Happy Thanksgiving

It seems like the clever scheme of a cunning enemy — the thick and looming web of consumerism, woven to cast an eerie fog over a holiday completely rooted in not shopping and the getting of many things, but in taking stock, counting blessings, giving thanks for what you already have.

Be sober and vigilant, dear ones, to savor and guard this as a time of cultivating gratefulness, treasuring togetherness, and focusing on the people, (and not the things), that matter most.

fire

Take this moment – this one right here – to slow down, look up, see good and give thanks. It is fitting to begin a season of celebrating the coming of the Light of the World, by giving thanks.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. {Psalm 100:4}

Welcome to the Holidays, friends.

xCC

Gorgeous Christmas Cards :: A {Minted} Giveaway

I’m totally pumped to share this gorgeous company I just made the acquaintance of with you guys. AND equally pumped that one of you will win $50 to spend however you please at their magically delicious website.

The company is called Minted, and they are about the business of uncovering design genius — connecting designers around the world with savvy shoppers one sale at a time. They have a B-E-A-YOU-tee-ful selection of Christmas Cards and SO, SO, SO much more.

On my first visit, I drooled over all the funky and stylish fonts, the unique and dapper card shapes, the swoon-worthy chalkboard backgrounds (personal fave) and  just how polished and snazzy every. single. card. on the shelf seemed to be!

Look at these!

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Merry Typography

Dipped Snowflakes

I even checked out the Non-Photo Holiday Cards {shocking for this second-shooting photography-loving gal, right?} and fell in love! First with this “Year in Review” card:

Screen Shot 2013-11-25 at 8.45.06 PMAnd then I broke up with that card because I fell in love with this one:

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which could only be more perfect if that lovely Range Rover looked slightly more like our slightly beat up mini-van. Or good old Mr. Potato Head. {Yes, I still miss that car.}

Classy simplicity, you get my vote.

Then I started perusing some of the other magical stuff on their site, like their Children’s Art Prints. And when I discovered I could CUSTOMIZE their gorgeously designed art prints, I promptly created this one, fainted, and then got back to playing around on their site.

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Is that magic or what???!!!

I’ve gone on long enough, haven’t I? Totally not like me, huh?

So any who, here’s the skinny on this Minted Giveaway. There are three ways to enter, and I was feeling generous, so I decided leaving a comment after visiting the Minted website counts twice. It’s laid out for you plain-and-simple inside the delightful Rafflecopter widget, graciously appearing below. Just make sure you interact with/click on that widget and don’t just leave a comment. That’s important.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That’s it for now, guys and dolls! One randomly selected winner will be announced after the giveaway ends at midnight on Thanksgiving, this Thursday!

And I’ll have more love from here for you soon… promise.

xCC

 

Disclosure Statement to Keep it on the Up and Up: Minted.com gave me a $50 credit to use at their magical website. But the opinions inside this post are absolutely my own. I consistently endeavor to tell it like it is.

Our Third First Birthday {& the Goosewaddle Winner}

Our Third First Birthday {& the Goosewaddle Winner}

Not interested in small talk? Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the Goosewaddle Giveaway winner!

Last night, after dinner, I felt like I was coming to the end of a loooong day of mistakes. I’d forgotten to put the stirring wands in the bread maker, and as you can imagine, if the ingredients get baked without being stirred, bread doesn’t happen. While out shopping with the Bear, I’d bought the wrong size belt for the BearNarrow-waisted little fella’s pants are falling down… And, I opted for sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes as a topping for a yummy dinner and that just. did. not. work. {What was I THINKING??}

We’d encouraged the kids to consume the almost-inconsumable meal I’d created, which took forever to make and made us late putting the kids to bed, and I was sitting there for a moment while the Belle was finishing up something other than the dinner, which she was kind enough to completely refuse.

I commented, mostly to myself, but aloud and in earshot of the Bear who was still at the table, “MAN I made a LOT of mistakes today.”

He immediately got down from his chair, walked over to me and gently put a hand on my back and said:

It’s okay if you behaved badly today. Tomorrow is another day and you can try again.

Then, he gave me a big hug and said, “I love you, Mama.”

Even if I made a dozen mistakes throughout the day, his kindness and thoughtfulness in choosing words for me I’d carefully chosen for him before reminded me maybe the Hubs and I are getting more of the big things right than we think.

This morning, the Belle woke up one year old. It is always hard for the moment to sink in — when a year has passed since a little one first graced your family with their presence. And so much has happened since the Belle’s Record-Breaking, Beautiful Arrival, it kind of feels like she’s been with us longer.

TheBelle11 001I am so certain this year would’ve been so different, if her joyful presence wasn’t here. Her fragile, tiny life, just beginning carried a significant message for me:

The days pass quickly, and tomorrow has a face you haven’t seen yet. Breathe deep and live full today.

Our three small people — often viewed by the world as handfuls and liabilities — my word, what an asset they are. Reward.

