I know you have all been up losing sleep at night wondering what Elliott did for his 7th birthday. Well, now that he’s near turning 8, I figured I’d put a post up about it so you could all get some sleep. 😉
We had a soccer birthday party for him with a little soccer program that the kids had attended the last couple of years. It’s super FUN and this coach was their absolute favorite. He’s like a cartoon character. So when we heard he did birthday parties, we were all in!!
It started off with a hilarious circle time and some stretches…
And then some super fun games…
A much needed water break… (The kids and I personalized these water bottles for the guests!)
And, of course…cake time! We bought Elliott a new soccer ball and each of his friends got to sign it!
Some of you have had the blessed opportunity to partake in the Moberg family birthday cake tradition of…MUD PIE. Oh my, this is probably my all-time favorite dessert and all the secrets of the trade have been passed down to me from my father-in-law. I decided to tweak the recipe a bit to turn the mud pie into mini mud pie cupcakes and, of course, turn them into soccer balls. YUMMMMM.
It was a super fun time surrounded by friends and family!
Happy 7th birthday, biggest man!!! (Okay, is it me or did this kid grow up SO MUCH this year?!!! He’s practically a MAN!!)
I started this post LAST Monday, and after a particularly challenging week it feels like the perfect day to take a moment to stop, pause, think about how great our God is…and finish this post!!
The truth is, I fall asleep every night thanking God for so many victories every day…small things that I used to take for granted…but isn’t it true? It’s often only when something is taken away that you even realize it was something you took for granted. There a hundred mundane-to-the-world events that are taking place in my world every day that spur on such a deep sense of gratitude. What’s one example, you ask? Doing the dishes. A year and a half ago that was literally impossible for me. I’m so thankful I can do the dishes!!!
A year ago, we gathered with these same dear friends on Thanksgiving and the walk we took after dinner felt equivalent to climbing Everest. This year, piece of cake pumpkin pie! Thank you, Lord!!
So grateful for these friends, for dear Suz whose warm hospitality oozes from every aspect of the day, from the mouth-watering gravy to the beautiful table to the strong embraces; for OJ who keeps us in non-stop laughter; and for their precious children who delight our lives. So thankful for the gifts of these beloved friends who love us deeply, extravagantly and unconditionally, who spur us on, and who share their lives with us.
And the Wallaces!!! Sound the horn! We haven’t seen them in years but they squeezed us into their busy in-town-for-a-short-few-days schedule. Such a joy to see their boys all grown up (sniff, sniff…I have a picture of me holding Nathan as an infant!!!) and to get to visit with them. Today also happens to be Amy’s birthday…so shout out to Amy for turning another year older and STILL looking EXACTLY like she did when I met her…what? TWENTY years ago???!!! Unbelievable. Please share with us your secret to the fount of youth!!
Ooooh and my precious family. Look at these cousins. We are missing Cypher, Andrew and Courtney…but they were in our hearts and their artwork was on the mug all the grandkids made for my mom!! My mom prepared a fantastic Thanksgiving feast, as always, and turned a year older the same day. Have I mentioned how thankful I am to be near my mom? What would I do without her? Without her prayers, without her laugh, without her friendship, without her stuffing and apple pie?? Thank you, Lord, for this dear mother of mine.
My parents have generously and thoughtfully taken all the daughters/granddaughters to the Nutcracker each year. It is a tradition that we all very much look forward to, but I will say that Selah CANNOT.STOP.TALKING.ABOUT.IT starting from about July! “When’s the Nutcracker?” is a question we hear for months around here! This year Aunt Melanie and the girls flew in for the win and now we are just missing Joanne and Courtney…so…maybe next year!! 🙂 Seriously, could the girls POSSIBLY be any cuter in those matching dresses???? GAH!!!
Your turn. What about you? What are you thankful for? What new mercies has He given you today? I’d love to hear your comments!!
Our Selah Beth…5 years old! My goodness, she continues to grow into a beautiful little girl–yes, with her adorable freckled face, but more importantly in her heart towards God and others. We are so blessed to be her parents!! She has thrived this last year. She is still loving gymnastics, learned how to ride her bike without training wheels back in June, and is reading wonderfully. She is pure joy.
