Aaron IRL (in real life!)

 This is my nephew, {Aaron}.

 Isn't he wonderful?

 He wore his special shirt.  Just for me!

He and my sister, Jill, came down from Chicago to celebrate babies and birthdays.  Aaron needed to meet the whole fam, so he took his first plane trip to Houston.  We were thrilled!

 And he met his cousin, Justus

 Big cousin.   Little cousin.

 We call them "Big Lexi" and "Aunt Jill" for a reason.  Two peas in a pod, these ones!

 Aaron was pretty fond of Uncle Jeremy.  And Uncle Jeremy was a heroic putter-the-baby-to-sleeper.

 We like to make him laugh.

And give him kisses.

 And he kisses back!

(meanwhile, Justus requests yet another app)

 Keepin' it real.  Cousin posse.

 We like to snuggle him.

 And smell him.  It's not weird.  Babies smell good.

 We like to give him hugs, too!  He's just so sweet.

Two peas.  Again.

Lexi wanted to get in on the cousin-holding.  And apparently, Aaron needed to be introduced to Arial.

"I love my baby cousin, Aaron!"

Lunch time!  Justus and Lexi both loved helping out with baby Aaron.

We're all so glad that we finally got to meet him!

And number one just got crossed off of my 50 Things in 365 Days list!

"The Grace-Given Give Grace"

~something Max Lucado said.

I'm going to be less eloquent.  Just letting you know up front.

I love this because:

• it reminds me how much I need grace~from God, from family, from friends, from myself
• it reminds me to give grace~other people need grace from me as much as I need it from them
• it helps me to be more gracious toward those who don't give grace~being punished for my shortcomings by another is painful, but it still doesn't make it right for me to be ungracious back

That's all I got.

Awkward and Awesome

{Awkward and Awesome}

Awkward

• It's my birthday.  Can we just forget for a moment how often I find myself clutzy, socially ridiculous, and completely goofy?  K.Thx.

Awesome

• Saw the doctor yesterday morning about my foot.  The break in my big toe still has some healing to do.  The bone in my foot is almost completely healed.  Doc knocked one month off of my recovery time.  I should be able to run and wear heels again at three months!  That's six and a half more weeks. Woot!
• Tuesday, I was lamenting to my sister about my "lame birthday" coming up.  She checked on plane tickets from Chicago for this weekend and quickly decided against it when she found out it was $800.  Yesterday, on a whim, I checked the fares and they had gone down by lots more than half.  So, I texted her and guess who is coming tomorrow?  And I get to FINALLY {meet my nephew}!
• Last weekend was {Rob doB and Whitney's wedding}.  It was completely ah-mazing!  I cannot wait to tell you all about it!  I danced like crazy (yes, on my bum foot!), had a blast, and made some super fun new friends!  More on all that later.  Promise.
• We celebrated our {twelfth anniversary} last Sunday.  We're going for thirteen!

~shamelessly stole that line from Marcia~

• Justus has his Economics Market at school today.  He's been working hard on the project.  He created a prototype, designed an advertisement, and turned in an expense report.  The students were given the opportunity to earn money for the market through good citizenship and participation in class.  Today, he has 10 duct tape wallets to sell.  I'm so proud of him and hope he sells out of wallets!
• After many awkward moments of the magnetic strip on my debit card being worn out (but we're not talking about that today!), I finally ordered a new card with our family picture on it.  It's so cute.  It makes me smile every time I pay for something.  On second thought, that may not be such an awesome thing!
• This camera bag is en route to my home as a birthday gift from my hubby and in-laws.  Yay!

 

 {My Awkward and Awesome Archives}

Sensitive.

Ever have one of those days weeks where nothing really big or terrible happened, but a bunch of little things have got you down?

There is a tipping point where enough of those things pile up and the things you can generally handle are suddenly unmanageble.  Mole hills look like mountains.  Social missteps that usually are no biggie sting a lot worse when you've passed that point.

It's not fun.

Additionally, truth be told, maybe I'm not entirely excited about the "number" associated with my birthday on Friday.  It's not like it's a milestone, per se.  But it changes my status from early to mid and I'm having a harder time than necessary dealing with that.  Age is just a number, it's about how you feel, right?  Right?  Can I get an "amen"?

In the meantime, I talk myself through the feelings.  (That's not crazy-sounding, right?)  And I look for ways to get excited about my awesome life.   My life really is good.  I just seem to have forgotten for the moment.

Do you ever find yourself in a funk?  How do you get out of it?

Today, I'm recounting {the little things}.