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I had a cookie date in the kitchen with the youngest last night.  I'm eating up the last hours with them before school steals them away on Monday.  Girl time. Everything was perfect; that is until Rylie dunked her Oreo in my milk.

My once pure milk was now disgraced by crumbs.

 

Kids do that you know.

 

I'm warning those of you who think you know your kid, only to be surprised when they slam dunk in your milk.

For you young mothers or mothers of the future, you may not have experienced this disappointment yet (husbands, though are also known for spoiling the milk). You work so hard to train them to be just like you, then find yourself swallowing a few soggy crumbs.

Crumbs in your milk

You give your to heart to inspiring kids to read and your kids use their Kindle for the purpose of iTunes and Temple Run.

Despite their intelligence and friendly personality (inherited no doubt), they have no interest in student council and "forget" every time there's a tryout for UIL.

They show you where they want their first tattoo even though you made them promise when they were three that they wouldn't get one.

They frown and roll their eyes at the cute pair of deck shoes you hold up only to point you to some oversized, flourescent-colored, clown-looking high tops.  And they don't even play basketball.

Or according to your perception of their talents and nature, you carefully choose their future career and life path only to find out your daughter wants to be a rapper.

And get ready.  You may invite your first-born to have cookies and milk with you, but he's too busy now with friends.

This is going to happen.  Just a few tips to remember:

They won't like everything you like.  That's ok.  The world doesn't need two you's.  Your horizons may just be expanded.  (This doesn't mean you have to like rap).

They may not be interested or even involved in curricular/extracurricular activities of your choosing.  Be more interested in building character than busy schedules. Listen to them and learn about them instead of using every breath to teach them.

Help dress them in the armor of God and worry less about those tacky shoes they wear that won't even fit in six months.

Enjoy them while they're in your grasp.

Crumbs are inevitable.  Hug your crumb-makers.  Teach them.  Love them.  Pray for those cookie- dunkers.  Cherish them, crumbs and all. They make life sweet.

Dedicated to the World's Greatest Cookies-Hayden, Hallie and Rylie

 

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Recap from yesterday:

Capture life's fleeting moments.

Life is best unposed.

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Behind the Lens-Viewing Life

I had the privilege of taking Senior pictures for siblings Magan and Austin.  Two days of photographing in cold and rainy weather brought about worries of soggy moods and less than sunny pictures.  With rain, low temperatures and skirt-blowing wind, our setting was limited.  But I had marvelous subjects.  And as a bonus, the imposed weather and setting set-back, taught me a few things about taking pictures...... and life.

Some of the most unassuming places make for the best backdrops. In picture-taking and  life-making, explore the unassuming.

A couple of pictures were taken from atop an air conditioning unit.  Without the right perspective, my eyes were focused on a busy background.

  In picture and in life, notice when your perspective needs changing.

Busy backdrops are all too common.  Simplify.

 

Life is black and white and bright with vivid color.  Don't fool yourself into thinking it's one or the other.  Appreciate both.

Don't let cold and rainy days stop you from your memory-making.  On warmer days you'll look back to beauty preserved and the cold won't sting quite so bad.

Make room for some "silly".

Snap away.  Nobody looks back and says, "I made too many memories".

 

 kristiburden@gmail.com

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Behind the Lens

I've always been fond of picture taking.  Maybe because taking pictures means that I'm not the one who's being photographed.  I was reminded by Hallie yesterday of the duress that often comes with being a photographed subject.

  "Tuck in your chin just a bit.  Tilt your head toward the left.  Sit up straight and smile."

I remember when my turn would come up, having my picture taken for the school yearbook.  I dreaded facing the camera, but only half as much as I dreaded getting the white envelope with a plastic window exposing 2 5x7's and 48 wallet me's staring awkwardly with a braced smile.

There's something I'm learning about picture-taking.  I am learning slowly, but I am learning.  True picture-taking means looking through the lens and attempting to capture the essence of beauty undisturbed.

Butterflies don't smile and sunsets don't sit still.  In all our efforts to make things look just like we want them we may be missing a sweet fleeting moment.

I intend to dictate less and open my eyes

for then there will be smiling behind the lens.