Six months before Selah’s birthday, she informed me, “Mom…I just REALLY want to have an olive birthday.”
“I’m sorry…what was that?? An OLIVE birthday? As in…an OLIVE???”
“Yes!”
Although I think God has gifted me with a little bit of creativity, the creative olive juices just weren’t flowin’. Every so often for the next few months, she would bring it up and each time I would try to come up with alternate ideas for her birthday… A month or two later she suddenly said, “Mom, I just really would like to have my birthday with Daddy.” {heart melt}
So in my spare time I tried to dream up what an olive joint birthday party with Brian could look like…Up until one sunny day in September when she said, “Mom, actually I think I’d like to have a princess party. With olive cupcakes. I want 5 olives on my cupcake since I’ll be 5. Well, make that 4 olives and a candle. Hmmm, maybe 3 olives and 2 candles…” Well alrighty then!! I had a little something to work with now!
She then continued on for about 5 minutes (I have it on video!) of every detail of this princess party, including a two story castle that everyone could climb through. It was going to be a knights and princesses party and Winnie the Pooh was going to be there for cupcakes. Cupcakes with olives.
So we settled on a Royal-themed party and decided to invite our close family friends who live in the city so Brian would have some friends there, too! My goodness, the party just came together quickly and splendidly… It will be a special memory forever…gathering some of our favorite people in one place and celebrating Selah and Brian!
The invitation read,
Calling all princesses and knights! Lady Selah has requested to celebrate her 5th birthday with her knight in shining armor, “Sir Daddy”.
The morning of her birthday, Selah woke up to a present tied to 5 purple balloons. When she finally opened it, she discovered a (light up!) Princess Crown with a “5” on it!
You all know Brian and how he is not the BIGGEST fan of being celebrated…but he was over-the-moon to share this special day with Selah. I should have thought of this years ago to trick him into being celebrated! 😉 Selah and I planned out a surprise for Brian and Elliott–armor that they could wear on the big day. Selah was thrilled to wear her purple princess dress (we got her that when she was 2! Ha!!) and she requested that I also wear a princess dress…and this was the closest thing I had in my closet! Here we are…the Royal Family! 🙂
A princess with tennis shoes…that’s my girl :).
Since we were entertaining a large group of girls and boys ages 3-13, we decided to fulfill Selah’s castle dream and rent a bounce house for the main party gig. Talk about bang for your buck! It was perfect for boys and girls alike of all ages. We had two crafts going on the side–shields the kids could paint (shout out to Grandpa Moberg for making these INCREDIBLE shields out of cardboard we had in the garage!!) and princess crowns that the girls could decorate. We also ordered inflatable swords for each kid both to joust with and bring home!
We are so RICH to have all of these treasured friends of ours in the same city!!!
Look at all these awesome kiddos!!Amazing friends!!
Selah really wanted to play “Pin-the-tail on the pony…no…wait…pin the tail on the…princess?” Hahaha! I suggested, “How about pin the crown on the princess?” 🙂 So I made up a Selah princess poster and then we surprised Brian with a “pin the helmet on the knight” poster! 🙂
I have to give credit to Grandpa and Grandma Moberg who cut up all of the fruits and veggies for lunch–without them, the party couldn’t have happened! I made a crown cake for Selah (which she helped me decorate) and a shield cake for Brian. Then I realized we wouldn’t have enough cake for everyone so I made a batch of cupcakes as well!
Then, just as Selah was putting candles on her cake, I remembered–THE OLIVES!!!!! Oh my goodness, I can’t BELIEVE we almost all forgot!!!! The pictures below are of me explaining to everyone why we were suddenly adding five OLIVES…of all things…to her birthday cake.
The paparazzi:
Brian got three candles. One for each decade of his life. 🙂 (And this may or may not be the last time that same equation would equal three…ahem…)
Look at all the thoughtful gifts Brian was lavished with…he’s drowning in pink and purple and princess nightgowns and jewelry and baby dolls…all his favorites. 😉 Selah convinced him to share some of them with her…and he totally obliged. What a man! #realmensharebirthdayswiththeirdaughters
The three amigos. These men and their families are our newest friends, and we are so enriched to have them in our lives.
