You build with mortar the barriers around you
Going into shutdown mode
With robotic automation

And I pick up the slack
With my overwhelming frustration
An attempt to bulldoze your red brick wall

My mind whispers otherwise
Reminding me its compassion that tears down fences
That creates safe spaces that coax you out of hiding

But usually my ego wins
Responding from the fear recalled by my previously wounded heart

You’re not him
Any of those other hims
And I’m not the girl I was then either
Nor am I the person who taught you to withdraw

But still we slip into those places our experiences have created
Those places that tell you to hide
And me to fight for my life
That forget the safety we can celebrate in the other’s arms

And I’m thankful for those moments for two reasons.

One: that they never last long
That what used to be my entire experience of love
Is now merely a glimpse of a little girl’s fear that overtakes me momentarily
Before I remember who I am
And where I am
And who I’m with
And what we both need.

And Two: that they remind me of those things at all
Of who and where I am and with whom
That they offer the contrast of a previous life I thought was normal
And the wonder I still dwell in because I’ve discovered that its not
That those places are no longer comfortable
No longer the first place I go
No longer the last place I want to leave
That they no longer threaten me
Or you
Or us together
But that they merely happen as a glimpse of an old self
A history we get to rewrite
And not a destiny we’re doomed to repeat
That it’s never long before your arms are wrapped back around me
And I’m sinking into your heartbeat
And we’re smiling again
With the reminder that decades past is not our reality
Even if we momentarily relive it
For old time sake perhaps

Yes, I’m thankful for the times you trigger my old shit
(although you’ll never hear me say it in the moment)
Because I want to be the woman who loves you that fiercely
As to lean into compassion instead of bulldozer mode
Into love instead of my own fear
Into what you need instead of what I’m afraid to give
(Yes, I have walls of my own
Not the kind that go up in a flash
But the more insidious kind
That stay up all the time
And are made of clear glass
Giving you the illusion of openness
Until you face plant against them.)

And I’m thankful for another thing:
This sacred little space we’ve created between the two of us
Where you learn to open up
(and I learn to shut up)
Where I learn to be patient
(and you hurry up and get there already)

Yes, we have our moments of fear
That manifest as anger and disconnect and hurt
But damn, only moments?
(I’d call it easy if I didn’t remember how fucking hard it was there for awhile
and how much we worked at this
and how we almost didn’t make it work)

I guess what I’m trying to say
Is your damn sexy
Red brick walls and all
And I’m glad you think I’m cute when I’m mad
Because I must be breathtaking to you
Right when we need to love each other most.

We had mishap after mishap and mine and Justin’s main relationship trigger is stress.

Not just stress, but a string of stress that really throws us off and disconnects us. We were good for the first round. The second, third and fourth rounds is when we fell apart.

We’ve found that when we can come together we can weather damn near anything.

But in April we let 9863653886 give us the lame excuse to not make time to come together.

We really noticed this by the end of the month. Yeah, things were stressful with tires going flat and slide breaking and the dog getting fleas and on and on.

But it was made harder by our distance from one another.

It’s too easy to allow Life become an excuse. It feels hard to not fall into that trap. But it becomes simple when you just don’t allow it too.

So we came back together. And we’ve been working on more mindfully staying that way.

Case in point: Yoga in the woods.

Early yesterday morning as I was sitting in the lake I just felt compelled. There’s a perfect deck at the RV campground we’re currently in and the weather was wonderful. (We’re in South Carolina currently.)

I came back prepared to need to jump up and down on the bed to wake him, but he was already awake and reading. I just had to ask and he was ready to go.

This morning we did it again. Although this time he convinced me to try his YogaX (from the P90X program). Yeah, that’s really not a more-than-once-a-week practice for me.

But we have some other videos and audios and plans to continue as often as we can roll ourselves out of bed before 9am.

And who wouldn’t want to get up early to watch your husband do this:

The man is an animal!

What do you do to come together?

It started Thursday, as we were driving the 5th wheel through the hills of Tennessee, reaching Knoxville during rush hour traffic, when the engine began to struggle for the power to pull 16,000 lbs up the steep incline.

We were on our way to surprise our family, who was gathering in Nashville to celebrate six generations, and my heart wanted to be there, not broke down in the parking lot of a Toys R Us.

