I better make sure Shayne adds that to his list of requirements to date his daughter someday-
“Must have cute hair.”

= = ~ = = ~ = =

It was a cloudy, damp fall afternoon here.
Late in the day the clouds broke and some sunlight came spilling through the windows.
I was taking a few pictures of Reese by the back door and Emma sat down beside her…
I liked how the light reflected on her face, so turned to snap some of her too.

I’m not a great photographer in the sense that I really don’t know what I’m doing~
I’m constantly just turning and clicking things and seeing what different modes or settings will do…
so each time I happen to get some shots that sorta capture what I was trying to I find myself a bit surprised and… happy!   
I like the artistic side of photography but hate the technical.
course, I know to be better at it artistically you gotta know the technical stuff.. it just gives me a head ache is all.

Something that I’d kinda forgotten all about was sponge curlers…
Remember those things?? The torture of trying to sleep on them!
I saw some at Wal-Mart yesterday and decided they might be a time saver for Sunday mornings…
maybe they make them more spongy now cause Emma didn’t complain at all about wearing them.
And this morning it was so simple to just take them out, finger through, and she was set.

The package I bought has all different sizes in it~
I’m going to try some on my hair one of these nights.
We’ll see how that goes.

{my little nail biter}

= = ~ = = ~ = = 
 

I’ve been reading through the book, Sacred Parenting again and just eating it up.
You know one of those books you start off underlining all the parts that stand out to you…
then, realize a chapter or two in that every sentence in the book is underlined!!

Here’s some of my favorite things from what I’ve re-read so far::

“Why does parenting offer such a potent pathway to personal growth and reflection? The process of raising children requires skills that God alone possesses, and we are decidedly not God….”

“Parenting regularly reminds us of our absolute humanity….”

“While I count raising children as one of the most profoundly meaningful and rewarding things I’ve ever done, it also has humbled me, frustrated me, and at times completely confounded me. I could never write a book about how to raise a toddler or teen , because in many ways I still don’t have a clue!!”

“Parenting is like an airline emergency. Before takeoff, every plane passenger is instructed that if the oxygen masks come down, parents should put on their own mask first before attending to their kids. Why? Because in an emergency, kids need their parent to be able to think clearly and act effectively. If we don’t take in oxygen, our thinking will grow fuzzy, and then our kids – dependent on us to get it right – will ultimately suffer.

What is true in the air physically is equally true on the ground spiritually. If we neglect our own “spiritual oxygen” – our walk with God – our motivations will become polluted. Our ability to discern, empathize, encourage, and confront will waste away. We must see parenting as a process through which God purifies us – the parents – even as He shapes our children.”

-And I love this story. I think we all probably have one that’s very similar…
a time we can look back on as our “turning point” in parenting.
 
“I knew the rules had changed just a few weeks after the birth of our oldest daughter. We were driving south to Oregon when we stopped at a restaurant to get a bite to eat. At one time in my life, my favorite food on earth was a Dairy Queen Blizzard. I just knew that the creator of this fine confection had to be a Christian, because I thought it would take nothing less than the Holy Spirit’s inspiration to come up with anything that tasted as good as and M&M Blizzard.

We ordered our burgers and fries, and I had my Blizzard. We took it outside on a sunny day, and at exactly that moment our daughter had her once-every-three-day diaper blowout. Our first born, as a baby, liked to “save it up.” She preferred to wait until we were on our way to church, had just sat down for dinner, had just given her a bath, or some other convenient moment before she expunged the previous seventy-two hours’ worth of digestive effort.

I remember the helpless feeling. Cold fries don’t taste very good, and melted Blizzards lose a lot – yet I knew I had a good ten to fifteen minutes worth of work ahead of me. Because this baby did it all at once, changing her meant not just a new diaper but a veritable bath and full change of clothing. And we were on the road.

“Don’t just stand there,” Lisa said. “Help me!”

“But -” I looked at my fries, already wilting with a shelf life of about ten minutes. I stared forlornly at my Blizzard, teasing my tongue with its promise, yet already looking as though it were about to start boiling in the hot sun. I put the food bag on top of the car and went to work.

Life had changed, indeed. It may sound like a small sacrifice to you – and even now, as I look back a decade and a half later, it seems insubstantial – but it marked a major turning point for this then twenty-five-year old. I was learning to put someone else’s needs ahead of my own. Little did I know that I had begun the spiritually transformative journey called – Parenting.”

If it was going to be easy to raise kids, it never would have started with something called labor.

have a great week… wow! hard to believe it’s already October. where has this year gone?