This girl and her faces!!!!!!!!!! Here are some of my favorites from the day…
We were so unbelievably blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who love us. Such a special day!!
Happy Birthday to our Princess Selah and her “Sir Daddy”!!
The kids could hardly contain their joy opening an envelope each day:
Cutting down Finding the perfect tree at Home Depot and decorating it!
The kids decorated their own Christmas apron to wear while crafting the rest of the month! They also made pretty cute handprint baby Jesus in a manger dough ornaments.
Breakfast in Bethlehem!!
Snowman pancakes day!!
Play in the snow day!!
Elliott and Daddy took a last-minute airplane/road trip so I sent the Christmas countdown activity with him. The show must go on!! And creative Daddy even brought Christmas lights to adorn the inside of the new truck they picked up.
The kids’ first sewing lesson: Finger Puppet Nativity Set
I hid 6 plastic bags filled with Nativity puzzle pieces around the house and the kids had to find them all and put them together. It was HILARIOUS watching them search. They even got a flashlight out to help them ;).
No mess glitter stickers (those things are AWESOME!!!) that we turned into thank you cards and, of course, playdough cupcakes to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.
Cookie decorating at our friends’ house!
Christmas light tour, complete with a scavenger hunt list of things to find outside!
Bass Pro Shop with cousins!
Zoo Lights with friends!! Selfie with a giraffe? Check.
FRIENDS!!! Oh the joy!!!!
Search your stockings for new CHRISTMAS JAMMIES!!!!
Super special presents from Erika!!
Christmas Eve Day…Elliott and Selah both got to open one present and we also opened a family present: a new game to play!
Christmas Eve Eve…Church and Teppanyaki!
Christmas Day…We had a white-ish Christmas!
Day-after Christmas with my family! Everyone is all together!
Is anyone else already counting down until next Christmas like our kids??
Well, we tried to keep it simple this year and therefore brought two ponies to our house for Selah’s 4th birthday! #palmtoforehead #itried #ilovecelebrating!!!!!
Sometime you’ll have to ask me how the story unraveled, but I’ll just say somewhere in the middle of the story Selah became unwavering in her conviction about wanting an animal birthday party. When I asked her what was most important to her about an animal birthday she replied, “Well, I’d like to do a giraffe craft…and another giraffe craft…and I want a giraffe to come to my birthday.”
So…after a lot of thinking and chatting, we settled on ponies. MUCH simpler than giraffes, right?!! Right.
The clincher was (as I talked through the party options) Brian saying, “Ponies!!?? It’s every little girl’s dream to have a pony birthday party!!!” Done. 🙂
The night before her actual birthday, we celebrated Brian’s and her birthday together at Red Robin. On the way home, her balloon popped which (obviously) caused major birthday drama. Thankfully, Grandpa came to the rescue…he mended her broken balloon into a teeny tiny new balloon :).
On her actual birthday, she opened up some presents and then Brian and I took her out to breakfast at her breakfast place of choice, which also happens to be MY favorite breakfast place :). Our pager number was #4!! She was very bold about telling everyone it was her birthday, and when the manager sat us she asked, “Are you going to put candles in my pancakes?” The manager was very sweet and said, “Hmmm…well let me see what I can do!” And Selah said, “FOUR candles. Pink and purple.” I elbowed her urgently with each demand request whispering, “PLEASE!! Say PLEASE!!” She was a girl on a mission alright! Then when the waitress came by to take the order she said, “Can you make my pancake into a dog?” And she said she could try to do Mickey Mouse. The manager, the waitress and two other women brought her plate out with four pink and purple candles sticking out of a Mickey Mouse shaped chocolate-chip pancake, singing Happy Birthday so sweetly. I held back tears as Selah did what she always does when put on the spot: buries her face into me. Sweet girl. She was so blessed!!
That night, my family had the monthly/quarterly birthday celebration so she had a little party that night with Nonna and Grandpa and her cousins. She got a CAMERA from Grandpa and Nonna and I’ll just say…she hasn’t put it down since!! When I found her that night all ready for bed, in her bed, taking pictures (of her ceiling?) I texted my mom the picture on the right and said, “She hasn’t put the camera since she opened it!” And my mom responded, “Like mother, like daughter!” Haha, she is totally right!!! I hadn’t even seen it ;).
