"This Is The Thing" - Fink

There something about a brand new discovery, especially when it pertains to music, that can instantly dredge up all that was dug deep down inside. Unfurling, crawling and climbing, creeping its way up into your consciousness, all over again.
Music has a way of overcoming your seeming subconsciousness, of grabbing with a vice grip hold, overloading every last one of your senses. Music has an incredible power, unmatched by any (except maybe smell), it has yet to be stifled, be forgotten.

Music is the thing. Music is everything.

nutshell.

"My Love" - Sara Bareilles 

summing up our big day (top "5")

caffeinated electrifying jittery nervous energy.

reunion of our lives.

joy, amplified exponentially.

taking hold & letting go.

quiet strength. assurance. faithfilled leap into a future unknown.

Sunday Snapshot: firsts

Yesterday my sister-in-law (Annie) and I threw my other sister-in-law (Maggie) her very first shower for her very first little one. This will be my very first nephew and it was also the very first shower I have ever helped throw. It was also the first time I've seen Maggie since she has begun to "look" pregnant. I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas whenever I think about my nephew being born. It's that childlike excitement I was kind of worried you grew out of as you got older. The kind that fills up your whole stomach and you can't help but chatter and sing really loud just thinking about them. I've just realized that God saves that feeling for us as adults for those really big, life changing, joy-filled moments so that we don't take them for granted. He's pretty smart like that.

Annie and I decided to use baby books to decorate with. Considering that my future children are pretty much my number one favorite thing to daydream about I knew exactly which books I wanted to get for my little nephew, the same ones I loved growing up and the same ones I imagine reading to our kids one day. :) I was only able to find two of them yesterday, but it's already got my mind turning about a few used book store visits in my near future. (When did and why are children's books so goshdarned expensive now??? $8??)

"Goodnight Moon" and "The Poky Little Puppy"

I also made the cupcakes. :) She is decorating his room in a nautical theme so I had fun decorating with sailboats and greens and blues.

And of course no baby shower (or blog entry) would be complete without my two favorite little ones making an appearance.

Sportin' Aunt Gie Gie's boots

And then Isabella took some time to take a few artistic photos of her own. I gave each one it's own title for posterity's sake (whatever that means). :)

"Emerging Aunt Lauren" - Isabella, age 4

"Dino at my Feet" - Isabella, age 4

"Princess Shoes (Ariel view)" - Isabella, age 4

It's hard to explained just how blessed we are as a family. Or just how adorable my sister-in-law is pregnant with her cowboy boots on. :)

I am so thankful for all of the little ones and the little ways God continues to whisper his intent for me in life (as a mother). I also know that as much as I would like to expedite the process, he is also making it glaringly clear that we've both still got a little growing up to do (oh you know and a little schooling to finish).

Jason's parents came to spend the night with us last night and his mom and I spent some time talking about everything, including my parenting dreams. I talked to her about my dreams of adopting, of overseas adoption and special needs adoption and I can't help but be continually thankful for how simple the seed that was planted by a little blog called Ni Hao Ya'll has grown in my heart to be an assuredly hopeful truth in our future. Again, funny how God works in the most mysteriously simple ways. I also accidentally spilled the beans about one of our baby names...yes sometimes I get a little carried away with the excitement of possibility. But it was one of those serendipitous moments that could not be ignored, and the look on her face and truthful assurance in her voice as she spoke of the testimony in the name made me even more sure than ever of God's working in our hearts...

The musings of a joyful girl (who often thinks a little too much)

