And this is why I love my husband...

In retrospect, I do feel a little badly about screaming. Perhaps it was a tiny bit excessive -- but then, since it made Lamont materialize instantly beside me as I wanted him to, perhaps not.

"What happened?!" He demanded, out of breath, as his anxious face peered into the bathroom mirror beside mine. I pointed, with a trembling finger...

"Is that a gray hair???"

And in that defining moment, folks, he did not roll his eyes, or laugh at me, or any of the things that you all are doing right now (oh yes, I know!). No, he leaned forward and stared into the mirror at the hair in question, studying it very seriously. After I held my breath for an endless moment, he gave his verdict.

"No it's not, it's just a little more blonde than most of your hair, and the light hit it strangely for a second."

I squeaked breathlessly, "Are you sure?"

Once again the serious look, the moment of consideration, and then the confident answer, "Yes, definitely."

So not only do I not have my first gray hair yet (which is really a miracle considering I have three insanely busy children!), but I do have the greatest (and smartest -- look at all the brownie points he just earned!) husband ever. ;-)

On days of summer fun... (picture heavy!)

Until today, we had been finally enjoying some beautiful summer weather -- 80+ degree days and cloudless blue skys, and summer nights that cool down just deliciously enough that you wake up in the morning to find that sometime during the night you'd pulled your blanket over yourself. Since it has been so beautiful, I am willing to temporarily overlook the fact that today it was freezing cold and windy and nobody wants to even think those words on July 20th thank-you-very-much!

We've been spending every free moment outside and I finally just put away the camera because there were too many cute moments to try to capture them all! Here are some from the last week....

Hannah looks like she's standing in chest deep water here, but it's just a shallow splash pool. Yes folks, it's true. My children DO have removable legs. My secret is out!

Daddy+swings=pure joy!

I have video of this too, and the video involves a LOT of excited screaming, and arms and legs waving wildly in the air as she zooms down the hill.

So...this thing? Coolest.Thing.Ever. A total steal at Costco! (Not literally. Do not call the police on us.)

Did you know that plastic inflatable trees need to be watered, too?

She looks so much cuter in my sunglasses than I do. How is this fair?

I know she looks like she's afraid the rainbow is going to crawl around her face and eat her, but she was smiling a fraction of a second before I took this picture, honestly!

So I was going to say something funny here, but instead I've just been sitting here staring at her beautiful face and how happy she is inside and out...love my sunshine girl!

Before the paint was dry, she leaned her cheek on her arm somehow and transferred the mirror image of it there, so she ended up with two butterflies for the price of one. :-)

This is my first summer in years with no babies, just quickly growing girls who are so very busy and excited by life...I am in love with right now!

On receiving hate mail...

I received an angry and unkind comment on my last blog post sometime overnight. It is the first time that has ever happened to me, and while I welcome questions and criticism (and I certainly don't need to be flattered constantly), I was stunned that my musings on my little blog were thought to warrant such a rebuttal. The comment was anonymous, and I'm sorry that it was because I would prefer to be able to pursue a private conversation with the person who left it for me rather than writing publicly about it.

I deleted the comment reflexively. I have dealt with a lot of unwarranted personal attacks and critical spirits over the last few years, and have developed some ingrained responses to those sorts of things -- they all involve shutting it down, shutting it down, shutting it down, and refusing to accept the harsh words into my heart where they can continue to hurt me. So because my fingers flew on the laptop to protect me before my stunned brain had fully registered what I read, the comment is gone and I can now only paraphrase it here. If who are out there, whoever left me that comment, and now angry at the injustice of your words being responded to without the actual quote -- if you still feel that way, leave me the comment again, and I will edit it in here.

The words were something like this, "Who could possibly be immature and arrogant enough to presume all that knowledge? Especially for a Christian -- where is the student of God pursuing humility and grace?"

Dear anonymous person, that was precisely my point. My 20 year old self was immature and arrogant to presume that I knew everything. I have been humbled over the last six years, and that process continues daily, and I now count myself privileged and blessed to have intimate knowledge of the strength and love of Jesus -- and very little else. It was humbling even to write that blog post and to make myself vulnerable as I did, and I hoped it might be an encouragement to others who are also experiencing being taken down a peg (or twenty!) by the realities of life. God meets me there, when I am discouraged by the fresh realization that all my "knowledge" is foolish and vain, and He reminds me of the knowledge that truly counts, which is His love filling my life.

I suppose I can now count this as another humbling experience on the journey of life. :-) And I appreciate the reminder that this is not a private journal, nor shared exclusively with those who know me well and will likely understand my heart even if my words are not as clear as I think they are.

Things I am still learning...that I wish I knew at 20

When I was 2o years old, I got married and started my adult life as a wife and, less than a year later, as a mother. At that point in my life, I knew everything.

I mean it. I was a genius, people. I could tell you the answer to anyone's problem, and I knew exactly what everyone should be doing with their lives. My brilliance didn't stop with other people, either...I knew exactly the best way to live my own life, too.

I knew the best way to parent, from the right way to experience childbirth all the way up to what precise path my children would take after highschool. I knew how to make my babies sleep through the night perfectly, how to potty train them effortlessly, how to teach them to read without breaking a sweat. I knew that if you always discipline your children correctly, they will always obey. I knew how easily I would lose the baby weight and get into perfect shape. I knew how to maintain perfect relationships with everyone in my life, and how to mend relationships if someone else did something to disturb them. I knew what God wanted for my life. I knew what God wanted for my children's lives. I knew what God wanted to see in the church. I knew that I knew more than anyone else did, and that if everyone would just listen to me, we'd all be fine.