Her actual birthday party was the following weekend. Some of her favorite friends arrived for a morning filled with everything ponies!
“Trot this way to Selah’s birthday!”
Here’s a little funny for you: we decided to hold the party entirely in our back yard and I was praying for WEEKS that the weather would be nice and that it wouldn’t be too windy as the party was mid-October. WELL, not only was the weather NICE, but it was SO HOT that we ended up needing to move the party inside!! HA! So our son, whose birthday is in the SPRING, had to last minute reschedule his party because there was a blizzard on the original party day, while our daughter, whose birthday is in the FALL had to move her party inside due to extreme heat. Oh my. I love Colorado :).
We had all sorts of crafts and activities set up in the backyard for the kids:
“Rope a Pony” (Pony built in about 5 and a half minutes by Selah’s awesome daddy!)Pony crafts! Everyone got to decorate paper horses and stick a magnet on the back for their fridges. There were also lots of pony coloring pages that kept kids busy along with a Playdough Pony Play station!
Grooming station: complete with nail polish, nail files, and horse tattoos.
Those of you who have been around our kids know one thing: they are both terrified of “slightly timid” around animals. Yet both of them requested an animal birthday when they turned four. So we honestly had no idea how she was going to do around the ponies, as even hearing the word “dog” can send her into a tailspin. But here is her very first time climbing up onto her birthday pony…and as you can see, she looks like a natural :).
The little farm that brought the ponies also brought another one to “groom”. The kids could brush her and braid her mane and put bows in it. They had a blast!
The “lead” cowboy who brought the ponies was just awesome and really got into the party. At one point he said, “Do you girls want to paint the pony’s nails??” I looked at him with big eyes, but he insisted…”Come on over! Let’s paint her hoof!” You saw it here first, folks:
The next time you see a pony walking around with pink, purple and blue nail polish on his front hooves…you’ll know he was the pony at Selah’s party!
Do you see the braids and the ribbons in the pony’s hair??? I love it. 🙂
Every kid had tons of time to ride the one pony and to groom the other. Selah was the most excited to ride the pony over and over and at one point she insisted on mounting him all on her own. On the left, she’s telling Brian to let go of her…and then she got up all on her own! Look how proud she is :).
We are so blessed to be the parents of this beautiful, horse-riding 4 year old little girl!!
Look at this sweet group of friends :).
Once the ponies left, we played “Pin-the-tail-on-the-pony” (obviously). 🙂
And by then everyone was so hot and sunburned that we opted to move the rest of the party inside!
Hot dogs for the main course and Hay Bales, Trail Mix, and Ranch on the sides…
And then, of course, the CAKE. Selah really wanted cupcakes which I was super thankful for…I am terrible at making cakes, but I can turn cupcakes into just about anything!!!
Since I was taking pictures she had to hide behind Brian while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her. But she warmed up when it was time to blow those candles out!
The favors consisted of a little pony, a horse tattoo, horse stickers, rainbow stickers (because “rainbow” is Selah’s fifth favorite color, after purple, pink, blue and green). The girls also got some ponytail holders for “their” ponies…
It was a wonderful day celebrating our sweet 4 year old!! Thank you, Lord, for this precious gift of a daughter!!!
A pool party with our spanish class!The fourth with some of our very favorite friends!A super cool splash park!Our sweet friends treated us to a trip to the Pueblo Zoo! We had never been and it was so much fun!
The Pueblo Zoo also held another first for us…our sweet Selah got stung by a bee for the very first time…TWICE! I know that’s not technically possible…we think it must have gotten stuck under her skort, tried to sting her once but didn’t get its stinger out and so it tried to sting her again. So two pokes, two welts, and one very sad (and angry!) little girl. I was standing about 2 feet away from her when she screamed and when I ran to her she angrily yelled, “A bee just STINGED me!!! HE STINGED ME!!!!!!!” So mad, so offended. As I was trying to comfort her, she screamed again a minute later and that’s when I started trying to rip her clothes off of her and this little (probably angry and scared!) bee flew out from under her skirt. 🙁 It was slightly traumatizing for a few minutes there but if you look at the picture of her sitting on the giant bunny on the right hand side of the zoo collage…that’s her about 15 minutes after it happened…so needless to say, she survived :).