If I could tell you one thing, my precious children, one thing that would ring through the years — a word that might find you again many years from now when you need it most: Know that you are deeply wanted, fully needed, completely treasured. Your Dad and I consider you our most prized gifts. Your lives matter, always have, always will.

And our precious little long-awaited Belle — thank you for this year. I spent nine months carrying you… but for the past eight, you’ve carried me.

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And now that the sap is out of the way… on to the Goosewaddle Giveaway winner!

The magic robot behind the scenes at Rafflecopter randomly selected:

Giveaway Winner Screen Shot 2013-11-15 at 7.41.21 PMAmiee, who Liked Goosewaddle on Facebook!  

Congratulations, Amiee! I’ll email you to get the details for getting your Goosewaddle gear to you!

Thank you all so much for entering! I hope you’re glad you were introduced to Goosewaddle — keep them in mind when you’re shopping this holiday season!

Love y’all, back with more love {and maybe a few pics of the one year old} soon!

xCC

 

Swim Your Own Race

Hey friends! I hope you’ve taken a moment to enter this Goosewaddle Giveaway! You can earn up to three entries but it ends at midnight tonight!

The Hubs and I were both competitive swimmers a wee while ago. I swam on my high school swim team, and really enjoyed it, but swimming was never more than something I did for one season out of the year. (Winter, funny enough.)

The Hubs, on the other hand was a dedicated and focused year-round-swimmer, training and competing throughout the year in South Africa from the time he was about ten all the way through the majority of his time at university.

We were very different types of swimmers, and we sometimes laugh at how that mirrors our personalities. I was a sprinter, concentrating on the 50 and 100 Free, occasionally being forced into an individual medley here or there, but absolutely loving relays. (Always a social creature…)

The Hubs, on the other hand, was a middle distance swimmer for the most part. He focused on lengthier races that required careful attention to setting one’s pace, and one careful stroke after the other, pushing the length of the pool time and time again before the race was done.

mcolliebfly_1 {The Hubs, rocking some serious butterfly at an outdoor race.}

My competitive nature often meant that rather than focusing on my own pace (even for a 100 Free) I tended to keep an eye on the swimmers in the lanes around me to decide how I was doing. Depending on what teams we were racing, I might make it a goal to keep up or stay just ahead of the swimmers around me.

HH swam in a completely different way. He knew in his mind how many strokes it should take him at a particular pace to get from one end of the pool to the other. He knew the pace he needed to keep — down to the milliseconds per lap — in order to reach the goal time he was aiming at. Because he was competitive on a national level, to him getting the time he was aiming at was more important than making sure he was staying on par or ahead of the swimmers around him.

Unlike my utterly-social self, keeping an eye on the lanes around me, the Hubs knew exactly how to swim his own race.

I was reading in Ezekiel the other day, about the time that God instructed Ezekiel to lay on his side for 390 days, symbolically demonstrating God’s disapproval of the wayward ways of the people of Israel. {Read the whole story in Ezekiel 4.}

The symbolic acts Ezekiel demonstrated were supposed to convict the people of Israel of something very specific: Their need to repent and turn back to God.

I wondered, as I read, what people in Ezekiel’s day thought when they saw him laying on his side, day after day. I wondered if any of them thought his actions were an indication that they should lay down on the ground on their side, too.

Do you ever see the convictions another person is living with and wonder if you should live with the same convictions? I’m not speaking about things clearly laid out in the Bible that we should all determine to do — I’m speaking about the instances where a person is personally convicted by God that they should take a particular course of action with their lives.

Homeschooling is a great example. You might observe some of your friends making the decision to homeschool their kids, but that doesn’t mean it’s what the Lord is calling you to do. Conversely, there might be absolutely no one in your friendship circle that feels called to homeschool their kids — but in your heart you just know, you’re being called to do it.

This is where a living and active relationship with God, through His Holy Spirit, is a vitally important part of the life of a believer.

This is well explained in one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians:

For the Lord is Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord — who is the Spirit — makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. {2 Cor. 3: 17-18}

If the Hubs had made it his only goal to keep pace or beat the swimmers around him, he might never have accomplished the times he needed to qualify him for National Champs each year. As he would word it, he knew how to “keep his head down and swim his own race.”

I, on the other hand, did not have the bright and shining swimming career the Hubs could boast of. (Don’t worry — he doesn’t.) I never really learned to keep focused on the race that I was swimming. This might’ve meant I won a few races by keeping pace with the lanes around me — but not many.

It also, at other times, meant I tried to keep a pace that was too quick for me. I tired myself out long before the race was over, and on the last lap I was barely able to bring my arms up and over to stroke through the water and it took ridiculous effort to kick my legs — I’d so completely “run out of gas.” I would have faired far better had I swam my race and kept my pace.

In Jesus Calling, Sarah Young says of the Holy Spirit, “He will not force you to do His bidding, but He will guide you as you give Him space in your life.”

