***Updated: If you'd like to read the first couple chapters on line, CLICK HERE.***

My friend and co-worker told me about the book "Crazy Love" on Monday. I thought it was intriguing. She offered to loan me her CD copy of it. I didn't know when I'd have time, so I put it out of my mind a bit.

I went and read a blog I like to frequent. She's going to do an online study of the book.

Have you ever felt like God was hitting you over the head?

This is one of those times. Perhaps hitting me over the head with the book "Crazy Love!"

So I went to Amazon and bought it. My intentions are to participate in the study with other women through the aforementioned blog. My goal is also to share here some of the things I pull from the book...perhaps treat the blog like a prayer journal of sorts.

Anyone care to join me?

Why is it that the more busy and more stressed I get, the less I laugh?

Why doesn't my body understand how essential laughter is for the soul?

"He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy." Job 8:21

I'm grateful to have two precious kiddos that keep me laughing, even when my busy body tells me I don't have time for it. God blesses us with what we need -- and boy do I need those kids. In fact, I have another blog dedicated solely to the crazy things they say and do -- the things that make me laugh on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I'm not at all consistent in adding to the blog.

My sweet son...one of the things he does consistently to make me laugh is put his hat on backwards. I know that sounds very trivial, but it's the WAY he does it that's comical. We put his hat on forwards...instantly, he pops it off and turns it around. No matter how many times we put it on, he immediate reverses it. No matter what. He used to do it with sunglasses, too -- he'd flip them upside down immediately after we put them on his face. He's outgrown that one.

My precious daughter...when we visited the ocean last week, she basked in the sun and the sand. She loved every moment of it, even declaring it, "The best day ever." The amount of sand in places that sand should NEVER be made me laugh. (Perhaps it shouldn't have...but it did.)



The creativity of the kids...they discovered that the handle makes a pretty good steering wheel, and one's legs a pretty good motor. A Flinstonesque car if I ever saw one!



And animals...man, if we had the time, we'd have an animal. The sheer joy and laughter heard ringing with a puppy around is pure bliss.



As it says in Ecclesiastes 3, there's a time for everthing under heaven -- including a time to laugh.

Dear Lord, please remind me of the importance of laughter, not only in my life, but in the life of my children. Thank you for the spirit of joy and laughter you've given me -- help me remember to keep it alive.

Oh my goodness....

Maryland....

Take me home....

We just spent a 9 day vacation in Maryland. We went to our old neighborhood, spent the day with our old neighbors and their annual party, hung out in their pool, had a crab feast in the backyard, were welcomed back to our old church, then went to the beach with our good friends from our church Community Group.

It was a breath of fresh air. It was like going home. And leaving again was heartwrenching.

It feels so odd writing that. We lived there for only 3 years. When we were asked to move there, both of us thought we'd never live on the East Coast. But man... what we wouldn't give to move back. Maybe some day. *sigh*

A couple random highlights: Dominic figured out how to swim with a life jacket. That boy can motor! He is SO proud of himself (we're more than a little tickled, too, since last week he was afraid of the water). And Amara...spurred on by Dominic's swimming success figured out how to put her head UNDER the water, hold her breath, and blow bubbles! Again...last week petrified of water...this week, thrilled and SO proud of her progress. YAY!

So... that was the short version...

Here's the longer version....

We found incredible airfare out of KC, so we drove 4 hours to catch our plane...which was delayed...twice. The plane ahead of us hit a bird on the runway, and they had to clean up the mess before we were allowed to take off. We had to connect through Minneapolis, which is a nightmare airport anyway -- but we only had a 45 minute layover in the first place. We were scheduled to arrive with 5 minutes to spare. Not likely to make it! When we landed, I checked the flight status -- it said, "Delayed until 7pm to wait for connection passengers!"

NO WAY! That NEVER happens! Praise God for flight mercies. It's one thing to get stuck in airports for work...quite another with the kiddos.

So we hopped off and RAN to our next gate. Jon carrying two car seats, me pulling two wheeled carryon bags, a laptop case, and hoping that the kids could hold on and keep up!

They couldn't.

We were halfway to our next gate when I heard them call final boarding of our plane. We saw a man with a cart and begged him for a ride. The kids were already saying it they were tired. His cart was empty, and we hopped on. We were dropped at the gate just in time for the door to close and wheels to pull up. I nearly cried tears of relief!

We finally arrived at our destination (our friends' house) at nearly 2am. Oy vey!

SATURDAY:
We went back to the "old neighborhood" and spent the afternoon swimming in their pool, grilling, chilling, and enjoying the company of amazing friends who treated us like family. The kids spent the day swimming and getting thoroughly spoiled. Amara was tall enough to walk around the shallow end of the pool, and she was thrilled with that!