Rainbow! (In other words, we had tons of rain this summer, just like how I remember Colorado while growing up. It rains virtually every afternoon in the summer. And we also got some intense hail storms which a number of interesting stories to go with them!)Brian got Elliott these “real man” working overalls just as summer was starting, and he loved them so much that he almost didn’t take them off the entire summer! Chances are, if you saw him this summer he was wearing his favorite blue striped shirt and these overalls! Filled with crafting supplies :).We went to this awesome truck event with some awesome friends!The kids got to sit in, climb on, and pretend to drive all sorts of police cars, firetrucks, ambulances, school buses and working machines!The cousins came to town!!!!!!!!!!!We had this hilarious day where we had no water and everyone in the neighborhood was flipping out. We came home from church to a news reporter, begging us to go on camera to explain to the city about how awful it was to be without water for 3 hours. We politely declined complaining about such a “horrific” #firstworldproblem, but when she begged us to at least get a shot of our sink filled with dirty dishes, we consented. Oh, the horror. Haha!We celebrated 7 years of marriage!This big man has been reading like crazy and completed a set of readers. He wanted to celebrate by going to one of our favorite breakfast places because kids get to put together a little cardboard animal!Our “big” vacation this summer…a quick overnight in Denver :). But the kids were thrilled to get to stay in a hotel!Elliott did a super fun soccer camp and just had an absolute blast! He is totally in love with his shin guards and literally wore them all day for the entire week of his camp.Elliott tried out a gymnastics class just for fun (see him doing a bridge on the left there?) and Selah moved down to the BIG girls gymnastics class! (More on that in another post!)Two dear out-of-town friends graced my presence this summer, one all the way from England and the other from the distant land of Tacoma :).Our neighborhood fitness center was offering the cheapest swim lessons in town! Aaaand, I’ll just say, we got what we paid for and leave it at that :).
One of my main goals this summer was to teach the kids to swim. Every Mama can probably relate to this, but I have just not been fully comfortable around water with the kids since they haven’t known how to swim. Selah is so fearless when it comes to things like the water that I’ve been particularly concerned about her. One time when she was 2 she jumped in the water without asking. She sank straight to the bottom and thankfully Brian was right there to pull her out. When we spoke very seriously to her about how she could never do that again, how she doesn’t know how to swim, etc., etc., she just burst into tears, shouting, “BUT WHYYYYYYY????!!!” So. You can see why it’s been a priority in my mind.
When I quickly realized that the cheap swim lessons weren’t going to do the job, I googled, “How can I teach my kids to swim?” I came across a video which at least helped point me in the right direction, since teaching a child to swim comes about as naturally to me as teaching someone to sky dive. But after watching the video, I went from saying, “I have no idea how to teach our kids to swim!!!” to being 100% confident I could do it myself, thanks to the nice man on the video telling me I could :).
That is…until I actually started TRYING to teach the kids to swim! HA!! The first step was simply getting them to take a deep breath to go under water. And every time I told them to take said deep breath and dunk their heads under the water, THEY BREATHED OUT. It was the most hilariously disfunctional scene you’ve ever witnessed… “Okay, kids! Take a big deep breath and go under water!” With huge smiles on their faces, they blew all the air out of their lungs, into my face, and dunked their heads under the water…gasping for air as they came up half a second later.
Sigh. Needless to say, I basically gave up and told Brian I had officially allotted him the task of teaching our children to swim. Well, it was only a matter of weeks until Brian and I (together) taught our kids to swim! What, what!!! Go us!!! I am seriously so proud of ourselves…we taught the children who couldn’t breath in before diving into the water…to swim :).
We still let them have a lot of fun with floaties whenever they want to, but these kids are swimmers and floaters!Selah is like a dolphin in the water…she’s always loved the water but she’s truly a natural at swimming.
Both kids can swim from one of us to the wall; jump in and swim back to the wall; jump in and swim to one of us; and do a “starfish” (float on their back) for a long time. Elliott also just learned how to jump in, tread water, and get into a starfish position. So although they’re not QUITE ready for the Olympics 😉 I feel a whole lot better about them being around the water!!! Granted, they still aren’t very good at taking a breath before going under water 🙂 but at least we’re making progress!! In one of the videos you can see our relentlessly silly Selah trying to make the swim task more challenging by covering her goggled-eyes while swimming to Brian! HAHA!! That girl of ours!!! Enjoy some snippets from one of our swim days!