It started there, but it didn’t stop there. Our weekend looked a little like this:

• Stress: The feeling when you send the truck up the hill on not much more than prayers.
• Anxiety: What creeps in when you almost don’t make.
• Frustration: When it’s 6:20 but everything closes at 6pm and you realize you’ll be sleeping in the parking lot right in front of the No Overnight Parking sign.
• Overwhelm: When the part you need is 24 hours away and you’re not certain it’s the right one anyway.
• Disappointment: When you have to cancel clients and the Organic Tribe.

And then it shifted into something like this:

• Sadness: When you see the stress on the face of your niece who is a new, young mama.
• Heartbreak: When she cries in your arms from exhaustion and the loneliness that can come after having a little one.
• Helplessness: When you see the unhappiness written on your brother’s face and peppered through his words from overwork and under-joy.
• Hurt: When you recognize that the only way the people you love know how to connect is through sarcasm and criticism
• Worry: When you see the lack of light in their eyes and the resistance to fun in their lives
• Concern: When the people you love are struggling to love themselves or their lives
• Powerless: It’s difficult to know the joy and love that are a part of your life are hardly a possiblity in the hearts of those you love.

• Sorrow: When I discovered that my paternal grandfather has passed away weeks before.
• Frustration: That I heard it through the grapevine, instead of through my paternal family.

It sounds like a difficult, unhappy weekend.

Six months ago it might have been. 2 years ago it certainly would’ve knocked us off course. It wouldn’t flipped our switches to anxiety, fear, and frustration, leaving us feeling sabotaged and unhappy and reeling for days.

But it wasn’t any of that.

It was beautiful. It was full of joy and connection and wonder.

Because we had love.

Love we received when I sent out a text to friends and family and received support in the form of prayers, Reiki, and kindness.

Love we found ourselves surrounded by on the side of the highway, with family and offers of help just 2 hours in one direction and three in the other.

Love I gave myself when I was about to snap in frustration.

Love I found within myself to give to my husband as he struggled with overwhelm and frustration.

Love that became awe and appreciation when he turned misfortune into miracles and rebuilt the part we couldn’t order to get us into town.

Love and gratitude we gave each other in a dozen moments, in the parking lot, at dinner out, before we got back on the road.

Love we found in the form of peace as we reminded ourselves that we are safe, that we all is well, that we are exactly where we’re meant to be, even if we can’t see why.

Love that gave us the ability to access peace, lean into Trust, practice mindfulness and patience and radical acceptance.

Love that reminded us to choose fun, gratitude, and beauty at every opportunity.

Love that I called on and found within myself to shine light and joy into the hearts of my family.

Love that I found in holding my great-niece, dance her to sleep and watch her eyes as they tried to tell me the secret of the Universe.

Love that I saw all over my brother’s face as he held and kissed and lit up around his beautiful granddaughter.

Love I felt between our hearts as I hugged longer and listened deeper and offered hope and support where I could.

Love that I continued to receive from my circles of friends in the form of texts and messages and emails and energy and prayers that I felt all weekend long.

Love that I dwelled in at the celebration of six living generations and the wonder and growth that this new little girl is bringing into our lives.

Love at the sound of laughter from my nieces as we hula hooped, visited the zoo or went horseback riding.

Love I felt with the dozens of small heart connections Justin and I would continue to make with a touch, a hug, a look, a reminder of one another and our support for each other.

Love for my husband as I saw him inspiring fun and laughter, silliness and playfulness for his nieces and the whole family in the ways that only a juggling, kilt-wearing, bike-riding-inside-Target uncle can.

Love for my son as he held my hand as I cried for my grandfather, or told us how luck he was to have parents like us, or made the whole family laugh.

And love for myself. As I acknowledged my own growth. My own strength. My own ability to remove the barriers to love I’ve held within myself and the beauty and joy accessed when I do.

My ability to continue to shine my own real self, not the person my family has known me to be in the past. My ability to continue to make my own joyful noise to fill the quiet spaces. To inspire fun and connection. To reach out. Love deeper. But not deplete myself.

I can’t tell you exactly why Life is so tough at times.

I can’t explain why we were meant to break down, why my niece gets to struggle as a single mama, why my brother has gotten to experience so much hurt in his life, why any of us have.

Except maybe that it’s so we can discover that love can still be found in those moments.

That joy can still be accessed when stress is threatening.

