Coffee, cheesecake, and some good friends….

….what more could you ask for??

A few weeks ago, I was able to spend time with not one, but two, of my oldest and dearest college friends on a Saturday. It was so nice to just sit and chat, and eat and shop with both of them–Kristi in the morning and Jenny in the afternoon.

I am so thankful for the friends that God has given me. We have so many memories from our times spent together, and I am thankful that we can still “connect” after not seeing each other for so long.

Thanks Jenny and Kristi, for being my “friend fix” for the month!

Our little scholar???

Maybe Little E will have his father’s brains…..and his mother’s sense of humor.

I spy with my little eye…..

Our middle E has a very unusual personality….I think she is best described as “quirky”. She is definitely on her own agenda too. It is very amusing to sit and watch her at times, in her own little world, happy as can be. (Then that happy little world is usually crashed down upon by her older–and much more aggressive–sister!)

For some reason, she has an obsession for finding small round objects and pretending they are “eyeglasses”. She must have seen it in a movie……anyways, she often finds them on the ground or other disgusting spots and promptly puts them up to her eye. While I am slightly grossed out by this, her father is EXTREMELY grossed out by it and usually does not allow the “eyeglass” to be kept. While we were on vacation though, she found one of those rings from someone’s drink container and was thrilled to death with it. Josh did not have the heart that day to take it away from her–she was just so excited. So she kept it and happily spent the rest of the afternoon with her eyeglass to her eye.

As I was thinking about that again tonight, it struck me in a different way. Many times in my life and especially in my parenting, I do not take the time to “spy” things in others’ lives. I so often focus on the big problems or annoyances looming in front of me in regards to that person, and I fail to take in the needs they have or the special talents and character traits that they possess. As I watched my middle E this afternoon, I realized I have been very guilty of this in her life. She has the “middle child syndrome”, as many call it, and it plays out in her behavior, her obedience (or rather, lack of it) and her reactions to others. I have been so focused on all of these negative things in her life that I have not been taking the time to “spy” the good things she does or even the emotions she is feeling right now. Paul exhorted his readers to be “tenderhearted” as Christ was…..I know that I do not exhibit much tenderness at times. I pray that I will be able to spy the little glimpses of kindness, love, or vulnerability in my child (children, husband, friends, etc.) and then respond as Christ would have.

And here is a documentary of her ingenuity at work……..