I’ll come clean–I was going to skip blogging this week.
Yes, I had a birthday, but, well…I honestly just didn’t have too much to say about it this year. (I know, I know…which is surprising for this normally long-winded girl…)
Until there I was at the gym right before the fitness class started, chatting with my Zumba friends, and one of them mentioned that she wouldn’t be there Thursday night because she had a funeral to go to. Apparently her daughter’s friend had just finished his first year of college and he and a bunch of his friends were celebrating…by jumping off a bridge into a river. Well, her daughter’s friend drowned.
We all said our “I’m so sorry’s” and then the music began to play. Normally, my Zumba hour is my “let’s-pretend-I’m-on-a-professional-dance-team-and-actually-good-at-it” hour, but not tonight. I couldn’t follow along with my usual carefree-ness. I couldn’t stop thinking about that young man whose life was over when it had barely begun, and about his parents who were obviously sitting somewhere, completely devastated. Did he know the Lord?
And then my mind wandered to me…and to all of the incredibly stupid, stupid, stupid things I did back in the day, all in the name of “fun” or “celebration”…and how any of those things could have ended the way this man’s life did.
He has been so merciful to me.
He gave me another year. He has given me so many years. Thankfully my stupidity level has significantly decreased since a.) I surrendered my life to the Lord at 18 and b.) since I have gained a tiny bit of wisdom over the years (I found an ENORMOUS gray hair on my birthday…proof of my crown of wisdom, right?!!) but all those years of just being unwise…of feeling invisible…of thinking nothing could harm me…He was there. He kept me. He guarded me and protected me. Every.Single.Time I hear a story of how someone’s mistakes early on are wreaking havoc in their lives today, I hit my knees in my heart as I listen. Because that could have been me.No, that SHOULD have been me, save for the grace of God.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
I have been saved not only from physical death, but from spiritual and emotional death. I have been saved from living a life of immorality, I have been saved from the death of anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment and fear. I have been saved from the chains of insecurity and confusion and hopelessness. He saved me. I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Thank you, Lord, for teaching me to walk in them. Thank you for giving me another year to do so.
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).
Cheers to another year of knowing and loving the Lord with all of my heart. And cheers to my dear (local) friends and my precious, precious family!!
Celebrating with queso and sweet friends!Birthday morning snuggles with my favorites…
These two…they are SO into wrapping presents. Daily I will find a new “present” to open and inside is one (or many) of my possessions. Selah literally gets so excited to watch me open one of these “presents” that she shakes and squeals with delight from her tippy toes on up. Here, Selah wrapped up tons of our crafting stuff. When I opened it and delighted over the array of tape and crayons and markers, she just beamed with pride :). Oh, how I love her!!!! And Elliott made me this puppet out of an old vitamins box! CUTE!!!
And, a birthday date with this man and some lobster-stuffed shrimp. Mmmmm……
My love.
How about you? If you’re reading this, He’s given YOU another day. Have you seen His mercies? Have you received the free, undeserving gift of salvation?
I am constantly trying to see the Lord in all that I do in a day. He teaches us all the time, and I don’t want to miss a lesson from Him. So, so often I understand His character through watching my children and taking note of the way my heart, as their mother, responds to them. Because if I know how to give them good gifts, how much more so does our Heavenly Father? (Matthew 7:11). So I let Him teach ME about Him through parenting.
One particular morning…”errand morning” to be precise…my little girl had just had it. She had been on the edge all morning, but when we rolled our little Costco cart out of the building and towards the car, the receipt (you know–the one where the kind old man had drawn a portrait of my daughter on the back with a marker, curly hair and all?) was taken captive by the tornado happening in the parking lot. She had had her heart SET on taking that receipt home…cutting it into pieces and gluing it onto construction paper. She had plans. She had dreams. And all of them were blown into oblivion with that huge gust of wind. She totally and completely fell utterly apart. And as I attempted to unload our groceries into the back, all the while clinging to that enormous Costco-sized watermelon with all my might in hopes that it would keep me anchored, my darling daughter had her face plastered against the car window, shouting out suggestions through heaving sobs of how I could “just chase after the receipt.”
