Fave Five Friday

Eyes wide open.

It's amazing what new, beautiful things we see with eyes wide open.

I admit many days I walk around with blinders on and fists clinched, unwilling to receive the blessings offered me.

Sometimes it's the seemingly insignificant things that open us up, make us ready to receive.

It all started with last week's post on Fave Five Friday.  Saturday I began watching, waiting with anticipation for the wonderful, funny, humbling graces I would write about for the upcoming week.  That's all it took for me to be overwhelmed with the goodness placed before me each day.

Fresh eyes and expectation.

They started falling so fast I couldn't keep up.  Before I had time to bathe the blessing with thanks and praise to the One who gave it I would see another.  A butterfly kiss, hearing 'I love you' for the first time from Baby, teaching quarter notes to Sweet Yahoo at the piano, pulling Little Middle's first teeth, Ninja developing a sweet love of God's Word.  They are all around.  They continue on in the night as I am hushed to sleep by memories of giggles and games of Hungry Hungry Hippo and love letters written in crayon.  

We definitely have seasons in our lives.  Some are defined by grief and guilt, loss and loneliness.  But these days I get to file away as seasons of celebration.  Fresh beginnings and his mercies new every morning.  That He makes all things beautiful in His time.  A glimmer of the glory that will be revealed to us That Day.

I hope for you that these are days of celebrations. But if not, if your nights are plagued with tear drenched pillows and pleads for shimmers of hope, be encouraged that these troubles, these sometimes overwhelming, jaw-clinching, toe-curling troubles are not scars on our lives but the sharing in His sufferings...the Refiner's fire....Glory preparation.

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 

Philippians 3:10-11

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 

1 Peter 1:6-7

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,  as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

So here they are.  My Fave Five.

Date night with Sweet Yahoo

I got to take Sweet Yahoo for a girls' night out to see Beauty and the Beast.  We have that movie at home, but she desperately wanted to see the Tangled short at the beginning of it.  Unfortunately, we ran late and missed it.  But Sweet Yahoo lived up to her name and never complained.  We laughed at each other wearing 3D glasses, enjoyed hot chocolate, and shared some popcorn.  And on the way home I was blessed to be able to answer some great questions she had about Heaven and Jesus. I love that girl. 

Here she is practicing the piano.

 

I covet her posture.

Always the lady with her legs crossed.

She started showing interest several months ago and I held off finding a professional to teach her.  Instead she and I would sit down together sporadically and I would show her what I knew.  We worked through a book together.

After I saw how her interest never waned I found a wonderful woman to give lessons.  Thursday was her first and she was darling.  She was all pink cowgirl boots and denim skirt and nervous smile walking in there.  It was wonderful.

Baby Yahoo's Firsts


1st real game of Hungry Hungry Hippo

What I love about love is that it sometimes jumps out and catches you right out of the blue.  I was delighted this week when Baby Yahoo gave me my first 'I love you'  without being prompted, prodded, coerced and bribed.  What is most precious about it is that he said it while I was going to get him a diaper.  He was laying on the floor, naked, legs hiked up in the air and he blurted out 'I wuv oo, Maaaameee.'

Melt my heart.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of that.  ;)


In other happenings.....

You know I love my 3 boys.  But every now and then I get an itching for another girl.  And since the Honey ain't going to allow that, sometimes I dress Baby up and play pretend.

Um, I don't think he's feeling it.

Definitely time for a haircut.  Ninja said he looked like George Washington.

Oops

Little Middle had a loose tooth.  We worked on this for days, despite him being sick.

So I pulled it.

Um, oops.  Wrong tooth.  Let's try this again.

Score!

Rest

Although I've been loving some of the productivity that has been happening around here lately, I was thankful this week that we had a few days of rest.  Nothing on the calendar, short to-do lists, evenings at home.  This gives us more time for WWE smackdowns in the living room, some mean games of tag  and hide-n-seek, and nightly Nascar races via Mario Kart.   And when the day is over, my Carpe Diam Yahoos collapse.

Sometimes before they even make it all the way onto the bed.

Because He Loves Me

 I got this book this week and love it.  It is by Elyse Fitzpatrick.  The subtitle is the best:

How Christ transforms our daily life.  

I desperately want my daily life to be transformed. 

I'm just getting started, but a nugget of wisdom from it that I have been chewing is that I feel I use Christ as a means of self-improvement.  Christianity is not about self-improvement.  It is about complete surrender, abandon, dying of self and being transformed.  This can only be done by the transforming power of Christ.  And, most potently, when we learn to see how the gospel is a part of our day to day life, not a one time event. 


Well, that's it.  My top 5 of kazillion things I was thankful for this week. 

Remember, keep those eyes wide open.