SUNDAY:
What an amazing homecoming. We were able to visit our old church and worship with our church family. It was "home" for sure and man do we miss it. Most of our community group was there that day, so we were able to do a little bit of catching up with them. They were all "family" when Amara was born, so they were part of a really exciting time in our life, which makes our relationships with them just that much more special. After church, we went back to our old neighborhood for a steamed crab feast (heaven!) and some more swimming. Then we drove to the beach.

THE WEEK:
We spent a good portion of the week at our friends' parents' vacation house about an hour south of Ocean City. It was so relaxing to have a home base. Their son was born 3 months before Amara, so the kids really had a blast playing together. We did a lot of swimming, a lot of relaxing. The guys did some golfing. We played the Wii. It truly was a relaxing vacation, which you don't say often. It was also a time of renewal and recharging, especially for Jon.

We did do some venturing out of the neighborhood accommodations.

CHINCOTEAGUE:
We drove into the little town/island and played some mini-golf, ate some amazing pizza ice cream, and bought the book "Misty of Chincoteague." We didn't see the wild ponies or do any of the Chincoteague/Assateague typical vacation stuff, but that was my favorite book as a kid, so it was fun to start reading it to Amara. I was shocked, but Amara (age almost 5) enjoyed the book. She said she wished it had more pictures, but she was still captivated by it. Yay! :)

OCEAN CITY:
We drove into OC one day with plans to stay overnight so we could enjoy the ocean, but wash up afterwards. The kids LOVED the ocean, which was fun to see. Amara even declared it "the best day ever." After the ocean, we went to our room and cleaned up. Then we took the kids to ride all the amusement rides. I was really proud of how well they did, especially Amara. Dominic had an absolute blast, which we expected. But Amara is typically more tentative and cautious with amusements....even the scariest one she did well on -- despite the look on her face!

FRONTIER TOWN:
We didn't really plan anything for the trip home from OC, but decided to stop at Frontier Town on the way. It's a little 1800's old west town that "actors" inhabit and they reinact events from the wild west. Dominic walked out of their with a nice little cap gun and an even larger flair for the dramatic. Amara walked out of there petrified by the "bandits" but boy, can the girl protect the gold! All of the adults left there thinking...hmm....that was more fun than we expected it to be.

It's amazing to see the world through a child's eyes. The two days we spent in Ocean City really cemented in my mind the importance of family vacations and really intentionally carving out time to spend away from home and with the family. It was an amazing and wonderful vacation.

So... that was the long version. I'm sure I could make it longer! :) Instead, enjoy some pictures!

Over at Kelly's Korner, it's the last day of wedding rewind in "Show Us Your Life." Since I have shared the rest, I'll share the last installment as well, despite a lack of pictures! Actually...I've got them. But they're all snapshots, and none are on the computer...and I'm too lazy to dig them out and scan them.

This week, the theme is Wedding Reception and Honeymoon. I actually have NO pictures from our honeymoon. What's with that!? Not one! I do have pictures (somewhere) of AFTER our honeymoon -- my parents hosted a backyard BBQ and our family and closest friends came over to eat and help us open presents. But none from the honeymoon itself.

Probably because we went to Minneapolis.

For 3 days.

It was only 4 hours away and we'd been there a million times.

Wohoo. :)

We were 22 years old, 3 weeks out of college, both starting new jobs and had no time off, not to mention, we had no money. So we decided to go somewhere that we could just chill and not worry about whether or not we missed anything on a "once of a lifetime" trip. We only were gone for 3 days!

In hindsight, while it would have been fun to go somewhere exotic and tropical, it worked out well that we didn't. My Grandpa had several mini heart attacks during our wedding -- but didn't tell anyone, because he didn't want to ruin our day! So on the last day of our honeymoon, he was actually having multiple bypass surgery! We were so thankful that we were close enough to come home and not having to cut short a trip. (As an aside, he lived until he was 92, which was nearly six years past our wedding). Also, Jon's entire family came in for the wedding. His family is scattered across the country, and we rarely get to see them. They were all staying in cabins out at the lake. Coming home a little bit sooner than we'd have liked gave us the opportunity to spend more time with them. You just don't get to spend time with people at weddings!

But I've gotten ahead of myself. Let's rewind and go to the reception!

Here we are leaving the church. Daisies are one of my favorite flowers, and I wanted to leave the church in a shower of daisy petals. So I got up the morning of the wedding and started pulling the petals off hundreds of daisies that my Grandma brought in from her garden.