It was literally so windy I was afraid WE were going to blow away, and against my better judgment I attempted to try and explain to her how far away China was and how, at the rate the wind was blowing, her receipt was surely already there.
“BUT WE CAN JUST GO THERE!!!!” she sobbed.
“We would have to take a plane, and then our groceries would go bad.”
“WELL YOU CAN JUST CALL THE POLICE!! PLEASE, MOM!! JUST CALL THE POLICE!!!” she begged.
How do you gently explain to your crushed 3 year old that her receipt is not important enough to call the police for? Oh my. So she cried hysterically all the way to the place where we pick up our milk. I tried to reason with her and sympathize with her for a few minutes and then I just stopped talking, quieted myself, and let her cry. Because, come on, she was devastated and therefore totally unreasonable. And I get that. It just didn’t feel like a moment to correct her. She was refusing to be comforted by me. How many times have I been too busy pumping my fists and shouting suggestions at God that I have refused to be comforted by Him? That was an insightful question to ask myself.
We arrived and I unbuckled my red, swollen-faced little girl, grabbed our milk box, and we walked inside. I set the box down and…
There, stuck to our milk box, WAS A COSTCO RECEIPT. With a curly-haired little girl drawn on the back. I had to blink about 700 times but it really was there. I checked the items and they were items I buy, but not items I had purchased on that particular day. But still…it was a virtually identical Costco receipt. I knelt down, showed Selah the receipt and talked to her of the Lord’s mercies towards her. That there was no way I could have orchestrated that, but God did. That God knows her heart and her desires and He cares about them…because He cares about her. Her receipt may not have been important enough to a police man, but it was important enough to God. So there I was, talking to her, but more than anything I was talking to me, because I desperately need to understand that lesson. That when I am screaming and crying and hysterically shouting at God, and He is silent, that that doesn’t mean He doesn’t have a plan. It’s just not time to find the receipt yet.
So then we headed to the next grocery store to get the few items we need from there. And Selah decided she MUST sit in the blue car cart. I mean, it was a matter of life and death. I explained to her for the third time that we only needed 3 items and we had to hurry if we were going to get the items, drop our groceries off at home and make it to Elliott’s preschool to pick him up on time (thankfully we didn’t have to take a detour to China anymore!). And she lost it. Sobbing and hysterically crying all the way into King Soopers. She had finally calmed down by the time we got to the cream cheese and we made our way to the check out as I checked the time for the billionth time since setting foot in the store.
After paying, the teller slipped a penny across the counter. “Would she like to ride the horse?
“The HORSE?” I asked.
He looked at me, dumbfounded. “Yes, the HORSE…you know? The penny horse? The penny horse is the only reason people shop here!” We had been to that store dozens of times and not once had anyone mentioned this horse that was apparently the main attraction and certainly had I never been given a penny to ride it! I looked in the direction of his pointing finger to see a brown toy electronic horse, with a “1c” sign hastily scribbled on with spray paint. I will admit, we are not “grocery store ride” people. I have never even glanced twice at one of those things, but I will say that 1 penny wasn’t a bad deal at all! My mind raced with the fact that my little one had been hysterical for the better part of the last hour and that she certainly didn’t “deserve” a ride on the penny horse and that we didn’t have two minutes to waste in this particular moment…when…
Mercy. I could see God’s mercy. Not getting what we deserve. God seemed to be going out of His way to give my emotionally-unstable little girl new mercies that morning. And I certainly wasn’t going to get in His way. I gave up my agenda and bent down, for the second time that morning, and explained to Selah how the kind man had given her a penny to ride the horse, but how really it was God giving her yet another new mercy. She listened intently as I preached my little sermon and when I asked if she would like to ride the horse, she stared back at me with those big blue eyes, mouth open in wonder, and slowly nodded her head up and down. Because sometimes His mercies come in the shape of recovered Costco receipts and penny horses.
The Penny Horse.