 

Life is best unposed!

 

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Memories

are life's decorations

 Beautiful

Even when tucked away

2012's Best Decorations

Prison Revival

Hallie and Rylie's Twirling Recital

Finding close beachfront to hangout on during Summer days with the perfect fruit stand just yards away

Rylie learning to ride her bike

The private star parties attended by Rylie and I

Every Friday with Jason

Visits with old friends and family

Hayden turning sixteen and getting his truck

Mine and Hallie's special girl dates for prayer and DQ Blizzards

Rylie making friends of all ages at the allergy clinic

Fireworks at Magic Kingdom in Disney World

Another Summer week at Fun Valley, Colorado-trying to hunt down Johnny Depp filming Lone Ranger while we were there

Ma's Book Jardi's Journey being published

Discovering Willy Burger

Rylie learning to read

Starting our God's Girlies Family and making lots of new sisters

My Sushi dates with Hayden

2013 is here

How about some

Decoration Anticipation

What was your favorite decoration from 2012?

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I've diagnosed myself with claustrophobia.

I've also loosely diagnosed myself with agoraphobia, fear of open spaces.

I have a fear of having no escape, being trapped like a caged bird.  Oddly though, the thought of my cage door being wide open providing me freedom scares me too.  Who knows what's "out there".  When I think about such things my imagination runs wild.

This is a New Year post.  Wait for it....

While we were all at the table eating the other day, Jason asks the year-end question.  What have you guys resolved to do next year?  What a big question. That's an open space kind of question. There are hundreds of things I'm resolved to do; hundreds of things I am resolved NOT to do.  In spite of my resolutions, I'm pretty sure I will still be drinking more than a healthy share of Dr. Peppers come 2014.  Sadly, I also know that I'll lose it with my kids and Jason despite my annual ambition to be a person of gentleness and self-control.

No, thinking about resolutions and knowing with certainty that I will fail is futile.

Twelve months of being resolved to do anything is intimidating.

2013-What will I do with this open space?

I don't know what is out there.

And then again, I do know what's out there.

This might make you think I'm a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of girl; one who lives for the moment.  That's not true either.  I have stood in the candy bar aisle frozen in indecision.  Should I have a Reeses or a Watchamacallit?  I often think that my decision to let one of the kids spend the night with a friend can alter the course of the earth.  What if something bad happens.  I live in terror in my closed spaces.  Will forgetting to hug Hallie this morning be followed by a day of her feeling alone and unloved?  In twenty years from now, will she think I was an absent mom?  It's as if every small decision made, holds failure or success, life and death significance.

I think too hard already.  I don't need to make resolutions.

In fact, I'm resolving not to make them.

I'm also determined to lighten up when it comes to decision-making and its effects.

In 2013  I don't want to be that bird in a cage, being suffocated by the imagined weight of my small decisions.  And I don't want to be the bird flying free, faced with the great unknown, and known future.

I want to recognize my place in the palm of the one who holds time and space.  I want to be with Him in the here and now, and the beyond.  I want to be close enough that I can hear him whispering words of grace and assurance in my bad decisions.  I want to be close enough that twelve months of open space don't seem dangerous; close enough that I am being......

 recreated by His resolve .

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 90:14

It's He who is faithful.

What about you?  -Have a resolution?

 

 

 

 

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In honor of my birthday, a friend gifted me with these pictures; treasures from the past.

This got me to thinking about Hallie and our image battles.  I care what she wears.  Hair can be signature too.  These pictures give great perspective.

This is what I'm thinking:

Here's confirmation that it's ok to say, "You're not going out with your hair looking like that".

Proof in picture that I'm needed in Hallie and Rylie's wardrobe selection

Yes I know, I have no pride.....

What MY MOM is thinking:

This is confirmation that eventually they WILL go out with their hair looking like that

Here's proof in picture that they will largely ignore your wardrobe aid

What doesn't kill your social status makes you stronger.

What is it my dad says?  Choose your battles.

 

 

 

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I decided to clean out my closet today.  Bad idea.  Before I knew it, my house blinders were off. And I was on a cleaning rampage.

