should go on Biggest Loser.  They would teach her that stuff."  

(Thank the LORD that lady did not hear us because we were out of earshot!)

Have a blessed weekend!

heart and sole

You know I'm a big fan of "I Heart Faces" and love to participate in their weekly photo challenge.  I also love when people do things that are bigger than themselves; for the greater good. 


It just so happens that this week at iheartfaces, they are teaming up with an organization with a passion for the greater good.  It's called Soles 4 Souls.  

So, this weeks theme at I Heart Faces is obviously....feet.  I instantly thought of a recent photo I took of a friend's daughter.  She was baptized at our church and my friend asked me to photograph the event for her.  I got plenty of great shots of the actual baptism, but I loved the shot I got of her feet after she got out of the water.  She was dripping wet and I just thought of the verse "How beautiful are the feet of them.." so I added it to the bottom.

And because there are no restrictions on number of photos this week, I thought I would show you a picture of her actual baptism. Such a beautiful day for a beautiful girl.

Hop on over to I Heart Faces and see a bunch of feet :D

Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 7 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. Soles4Souls has been featured in Runner's World, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic’s Green Guide, and The New York Times. It has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, BBC, CNN and thousands of regional news outlets across North America.