 "Keep Breathing" - Ingrid Michaelson

I do believe, and I hope you'd agree that our minds are the strongest of our assets.
They decide and determine each of our movements from birth to our very last breath.
They are the means by which we conclude just who we dream to be, and through which these dreams are originally devised.
They are where we formulate the first syllables of the words we've heard;
where we've spent the first year stumbling through the muddled mess of baby speak to find expression, in ourselves.
This mushy mess of mater is where we hide our darkest secrets, where we go to pray, and somehow we manage to keep in there a memory of each and every other we've ever been, or seen, or wished to know.
The most incredible thing, to me, is that sometimes a memory, a want, or a yearning can come on suddenly...so powerfully as if out of thin air and overtake every single cell that might have been just moments before consumed in something else. How a scent, a sight, or a single note of a single song can elicit such an immediate and seemingly intuitive response that we have little choice but to acknowledge and...if we close our eyes long enough, relive it. Our simple minds also have the incredible ability to overcome the hardest of hardships; to shut down if it becomes too much for our meager bodies to handle; to protect us from the ignorance of others or better yet from ourselves.
It is our most precious container. A place where sometime things get a little jumbled up in there and a cloud of confusion is sensed amidst the normalcy of life. We sense that things are just a little bit askew.
In there we suddenly become violently aware of our bodies ability to live, and the beat of our heart, the pacemaker of thought, starts to race and likewise our thoughts do the same. And sometimes it decides that we are suddenly afraid of breath, because with it comes the reality of world that just does not seem to correlate with what we've thought of as right. Because inside our minds is ingrained the truth of how things ought to be.
Inside the mess of gray there are clearly written blacks and whites (the wrongs and the rights) and although we were taught from an early age to share and use kind words; there is some things deeper within our synapses that causes such an uncomfortable churning in our stomach, such a twinge in the muscle fibers of our heart that we know that we were meant for something so much more than this. And that even when all is right within the world, that it is still unwell.
Somehow, even when we cannot see or hear or speak of the uneasiness. Somehow, somewhere inside these brains of ours we know that this beautiful Earth was intended for something much more than it's current use.

We have the power to engage in life in such a way as God intended. To really give of ourselves completely, to everyone else. To really imprint permanently, positively in a way that those who come after us will be unable to ignore. To use our greatest assets in such a way that those around us know exactly what that uneasiness inside themselves in. So that they may not be lacking in the truth of Love in all of its capacities. Because we have an infinite ability to give Love and spread Love because His Love itself is infinite.

oh life.

"The Gambler" - fun. 

I think it's pretty incredible that you can meet someone and that an initial kinetic energy, a quick catch of the eye, and a subtle touch of skin as you share a laugh can turn into something so solid--something so sure that they promise to take care of you despite every one of your short comings and you are so sure of that promise that you take their name. From the moment we are born we take our father's name with the assured promise that our daddies will be just that, our daddies no matter what. Through all of the late nights spent rocking us back to sleep to the harsh words and spiteful actions of the teenage years. The love and security of a daddy is something that cannot be compared. And still we meet the one who carries us safely out of that childhood security blanket and into an awakened understanding of self. Of self with that someone else. And you finally understand just how, or atleast you hope to, your mom and dad loved each other so much that they were capable of creating and loving you. Because the loved contained between the two, between the ones who share a name, is just too much not to create something bigger and better than the two of them alone...and so the sacred cycle of life continues and two become one that then "once upon a time" become three.

Mission Statement

I will do this.
"Secrets" - One Republic

I will fulfilled, for once, a desire laid deep inside that I've yet to push myself towards.
"Don't Rain On My Parade" - Glee Cast

I will accomplish this, through every drop of sweat, every stitch in my side, & every cramp in my lung.
"Don't Stop Me Now" - Queen

I will prove this to myself.
"I Want Something To Live For" - The Rocket Summer

I will prove the breadth of my strength.
"Pride" - Syntax

I will do this for her. Because she never had the chance; her joy has permanently infected my soul.
"Street Lights" - Kayne West

I will banish all laziness and self-deprecating thoughts; I will embrace the beauty of me.
"Do Better" - Say Anything
 
I will accomplish all that is set before me with a renewed zest for life.
"Soldier" - Ingrid Michaelson

I will become the woman I would hope for my children to have.
"Psalm 145" - Shane & Shane

I am going to thrive on the blessing of each and every breath. Starting now.
"Hills and Valleys" - The Rocket Summer

wrinkles

...dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency
not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face
and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...
- Walt Whitman

Such a true argument for why plastic surgery is completely unnecessary. I have always welcomed scars eagerly, battle wounds to be proud of. I look forward to having "laugh lines" and wrinkles around my smile. I look forward to ever increasing the number of furrow wrinkles on my forehead from many an intense, intentional conversation. I cannot wait for the wrinkles to deepen in the corners of my eyes from the facial explosions that my life will bring.
I cannot wait to grow in love, grow my family, responsibilities. I cannot wait to grow my faith & my trust.
I cannot wait to grow old and live.