/ If you don't know what house blinders are, they're the lens of choice for the months I don't have time to deep clean./

  When I wear them I can't see the dust on the baseboards or the ceiling fan, or any dust in-between for that matter.  I'm blind to the laundry basket full of unmatched socks, pillow cases without place and the pair of shorts Hayden's been looking for.

I'm perfectly content with the house when I'm wearing those blinders; and with the people in it.  But let me tell you, when the blinders come off it gets ugly.  I turn into a raving lunatic calling the place a pigsty.  I wonder out(very) loud how the house got in such a condition.

I start using phrases like "Is there nobody in this house who can throw an empty toilet paper tube in the trash?".  Every other word is "Really?".  The kids hide in their rooms at which point I comment on how I'm the only one "who ever does anything around this house".

I know......I am honestly ashamed and wouldn't be bringing it up except for the fact that there was something lovely surrounding my haggard behavior.

It was my family.

Like my disheveled closet I was a mess that couldn't be ignored.  So they suffered my tantrum and they helped me clean.  And then they did something I need to do more often.

They put THEIR blinders back on.  They looked at me as if I hadn't sprouted horns just moments before.  They hugged me without reservation. They hadn't forgotten my ill behavior, but they decided to see me through love lenses.

I think that's what grace is.

My cupcake runnneth over.

There's nothing sweeter.

 

 

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This Christmas

May you find yourself close to those you love,

 be it side by side or in cherished thoughts

May you think on fond memories from the road behind

 and look to the days ahead with hopeful anticipation.

And may your Christmas and the days be met-hand in hand with your Savior.

Wishing you a Christmas full of Love;

Full of Jesus

Christmas 2012

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I haven't tried or wanted to try to write anything regarding the tragedy in Connecticut.  It's something I can't wrap my mind around.  I don't understand. 
 
Christmas, in my mind ,is the time of year to feel warm and fuzzy like the images on Norman Rockwell cards.  It's time for sweet surprises like the old coffee commercial where the troop comes home and surprises his mom showing up in her kitchen one morning in his army fatigues; home for Christmas.  But we're not home really.
 
That revelation has again become real, time and time again lately.  The world in all it's beauty, is a broken place where death stings.  Some families won't be together.  Bad news covers the TV screen while others struggle with private pain.
 
Darkness doesn't belong in Christmas. 
 
 Or is Christmas when darkness turns to dawn?
 
 As long as we live on this temporary globe, there will be darkness.  Some of us feel swallowed by it now.  But Christmas is HOPE.  Christmas is the message, in a babe, that light has come.  That light came to be with us and is with us still. 
 
Even more, that light which is Christ, shows us the way to a place and time where there will be no darkness; our future home.
 
HOPE
 
It's the gift given to us which we hold most tight to when things around us are more than we can bear.
24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:24-25
You probably know the song "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day".  With my short attention span I'm a first verse girl.  I'm tuned out for any verse beyond.  The other day I really listened to this whole song.  It's our story; a story about sweet Christmastime.  It's about despair often felt during the season.  But we can't miss the last verse.  It's about hope.  Listen for the bells ringing deep within our soul, soothing us with hope of a better day.
 
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
 
 
I heard the bells on Christmas day, ther old familiar carols play, and mild and sweet their songs repeat, of peace on earth goodwill to men
And the bells are ringing (peace on earth)
Like a choir they're singing (peace on earth)
In my heart I hear them (peace on earth-ohh)
Peace on earth good will to men
 
And in despair I bow my head; "There is no peace on earth" I said "for hate is strong and mocks the song" of peace on earth goodwill to men
But the bells are ringing (peace on earth)
Like a choir singing (peace on earth)
Does anybody hear them? (peace on earth -ohh)
Peace on earth goodwill to men
 
Then rang the bells more loud and deep; God is not dead nor does he sleep
(Peace on earth, peace on earth)
The wrong shall fail the right prevail; with peace on earth goodwill to men
(Goodwill to man)
Then ringing singing on its way, the world revolved from night to day a voice, a chime, a chain sublime, with peace on earth goodwill to man
 
Hear Casting Crowns sing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-150Y6Hf8ds