That beauty and wonder are always present, not despite the heartache, but sometimes because of it.

That the Truth of what is can overcome the fear of what might be.

To discover that fear needn’t be “pushed through” but simply loved on.

That peace and Trust come from within, not from the circumstances in our life.

I can’t exactly show you how all the dots of my weekend are being connected in my spirit, how the contrasting emotions played themselves out moment by moment; I can’t tell you exactly what it all means and why.

I’ve barely had time to process it myself…except to say that when I close my eyes in stillness all I hear echoing is the power of love.

And that sounds about right, the purpose of all of these messy bits of our lives – to understand what is and what isn’t love, and how and where one can and can’t access it, and how this incredible force of Nature is like the air, waiting to be breathed in or carried away on.

Who knew you could still love someone so much after nearly 12 years? (I didn’t.)

It’s not always pretty love notes around here. In fact, about a month ago we went through several weeks just. Not. Connecting. We couldn’t reach each other. We were overscheduled and underenergized and it sucked.

But life ebbs and flows like that, and we’re learning to flow with it. (And making time for lovin’ doesn’t hurt either.)

This week brought a flow of hidden love notes to brighten me day.

Hidden in my laptop….

In the bathroom….

Wrapped around my toothbrush….

Stuffed in my makeup bag….

He’s a keeper this one. ♥ ♥ ♥

That’s the easy “free range” stuff for me.

Watching him board a plane for his first solo flight – that makes my heart clench a little.

Lemme go back…

A few months ago Zeb was feeling a lot of homesickness. We talked and he processed and at the time we didn’t see what else to do other than empathize.

Then that night I had one of those “Duh” moments when you suddenly ask yourself why not and realize you don’t have any reason other than “I just hadn’t thought about it.”

So I asked him, “Would you like to fly back to Vegas to visit family and friends?”

There was really no reason why it wouldn’t work…we could afford a single ticket, he’s 12 for goodness sake (I was flying alone since I was 8…and that was before security was such a PITA) and he wanted it – and that’s enough to make anything a possibility.

We talked about the reasons we couldn’t all go (cost + RV storage + dog + work), what it’s like to fly alone, how the trip might be organized to see everyone and how long he’d like to stay.

3 weeks he decided would be long enough to see everyone and do everything and not be too homesick for us.

So we made it happen.

And yesterday he took off.

Okay, so I’ll admit I was excited for him just about the entire time.

But towards the end was when my heart was a little clenched and there was one point where I thought I might vomit.

I didn’t (and don’t) want to taint his trip with my own emotions about missing him. And I’m not at all worried about him or his ability to fly alone, navigate friends and family and have fun.

But there was a really weird moment when his plane was taxiing the runway and I knew his phone was shut off that the Mama Bear in me said, “WTF?! I’m going to be out of contact with him for nearly 6 hours?!”

Like I said, being away from him was something I had to get used to from the day he started moving. And we’ve spent days away from each other when he was having a sleepover-a-thon or Justin and I had our honeymoon.

But the longest distance away has only been a couple hours drive and we’ve NEVER not been able to pick up the phone and reach him in an instant.

And THAT was…well, I don’t have words for how that felt, except to say that it felt oddly like I was looking into the future.

My son is growing. He’ll be 13 this year and he’s as tall as me (and taller than his Grandma – haha!). His voice is changing and he can lift me up when we hug. And he has a girlfriend – did I mention that?

And it won’t stop there.

Soon the ratios of together and not-together will be flipped and he may be off doing his thing with his people more than he may be doing his thing with us.

And that’s EXCITING! It’s exciting to watch him make steps out into the world in a way that makes sense and feels right to him.

But it’s WEIRD too. Not weird of him, not weird of what he’ll do…but weird of how it feels to parent with such attachment and then suddenly realize that all that attachment parenting that you did (or caught up on) was really laying a foundation for him to eventually form attachments elsewhere.

It’s weird to have known but actually *realize* that it’s not about me, it’s not about my ideas or hopes, it’s not about my preconceived notions of what and when and how and why.

It’s about him.

It’s about the things that light HIM up, the things that make HIM excited, the things that HE wants.

Those really have very little to do with me.

He didn’t come into this world to be parented by me, to grow some powerful attachment to his parents and live happily ever after with us.