Thank you, Lord, for all of our new mercies this week.I refuse to miss seeing YOU and your heart for us in the little moments of life:
The Moberg version of Saturday morning cartoons…“How did the deer cross the road?” “By using the crosswalk, of course!!”Spaghetti Squash Chefs!Homeschool Space Tinkering Day…we made instruments and learned about Space with Quinn and Kari!A preschool Mother’s Day tea with my boy who was the first to let me be a mother full-time. Thank you, Lord, for this little miracle of a man.Mother’s Day…with my kids and my Mama in beautiful Colorado!
And last, but not least. Elliott’s hunger for reading is just exploding. He’s reading so much!! He and Brian read the Bible every night and a couple of weeks ago he just started sounding out the books of the bible. So Brian went through them with him and the rest is history. Check out our little man!!
Your turn. What new mercies has God given you this week?
This week, I was blessed with double “Jillian” new mercies!
My sweet friend Jillian from Tacoma was in town and I was SO blessed to get to grab a quick breakfast with her. Such a treasured friend. We met because she was my student teacher, which seems like EONS ago!!! But I knew we would be friends from the moment I read her application and profile. Definitely a kindred spirit and her friendship has blessed my life. I didn’t even think to snap a pic!! It was such sweet fellowship to see her!!
And THEN, my OTHER dear Jillian (Jilly-Bean, to be more precise) sent us package!
First of all, WHO ON EARTH sends a package this beautiful!?!! I’ve never received a package where the box itself is a piece of art!!!
I’ll tell you who. Jilly Bean. Artist extraordinaire. Seriously–I mean that. She is UNBELIEVABLY talented. Check out her work here!!
I’ll tell you what’s a new mercy–HAND-ME-DOWNS!!! We are SO blessed to get boy hand-me-downs from Jill’s boys and girl hand-me-downs from Kari’s girls.
The box was FULL of amazing treasures, including these AWESOME Lightning McQueen slippers for Elliott. Olivia also passed down two sets of jammies for Selah (although they are probably close to the same size at this point since they are just a few months apart!). The kids TORE through the box like it was Christmas day and then immediately stripped their clothing and tried everything on. It was so darling to watch. They were SOOO thankful, just squealing and giggling with delight. So precious.
Later in the week, Selah and I got a little girl time and she wanted to play Bingo. We were towards the end of a round when she suddenly started dumping game pieces on my board, and then LAUGHING ABSOLUTELY HYSTERICALLY. She did it again and again to the point where I was laughing hysterically at HER laughing so hysterically and then…it happened. She got the hiccups. When she laughs so hard that she gets the hiccups, (which she does a lot) I just absolutely lose it. I think it’s SO RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY. Anyway, I finally grabbed my phone to try and capture the moment. We must have laughed for 10 minutes straight.
My girl who always has us in stitches.
And THEN, I was cleaning up our craft room when I found THIS little gem! I am SO thankful that I write things down because I had totally forgotten about this picture despite the fact that I had just written down the caption a few months ago! Selah drew this picture back in February, handed it to me, and explained what it was. I wrote exactly what she said on the back of it:
Come on, now. Who is this girl?? Her imagination!!!!!!!!
And last, but CERTAINLY not least…
While I was making dinner, Brian embraced me and said, “Happy Anniversary, my Love.”
My brain immediately started rattling as it was not computing…what is today…May…May what?…May 2nd…what is May 2nd….AHHHHH….
“The day you proposed to me!!!”
I am certain we have forgotten this anniversary many times, but this day we didn’t.
What a new mercy. We were just laughing through our dating story with some new friends on Saturday night. What a story :). But (almost) 7 years in and I couldn’t be more certain that God’s mercy was on my life and my heart while we were dating to open my eyes. Boy was my little heart guarded and hurt and BOY did it take me some time to realize that there was no other man on the planet that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But God dropped the walls off my heart and confirmed in my heart that Brian was the man. Every day I am thankful for him. Every day I am thankful for God’s mercy in opening our eyes because they were certainly CLOSED to each other for a long time!!!!! 8 years of friendship+6 months of dating+3 months of engagement=new mercies every day. Thank you, Lord, for this man.
Promised to each other for 7 years!!
And if you haven’t read our *incredibly* lengthy engagement story, you can click here :).
YOUR TURN!! What new mercies has God brought to your life this week?!!!
