Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Friends!!! I welcome 2010, and all that it will bring! I am optimistic about this year. I am hoping for a year of simple things. Simple joys. Simple days. Simplicity. Over the last seven years, my life has been complicated. I have been on one long roller coaster ride, and I feel like I have finally gotten off. It is so hard to surrender things to God. For me, it is so hard to trust. I have been trying to get to know God as my Dad, and thankfully I have some wonderful friends who are helping me with all of this. I am hoping that wherever I am, whatever our circumstances, I can feel content and peaceful. I have started yoga and I love love love it! The girls and I are making one big girly room out of our downstairs family room, and we are redoing the downstairs bathroom. I hope to host many girl's nights in our new creative/office/workout/sewing/whirlpool tub/big tv space! I have some awesome helpers... Please notice Brooklyn's fabulous outfit...tights, shirt over shirt, swimsuit bottoms, fuzzy backpack. My girl puts together the craziest outfits! I am convinced she will be famous one day. She really loves helping with projects, and here she is taking out screws for the door pulls.

We are painting the room a pretty blue green color. (Well, I am. ;o) And I painted the awful builder honey brown cabinet a creamy white.


Charlotte helps too. (Ignore the mess.) Here are my girlies sanding one of the cabinet doors prior to painting. I look at these pictures and I feel this sense of pride... like my little girlies don't yet think that there is any task they can't do or help with. In our home, women change light fixtures and tile floors and mud walls and paint rooms. We also have toenail painting parties, do our hair and make-up, dance and sing, and snuggle. Life with my two daughters is amazing. It is beautiful. Sometimes I have these moments when I just look at them, and I feel like the luckiest woman in the whole wide world.

(Charlie is wearing a diaper in this picture.)

I read blogs of other families. Every once in awhile, I long for a more traditional family. I long for a partner. I long to know what it feels like to be married. I wonder if I can be enough for two girls who deserve the best life has to offer. God kinda shushes my thinking. This is my lot. This is my life. And there is no point in wishing it to be different. And I have a feeling that the three of us are going to be just fine. Better than fine. I think our little family will be strong, beautiful, bonded, best friends, and we three girls will know God so intimately that nothing else will really matter. I like that. I like knowing that God lives in our home. I like knowing that when I lay in bed at night, finally quietness exists, and half my bed is full of notebooks and journals and self-help books and a Bible that has surely seen better days.... God is right there with me. He is enjoying watching me smile as I find that scripture that is perfect in that moment. He is in every cup of hot tea that warms my body. He is in the soft pillows, the warm quilts. The pretty dresses hanging in my closet. He is in the warm socks from a woman I love like a sister. He is in the unexpected late night text from Emily, who just thinks of me. He is in the pretty metal bed that was exactly what I was looking for, and $20 at a thrift store. He is in the comfy jammies that are completely practical and not at all pretty. He is in my heart. He is in my heart.

This year, I want God to fill up every nook and cranny of my life. I want to exude His love, as well as I can. I want to make people laugh, and give away love like its my job. I want to smile and laugh and wear pretty vintage dresses. I want to take care of body. I want to try new foods and stick with yoga, and travel. I want to snuggle my girls until they are sick of me. I want to cook big dinners for the people I love. I want to fix up my home, one room at a time, because I love my home. Because it is a home to royalty- princesses who surely deserve beautiful surroundings. This year, I want to serve. I want to just love on people. I want to love better- starting with loving myself.

Here's to the miracle of a new day! Here's to a new beautiful year! Here's to the chance to create the life we were designed to live! Here's to inviting God in your home and heart! Here is to finding peace and contentment, wherever you are...