Enroute to the reception location (our church's fellowship hall wasn't big enough), we stopped at a little lake for a photo opp. I love this picture!


And we've finally arrived at the reception location. In my little town, there's only ONE place that has adequate seating to host larger weddings -- so that's where we were. Unfortunately, the decor has basically NEVER been updated, so it made for some really dated looking pictures. I do believe that it still looks the same (i.e. stuck in the 70s) -- and it's now 11 years later!

But onto the important thing... check out that CAKE!!! YUMMY!!!!

I'm not a fan of cake. I never had a "real" birthday cake, because I simply don't like cake. So my Mom always made me strawberry shortcake with real shortcake (not angelfood). It was divine, and is still one of my favorite foods. When we were at a bridal show, my Mom and I walked one way around the room, and Jon and my Dad walked the other way around. As we got to the center in the back, my Dad and I saw this cake and our eyes met. And our eyes lit up! That's the cake, we both said! The fact that it was DELICIOUS was an added bonus. White cake, bettercream frosting, and glazed whole strawberries. No need for more decorations, because the strawberries provided that and also matched our colors. We even had a friend who couldn't make it to the wedding, but stopped at my parents house later to drop off a gift -- and she asked if there was any cake left, because she had heard such good things about it! HA!

And as for the grooms cake....

I'm quite sure it's not a northern (or at least not an upper midwest) tradition. I've never been at a wedding (until I moved south) that had a grooms cake. Can someone please enlighten this northern girl as to what in the world is their purpose?

In other words... we didn't have one! :)

When I read the Blog Challenge for this week, I thought to myself, "Yeah... don't think I'll participate this week." I know that encouragement is vital, and I know how buoyant I feel when I've been encouraged. But I don't know how good I am at it, or if I really have anything to say about it.

Then I started thinking about my kids and how different they are in their needs for encouragement. I also thought about my role as a parent -- and how important it is for me to decipher their needs and figure out how to best encourage them in their faith, in their self-confidence, in their academics, in their talents -- every wee aspect of their being needs to be "inspired with hope, courage, or confidence."

How do I help them tap into their "best" and let it flow from them?

My sweet Amara...

Her very name means Eternal Hope.

I think she's my artist. My musician. At school, she sees the painting or illustration, or even one of her dolls -- and she paints it or draws it. Not perfect -- she's only 4 -- but so well that I can tell exactly what she drew. And songs -- she can hear a song once and memorize the chorus and get the melody right. She's got talent in that area -- how do I nurture it? How do I inspire her to develop that gift and give it back to God? How do I encourage her?

She also seems like she may be a perfectionist (which she admittedly comes by naturally with double doses from both parents) -- so how do I encourage her to try new things, to make mistakes, to learn from them and grow!? It's so easy to bail on things that you might not succeeed at, just because you're afraid to fail (said from definite experience).

Right now the best encouragement for her is to applaud her braveness. Assure her she doesn't have to do something...but applaud her when she does, and remark how brave she was to do it. Most often, she'll try something - but it's ALWAYS on her own time. The harder I push her to do it on my time, the less likely we'll achieve succes. And we're guaranteed frustration (on both parts!)

And my charming Mr. D-Man...

He's a "go-go-go" boy. All the time. But he's also a little lover and so concerned about others and their feelings.

I think he's my little engineer. Things don't stay taken apart or put together very long at our house. He adores puzzles and is quite adept at seeing how they should fit together.

He's a pleaser -- loves to be cheered on. Loves to know that he's made you happy, and will go so far as to ask, "Mommy, are you happy wif me?" once he's completed a task. How often we go through life without thanking or complimenting those who have helped us or done something nice for us? Even more frequently we neglect to thank our family -- those we we love the most in the world!

Dominic's best form of encouragement right now is a thumbs up and a quick hug. He loves to know that he's on the right track, that he's pleasing us, and really that he matters.

He matters...

Isn't that what encouragement really boils down to? Taking the time to understand another person's life enough that we can walk along side them -- to inspire them with hope, courage, and confidence.

May my children always feel that I'm an encouragement to them.

Quite some time ago, I participated in a weekly Saturday blog hop called Photo Hunters. I've fallen off that Saturday habit, but thought it would be something fun to start again.

I'm going to try to find old scrapbook pages that illustrate the theme of the week. This week is Entertainment. With two kids, ages 4.5 and 3, I have no shortage of entertainment. I have a little miss Drama Queen and a ham-bone Comedian! I think they try to one-up each other on who can make us laugh the hardest.

Definitely not complaining -- laughter is a gift!