It was merely our job to give him those things now so that he could do what he came into this world to do. And now it’s our job – not his – to process the emotions that come with that so that he doesn’t feel responsible for the way we feel about his exploring his own life.

I guess this will be good practice for us so that I don’t act like a total spazztastic Mama Bear when the big stuff starts shifting.

P.S. Everyone (including us) is asking what we’re going to do for 3 weeks without him. We did some chatting on the way home from the airport and decided it’s going to look a little like this:

• Enjoying the big smiley pictures he’s been texting us
• Finishing up some work projects
• Eating sushi – his least favorite meal
• Spending a romantic weekend in the Florida Keys
• Sex on the couch
• And other places
• In the middle of the day
• And I think Justin is trying to figure out the whole Nekked Room thing as I type.

I’m going to try REALLY hard not to over-text Zeb, over-check his Facebook page or call him constantly. But it’s proving to be very hard so far.

Did you know, up until not long ago, I used to sulk in my hubby’s shoulders and ache?

I ached for a connection I never had, but had seen glimpses of.

I ached for that deep and unmistakeable connection you feel with another woman, a girlfriend, a best friend.

I haven’t had a friend like that since I was 18 or so.

I had my sister and we were thisclose, and it was strong. But as I shifted and changed, so did our relationship for many years.

And I ached.

I mean ached…literal heart-aching for a woman I could call and cry with and laugh with and grow with.

My mama had that.

Her bosom buddy, Melodie, was also like our godmother. She was confident and hilarious and warm and authentic.

And I watched them, my mom and Mel, as they sewed together and laughed together and raised children together and held each other as they cried together.

And I watched my mom’s heart break and her world dull as her female soul mate slowly slipped away to cancer 12 years ago.

And I wanted that.

I wanted that friendship that lit up my whole being, a friendship with a kind of woman who could call me on my shit, then cry with me at the thought of losing each other.

The kind of friendship that hasn’t been replicated in 12 years.

Those deep relationships cannot be duplicated.

They may even only come once in our lifetime, if we’re lucky to find them at all.

And I knew this.

I saw the magic that was created between these two women. I felt it every time we had pizza and movie nights and they would be off talking together. They had something powerful in their lives – each other and this thing that got created between them.

I knew what was possible.

And the bar was set high in seeing their friendship.

And so I ached.

Truth from Rumi

If I’ve learned one powerful thing about myself, it’s this:

Anytime I find myself longing for something, wanting to create change or experience something new, I never get to start with things outside myself.

I get to go within.

And so I sat with the ache.

I breathed into it and asked for guidance through it.

And I heard this…

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. – Rumi

Those were the words that went ringing through my heart.

Seek and find within myself my own barriers.

So I said okay…and I began to slowly dig deeper and deeper into those places.

And I found them.

They were places built on fear, on hurt, on mistrust.

They were barriers of value and authenticity and self-worth.

And they were holding me back.

And that’s when everything changed…

Looking back I can’t even pinpoint where I began to heal those fears and beliefs.

But I do know that I began to open myself to the possibilities.

Oh, those sweet and beautiful possibilities.

It’s always been my experience that when you open yourself to them, they open themselves to you…they come rushing in to envelope you.

And at the same time it feels subtle as it happens.

So subtle that it wasn’t until just now that I took a step back and realized just how full my life is with that feminine connection I so longed for.

My life, my cup, is bursting with amazing women that I get to call my girlfriends.

Women who rock my world with their authenticity and strength.

Women who amaze me with the transformation they are taking on in their life.

Women who blow my mind with clarity and intuition and compassion.

Women who will hold space for me as I scream or cry or vent or profess my weaknesses or threaten to give up.

Women who allow me to hold space for them as they do they same.

Women who light up their world and share in the wonder as I light up mine.

♥ My sister and I, having been close and distant and back again, are so completely moving back again, but with a new ability to light each other up, to stay authentic and true and independent in our own light and the shared light we have the ability to create together. We can see each other more deeply now than ever before and it’s breathtaking from here.

♥ Last weekend we crossed paths with a beautiful family on the road and later after they moved on, this beautiful mama bear and I stayed up late one night on the phone, talking for almost three hours, then both went to bed and continued the conversation in our sleep – two states away by then but so completely attuned to one another that I still feel her heart.