It is so good for the people of God to walk in right relationship with God. To pause throughout our day to consult with the Spirit, to find our sense of direction from a better source than what’s happening in the next lane.

We cannot afford to parent our children by looking to the next lane.

We cannot afford to spend our efforts at work just doing whatever we see being done in the next lane.

We cannot afford to only live out the convictions we see being lived by the people in the next lane.

Basing your decision processes firmly on the backs of what people are doing around you is a recipe for making complacent efforts toward complacent goals. “Aim at nothing and you’ll hit it every time.”

Instead of watching the world around you — close your eyes and give an ear throughout your day to the incredible Spirit of God, who can live in your heart and guide your steps because of Jesus.

If you swim your race, you are much less likely to give out of gas, and much more likely to stand, medal-around-your-neck-victorious, on the podium.

xCC

 

Goosewaddle Giveaway

Goosewaddle Giveaway

When I was a tiny wee lass, I had a special blanket to love on that I might occasionally wish I still had every now and then. My Mom and I were discussing it the other day — it was a yellow blanket called my “piecey” {I think because I rubbed it to pieces} with satin edges that I loved to stroke between my fingers while sucking my thumb. Yes, I sucked my thumb long enough that I can remember sucking my thumb. No judgment please. And no queries for stories about the antics my brother pulled in attempts to help me stop sucking my thumb, either.

Let’s move on, shall we? My boys each have their own special, especially loved thing (or in the Tank’s case, things). The Bear has a Beaver that I bought in Germany long before he was born. I named it Schatzi, which is kind of like “Sweetie” in German… but the Bear got even more creative and started calling him “Beaver” instead.

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{Poor Beaver, he looks a little worse for wear now that that little Bear is five.}

To help the Tank settle down for naps, I started putting one of the tags of his swaddle blankets in each of his hands. And now, at two and a half, his sleepy time routine still includes a “taggie” for each hand. But it works, people! Call him Linus if you want, it works!

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{That’s the Tank still wrapped in a taggie after a nap at Goo-Goo and Gammy’s ages ago…}

So we’re rounding the corner on the end of the Belle’s first year, and she has turned her nose up at dolls and shows no particular preference for one plaything over another. I still swaddle her for naps and nighttime (it’s more a routine than anything else at this point) but I’ve been wondering how we’ll move on when the swaddle cloths no longer wrap around her little self, or when she finally asserts her will and says Swaddling, you’re done. I’ve been kind of disappointed that she doesn’t have one thing that is her thing that makes her feel like she’s complete and ready for sleepy time because it has worked so well with our boys.

Cue the introduction of a groovy new product that might solve my problem, and a concurrent celebratory giveaway.

A few months ago, I heard about some new baby blankets called Goosewaddle blankets.

Goosewaddle make super-soft full-size baby blankets (like what you would use in cribs), and smaller “lovie” sized blankies which are the perfect thing for a baby to love on and snuggle up to at sleepy time. I’ll tell you a bit more about the Belle’s opinion of the blankies in a moment, but I first have to mention the quality people behind the company. Because you know me well enough to know I can’t stay on topic too long, and if there’s anything praiseworthy happening behind the scenes, I have to get to that first.

Goosewaddle’s Buy 1, Give 1 campaign means that every time someone purchases a Goosewaddle blanket, the company donates a receiving blanket to a child in need. They work with various charitable organizations to make sure they’re getting to babies who could use them around the world. And the collective Ahhhh kicks off…

Now… the actually blankets are delightful. They are luxuriously soft and have that wonderful old-school satin edging that I remember making me snuggly happy with piecey a few years ago. They’re big enough to grow with baby through the first year, but still small enough to travel with baby into the car or out and about in the stroller. Pram. Choose your own moniker. I’m not sure the Belle has decided she’s totally sold {she seems to have preferences about food and… food!} but I totally love having a new perfect fluffy soft blanket for her crib just in time for cold weather.

Belle and Goosewaddle 002

The blankets and the blankies come in pink, white and blue and can be bought as a set or individually.

And… {yay!} I get to give one away to one of you lovely readers this week!

We’re giving away a Goosewaddle Gift Set — One Blanket and One Blankie {choose your color!} — to a lucky winner! Honk!

If it’s not for your own little one, it will make a great gift for somebody else with a wee one or a wee one on the way! Just leave a comment below, and hopefully you’ll score your own Goosewaddle later this week! {You can like Goosewaddle and With Love, From Here on Facebook for additional entries.}

And — here I am trying to get back on topic again — a conclusion to the story: to the question of whether the blankie will become the Belle’s piecey, the jury is still out. But so far, she is definitely convinced it’s cuddly and snuggly. See?

Belle and Goosewaddle 001

I’ll keep you posted! Good luck, friends! More love from here soon…

xCC

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

P.S. I almost forgot to tell ya! The cool cats at Goosewaddle gave me a blanket and blankie to try for free. But my review and opinions are absolutely my own. And this giveaway will end Thursday at midnight!