Somewhere between 20 and 26, I managed to misplace all that knowledge. If you see it lying around somewhere, would you please return it to me?

I no longer know any of those things with any certainty at all. I have traded in all that knowledge for little gems like, "If you pretend not to smell the dirty diaper in hopes that your husband will give in and change it first, you will regret that tactic when you end up having to cut your baby's clothes off of her later in a futile attempt to change the diaper without getting anything on the floor, the walls, the baby's hair, and your own cute new dress that you just bought at Target."

Now I know things like how few minutes of sleep I can get overnight without actually dying the next day. I know that potty training is a process and no matter that the book says it will teach you to "train your child in less than a day" -- it will still be a process. I know that even with bright children who are eager to learn, teaching someone to read takes for.e.ver. and is not actually something I like to do. I know that losing the baby weight is less important than eating healthily and exercising regularly, and that even if I never again weigh what I did at 20, I will keep working to be healthy because life is easier when I am. I know that disciplining my children is one of the most difficult and relentless things I will ever do, and that despite all my love, consistency, and prayers, the end result is not guaranteed. And I do not know when all three of my children will always sleep all the way through every night.

I do not know how to fix broken relationships. I do know that it is not actually only other people that are to blame for breaking them. I do not know exactly what God wants to see in the church. I do know that He wants to see His love toward others in me.

I know that my life looks absolutely nothing like I expected it to look, and I am beginning to suspect that it never will. And I am so very grateful for that, because I also know now that God is making each step of the journey into exactly what I need it to be.

I know that God is love. I know that His grace is sufficient for me. And this life He has given me -- I know that it is beautiful.

Tiny dancer...

Nine months ago, this was my little Ashley:

She was at her very first dance lesson, excited, but also nervous as could be. There is tension in every line of her body in this picture, and her little nervous feet...so precious.

Yesterday was her dance recital, and my little girl danced around the stage, tapping and twirling and singing her heart out, beaming a sparkling smile the whole time! She has had so much fun in this first year of dance, and loved every second of her recital. We are so proud of her for giving herself to the experience whole heartedly.

Waiting backstage...and waiting...and waiting...I think there were 16 dances in the recital, and Ashley was only in one of them, so there was a lot of waiting. This is one of her babysitters, who was also in the recital, and came to the rescue with VeggieTales on her ipod. Rhegan, I love you!!

Also, in that picture Ashley's hair isn't curled yet, but I curled it, and it seriously took at least 45 minutes. It was a little bit ridiculous. Her hair is about three times as long and thick as the other girls in her class!

We were all SO proud of our beautiful Ashley! Ok, except for Hannah, who apparently wasn't proud at all. She was more like, "Ok, someone said we're going to have dinner next. Right? Are we going to have dinner next? Next, as in soon??"

This picture just speaks for itself... *LOVE*

Ashley, you danced beautifully, and we're proud of you! But we're even more proud that your beautiful heart shined through. You spent nine months listening to your teacher and following her directions, practicing diligently and with a smile, fighting your way through skipping backwards (even through the tears) until you mastered it so well that you can do it better than Mummy can, befriending your classmates, and sparkling like the princess of the King that you are. Yesterday your smile lit up the stage, and my heart overflowed to see how dozens of people -- your fellow dancers and your teachers -- gathered around to give you big hugs before we could leave. You are beautiful in every way.

We love you, tiny dancer.

I'm back in the blog-o-sphere!

It makes me sad that it has been weeks since I blogged. Writing is therapeutic for me, even when I am just recording the sweet and silly things that the girls say and do, and I miss having that outlet when I stop blogging. I have no explanation or excuses for my absence (sometimes life hits hard and it just takes a while to get back up), but I have missed my little blog and am glad to be back. :-)

This is just my "I'm baaaaaaack!" post, so it's not long or exciting, but I do have a cute picture to make it more fun! The girls and I went to the park this morning...

We took a picnic lunch, and the sunshine stayed out for us, so we were there for over two hours. We've been doing a lot of playing outside lately -- hours and hours every day when it's remotely nice out -- but that's all been in our backyard, so it was fun for all four of us to play somewhere new!

(And yes, I play with them on all that playground equipment. And no, I still can't do the monkey bars, thank-you-very-much-for-asking.)

On our way home I told the girls that if we passed a yard sale, I would stop and see if they had any outside toys. (Like I said, we've been spending endless hours outside -- we're in the market for something new!) This prompted a discussion of how they would let me know if they saw a yard sale; Hannah says, "I will yell 'yard sale!'", and Ashley says, "I will yell 'puppy!' because that is my code for 'yard sale'", and Bethany says, "I will yell 'apple!' because I call Daddy 'apple'!"

I am positive that my girls get sillier every day!

On tiny princesses and tiny tea parties

I am the mother of three little princesses, the most beautiful little girls I have ever known. And I love how much they love to be princesses! I love it when they twirl in their summer dresses, and when they play soft songs on the piano and sing along with their music, and when they pick spring flowers until their arms are overflowing with them and they run through the sunshine to bring them to me, and when they dance every.single.time. that their daddy plays music for them. And I love it when they have tea parties.

The girls' friend Alena passed on this sweet little tea set to them. Almost every day they ask for permission to bring it out in its little wicker basket, painstakingly spread out the pink and white checked tablecloth, and then pass around teacups and saucers and napkins and dainty white silverware, losing themselves in the happy games that little princesses have always played.

My heart smiles when they gather around their little tablecloth on the livingroom floor, assume a gentle grace far beyond their years, and treat each other daintily like the little ladies that they are. And although yes, they do their share of running and yelling and playing in the dirt and mud, I am so grateful that my girls know that they are princesses!