♥ The very next day I finally reconnected on the phone with one of my closest girlfriends from Vegas as we talked love and business and life together as if we were sitting across from each other at her kitchen table again as our boys played upstairs – but this time across the country and walking our respective neighborhoods as we chatted into our headsets as if it hadn’t been (or maybe just felt like) months since we had coordinating time to connect.

♥ Yesterday afternoon I connected with my Soul Sisters, a small group of women I’m honored to be a part of, as we talked about our passions and our purpose and that magnetic draw toward something So Big in our lives, and then talked each other through our obstacles and fears until we were all tingly with excitement and energy and love for one another and for our next steps.

♥ Then to get on the Tribe call last night and speak about Who We Are, to share openly with one another, and feel that safe space surrounding us, knowing that we are creating a one-of-a-kind experience that can so totally rock our worlds.

♥ And then to connect on Facebook with a powerful mama who is rocking something powerful in her life, her business, her heart and the hearts of others and hear her thank me for our connecting several weeks ago, for a conversation in which we opened our hearts to one another and supported each other, that so inspired her to do some big and incredible things in her world.

♥ Receiving another email from a dear sweet friend who could lean into me as I sent her the love and peace she was needing.

And the culmination just hit me.

Here I was aching for this idea of what it would take to fill my cup…a beautiful idea, but of what my mom had.

And I wasn’t even aware of the possibilities.

An idea of what *I* could have, if I just reached within and then reached out.

The ability to connect so deeply, so completely to women across the country, or even across the ocean.

To feel as though we are sitting side by side and wrapping our arms around each other.

The ability to receive such love and support and friendship from so many women, from so many walks of life, with so many unique voices and perspectives, all of whom affect me spiritually and emotionally and intellectually in the most profound ways.

There I was, thinking it had to look a certain way, that I couldn’t possibly find that closeness while we were traveling, always on the move, feeling as though maybe I just wasn’t one of those lucky enough to have it in my life at all. And sitting in the pain such beliefs triggered.

There I was aching in loneliness without that friendship I so longed for…

Instead of seeking and healing the barriers within myself that kept me from experiencing the outpouring of it everywhere.

All around me.

All the time.

I am so deeply in gratitude for all the beautiful woman in my life…the incredible ones I coach with, the beautiful ones who inspire me on Facebook, and the special ones who hold my hair back while I emotionally vomit, then take their turn.

My cup, my heart is so full, it’s overflowing.

Aching again, this time with the love and connection with which it’s been stuffed to the brim.

I know that probably goes without saying, so maybe I should say I actually really LIKE them, I enjoy them, I marvel at them and just thinking about them makes me smile with love for Who They Are.

The two of them make the most interesting (sometimes challenging ) father-son duo I’ve ever known.

Do you know the juggling story?

Well then…let me tell you.

Last year, the day after Thanksgiving to be exact, Zeb asked Justin how to learn to juggle.

Justin, never having done it but being fully indoctrinated in Google-School, said, “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Oh, blessed YouTube and how you enrich our lives.

(Seriously, can you believe YouTube is only about 6 years old? How did we LIVE without YouTube before 2005??)

An hour later, and Zeb had satiated his curiosity for how one learns to juggle.

Four or five hours later – somewhere around midnight – Justin’s saying things like “Check it out! I think I REALLY got it now!”

Over the past year, Zeb would pick it up again and then stop.

Over the past year, Justin has juggled an average of TWO HOURS A DAY.

Zeb has spent just about ten hours and mastered how to juggle the three ball cascade, several tricks and passing with his dad (video below).

Justin can now juggle six balls, do countless tricks, and juggle anything from balls to pins to rings to puppies if our dog would trust him.

Zeb’s also dabbled with the Diablo and the yo-yo.

Justin is hardcore with the juggling, yo.

(It makes for some great jokes, lemme tell ya.)

And then this past summer, after some deep connecting with what exactly this juggling thing is all about, this awesome duo decided to go pro.

Justin + Zeb = Oddball Juggling!

Oddball Juggling is all about sharing the love and benefits of juggling with other families by offering affordable, durable juggling balls and inspiration with other families.

That’s their mission statement and it makes my heart go pitter-patter. ♥

Seriously, they are for realz. Check this out:

• They figured out what the real benefits of juggling for kids are.
• Justin is all about juggling and the brain.
• But even more so, he’s all about the juggling meditation.
• The dude seriously juggles everywhere he goes.
• And Zeb isn’t quite so outgoing about being in front of the camera, but a little birdy tells me he’s going to make a solo video soon.

