hard to part.

these two are usually inseparable. they do everything together when they are not at school. but they are fighting like crazy too. they have a really hard time being apart from one another & can't wait until the other gets home from school...depending on the day. their sweetness toward each other is breathtaking.

ironic.

yesterday... as i wrote yesterday... was a rather unique and difficult day emotionally for me. what could have been a really sad day turned out to be a huge blessing. a little story for you. we were in the market for new cell phones. i thought yesterday would be a good time to go out and surprise todd with the new phone. ash and i headed over to at&t (a new carrier for us) because todd is in love with the i-phone. we make our purchases with a really sweet employee named angel. she ran through everything with me... ash continually asking if it was time to go. (it got a little long). she hands me the phones and i freak out! all the messages i had saved from the past year of my dad were on my old phone, old service, now somewhere is space. i instantly start balling, apologizing continually to her & then get her crying. she went into help mode. i tried to forward the messages on my old phone to her. having to listen to the entire message and then forward them (crying). unsuccessful. she calls verizon and talks with them. i call verizon and talk with the customer service agent who i now have to tell i just left his service but want him to help me despite the fact that i packed up and jumped ship. i hand the phone to her & she gets them to stop the transfer for a few hours so i can get home and record. successful. i rush to pick up jt from tiny tigers (preschool). rush home. charge my now dying phone because i don't want to record the beep of the dying phone. i have to re-listen to all the messages (now for the second time & the tears came that much quicker and easier). but i got them. angel called me to make sure i got them from my phone. she was so sweet. she even called her husband crying after i left the store. her name fit her today. so if you go to slo at&t see her. she is amazing.

on a fun note. here are some silly pics of my kids playing with boxes. we are setting up furniture in an office space & they played with the boxes and painters tape. i comletely remember my little-big brother (i now call him this because he is 6 ft 2 in and i am almost a foot shorter than him... but still older. ugh.) and i doing this when we were kids. my dad was a developer and when they would set up the models (if it was close to our house) he would bring home the boxes & build us these elaborate box houses in the backyard... our houses had windows and doors. i guess that is what you get when you have a dad who is in construction. ash & j just built a ship. one of the boxes became the ocean. j tried to surf on it. he even made surf board out of cardboard. one of the best parts of the day was that my dad's best friends daughter, who is like a sister to me, stopped on her drive to see us. we spent about 6 hours just hanging out. it was perfect.

two months.

today marks 2 months since my dad went home to be with JESUS. as anyone would assume, this isn't getting any easier for me... in fact there are days when it is harder than i can describe. i deeply miss my dad. the day to day contact (lack of) is horrible. i have only tried to call him once. i actually dialed his cell phone number while driving up to morro bay, so now everytime i drive up there i think of that moment. ash is struggling with life in general and people are telling us it is because of the attachment she had with him & now she is mourning the loss through the only way she knows how (being a BRAT)... this is where we are trying as parents to allow grace and mercy to flow. here is what i have learned these last few months.

1. i talked to my dad a lot & have had a hard time figuring out how to not have that any longer.
2. i really want my kids to remember their papa.
3. it hard to explain to people how i am doing.
4. it doesn't seem real.
5. i need JESUS to get me through all of the gross pain.
6. prayer has been my constant companion as it wasn't as prevelent before.
7. heaven really is a place.
8. JESUS is constantly there to embrace me when i stumble to the ground.
9. it is hard to get out of bed some days, but easier on others.
10. the best think my dad left me with with an understanding of JESUS.

one thing he always said to my sister and i when we were kids was, 'i love you triple.' it was this whole thing we used to do. he would first say, 'i love you double.' we would make a sad face. then he would yell, 'triple'. and we would get all excited. we would do it to him too. in december i remember him telling me (and it has stuck with me), 'i love you triple forever.'

i love you triple... forever.

j.

i just love this boy. he CRACKS me up. we went and grabbed dinner together last night... at the most classy place of course (taco bell). we just talked and talked. i am not really sure about what. it was such a sweet little moment. just the two of us. isn't he too cute?

daunting.

so i have been a rather pondering type mood. trying to find myself or something. i am not totally sure, but thoughts of life & survival have popped in my head a ton this past week. the realizations of who i am have been a little bit daunting, but nonetheless insightful. allowing my mind to try and figure out 'life' is insane. here is my question... why is it that we (i) allow ourselves to stand in the shadow of others? even if they are our friends. why do we not see ourselves as worthy of shining as bright as those who are around us? how come we don't value who we are in Christ, bringing forth a ray of light that is so striking?

amuse me for a second... i was watching 'the holiday' with kate winslet, jack black, cameron diaz, & jude law. there is a scene that always makes me think. it is when kate winslets character is eating with the older gentleman in a restaraunt & he is analyzing her (in a sense). he used to be in the film industry & is trying to encourage her in her recent 'split' of sorts which brought her to LA on 'holiday'. he says... in movies, there are the friends & then there are leading ladies. kate winslet's response is... you are supposed to be the leading lady of your own life. there are word in between, but you get the picture.

we get this beautiful life only once. we get today only once. this moment is only seen once. i need to make sure that i am shining in this life, today, & moment... but how is the question.

just sewn.

a few weeks ago i bought the book 'sew what! bags'. it is a pretty cute book... not a ton of things i love, but what drew me to the book was a few things. they are some cute patterns for big bags (we can all use some big bags), but also it had a holder for paint brushes. being that i already have a bag for my brushes, i had an idea. not loving the bag that my make-up brushes were in, i thought that i would shrink down the size a little bit. make compartments for large brushes and smaller things as well... like tweezers & q-tips. i love it a ton. with the extra fabric, i made a matching make-up bag that is 10" x 9". it is perfect. the best thing... it think... is that the top folds down so that the brushes don't fall out.

only part superhero.

i had a revelation today. actually just a minute ago. here... all this time... i thought i was a super hero. but i realized that i am not a super hero. because if i was a super hero, i would be able to work as much as i needed to in order to complete the task at hand, dinner would prepare itself & the ingredients would be fresh (because i would grow them in my back yard of course), i would have no dust in my house, and the halos that reside above my children's heads would be so bright that you wouldn't be able to look at them. wow... no super hero here. it was like a 2 x 4 just smacked me in the face. i gave it some thought... well maybe i can be just part super hero. tomorrow starts a new day. we shall see.