But it’s more than just having fun and inspiring others. It’s a father-son business!

They are selling two sizes of juggling balls and have several videos to get you started (with more on the way!).

And They’re Making YOU a Special Offer!

Oh seriously, I just love their mad business skillz. They used them to convince me (with payments of shoulder rubs) to share their special offer here.

Just in time for the holidays, you can get you and your family your own set(s) of juggling balls for 20% off!

When you go to order through Etsy, enter the coupon code: organic20

In the meantime, won’t you please Like their Facebook page and share this post with your friends and family, on Twitter, Facebook, your blog and anywhere else to help them get the word out?

I feel like I’ve been here before, this familiar but different place. It’s transition, known and unknown to us.

We’ve already said our goodbyes a year ago, but only for the year. It was difficult but exciting. And now we’re embarking for the last time and with no plans for return. And it’s not exactly difficult but the excitement is not quite the same.

There’s no fanfare, no newness to our departure this time. And yet this time it feels more like goodbye to us.

Just a few weeks ago I recorded my grandparent’s talking about their childhood, how they met and their life together. And then last night, as we joined them for dinner, I saw time fold upon itself as their past and the present showed itself to me as one carousel.

I saw Justin and I sitting across the table from our own grandchildren, looking back on our own life and all we created. I saw how quickly the seasons go round and thought thoughts that break my heart.

We’re tying up the loose ends now, packing our bicycles on the back of our new home, sending off for new birth certificates that will arrive after we are gone, receiving driving lessons from the people we love and spending our last moments with parents and grandparents.

Yes, we’ve been here before, but this is different.

I feel as though I’m moving round and round, up and down as I realize my dizzying lack of focus or productivity is really my own dragging feet and attempt at distraction, torn between the road ahead and the pain of saying goodbye again and possibly really meaning it this time.

This is life; changing, yet cyclical. Dizzying unless you take the time to really notice what passes by.

It’s been a busy few weeks. Two spent in Southern California, visiting, meeting, working, creating and exploring. And then we headed back to Nevada for a very special court date.

Yes! It’s official! Justin and Zeb’s adoption has been finalized!

It feels good to call official what we’ve known for almost a decade. It also felt really amazing to see my 11 year old bouncing up and down in his seat with The.Biggest.Grin on his face as the judge announced it so.

Now we’re hanging in town for another week, wrapping up our loose ends and hanging out deep in my Creative Cave while I iron out the last of my new e-book. After that? We’re cruising up the West Coast and anxiously awaiting Northern California.

I’m going to be editing photos for ages…you know, if I ever get started.

In the meantime, here’s some inspiration I’ve been swimming in:

• Justin has been working with me on the Sustainable Baby Steps site and we’re soooo loving partnering together to write new articles, such as Types of Houseplants That Clean Indoor Air. We’re also working together on some products for that site! And just generally having a blast.
• I was included in The Goddess Guidebook’s free e-book, How To Be a Morning Goddess! You can get your free copy at that link!
• Have you been listening in on The WISH Summit too? So, so excited to hear all the calls!
• A lovely reader shared this song with me on Facebook and I had to pass it along!
• If you’re in need of some reminding of the beautiful things in life, you must watch this video.
• If you’re wondering about the future of education, this article was quite interesting.
• But this is the way I can really see education evolving.
• HAHAHAHAHA I can’t get enough of this!
• Wondering what you can do for the world right now?
• I love seeing Benny with his new family.
• Every since first hearing about the retreat, I’ve been fascinated by Tiffani’s experience of it.
• Did I mention we spent the day with her and her family at Disney?
• Beautiful. Seriously. Just check her out.
• The perfect pet?
• Every parent of a teen should read this, just to know the alternatives.
• Love when something I love starts to become mainstream!
• This video makes me smile.
• This type of artwork/healing is so lovely!
• Have kids that love violent games?Read this.
• Heart.

Phew! That’s a lot of inspiration! It’s been a good month. 

What’s Inspiring You?

Leave your comment, blog your own post, or just spend a second to appreciate the good things in your life.

Today we spent the afternoon with grandparents, aunt, uncles and cute little nieces making, icing and decorating holiday cookies…and playing in the flour.

I hope your Christmas is just as beautifully messy, in the very best of ways.