happy birthday leah!!

You can kid the world.  But not your sister.  ~Charlotte Gray

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves - a special kind of double.  ~Toni Morrison

What's the good of news if you haven't a sister to share it?  ~Jenny DeVries

Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.  ~Carol Saline

It's hard to be responsible, adult and sensible all the time.  How good it is to have a sister whose heart is as young as your own.  ~Pam Brown

today is my sisters birthday
leah michelle
my older sister
and dearest friend!


i remember meeting leah for the first time
there was something different about josh
leah brought out a softer, more caring side of josh - at least toward his little sis!


i don't remember life much before leah
she was around for my 14th birthday
sleepovers on the weekend
campfires, silly songs, eating mojos
leah was there while i went through junior high, high school
she listened to me talk about all kinds of boys, crushes, issues, struggles


leah is no sister in law to me. she is my true sister.
i think there are very few people in the world that know me like leah does
she encourages me, laughs at my jokes, shares my humor, prays with me, listens
we've been through the worst circumstances together, and i've been encouraged by her faith & perseverance. 
she's made me the auntie of the 2 most beautiful boys in the world. 


i love having leah as my sister
i love how much we laugh together, but that we can still share the deeper harder stuff
i love that she loves researching things on the internet & that she loves learning
i love watching her love everett, teaching him with love & patience
i love going through new life stages together
and i love knowing that she will be in my life forever


happy birthday to my sister & my friend! 
leah michelle - i love you so much!


love pumpy.

creativity in the night

i have always loved & appreciated the arts
and any avenue of creative expression
music, dance, photography, writing, drawing

i think it is so neat to be able to see someones creativity & views through one of those avenues.

i find that when there is too much pressure to be creative, or to produce something great, the magic can be lost in the creative. i love writing (as you can probably tell from how much i write on & on...) but if i feel like i have to blog about something, or have to write because its been too long... then it feels contrived & not natural.
i love singing, but whenever i enrolled in a competition i felt like my passion was sucked out because i wasn't just doing it because i enjoyed it.
i love photography, but i have decided not to pursue it on any kind of serious level because i put too much pressure on myself.

being creative is the most fun when you are given a lot of space to be creative!

i was reading about this guy, Nick Risinger, that is the creator of the year-long photographic project dubbed the Photopic Sky Survey - meant to reveal the entire night sky as if it rivalled the brightness of day.  In a year he stitched together 37,440 exposures (pictures he took, all over the world) to create a picture of the entire night sky. AMAZING.

he quit his job to pursue this creative project. and the result is gorgeous.
stars we would likely never see, and colours that look too interesting to believe that it's in the sky every night & we miss it due to light pollution, location (to some extent) and forgetting to stop & look up.

check out his website: http://skysurvey.org

here is a picture, if you go on his website you can zoom in on different portions. amazing.

best kid around

so i was planning on posting a picture of my tattoo this evening
BUT my tattoo artist had to postpone my appointment to friday
so i'm stuck waiting.

instead, i'll post 2 pictures of the best kid around
my vivacious little nephew ev

i took these pictures on sunday when we were celebrating mothers day/granny's day.
he is getting bigger & cuter all the time.
i love his personality.

really i just love him all around!

just lounging. look how big he is!

just goofing around with poppa

you can see all his little teeth in that smile

everything he does is suffused with grace.

"You'll take delight in God, the Mighty One, and look to him joyfully, boldly. You'll pray to him and he'll listen; he'll help you do what you've promised. You'll decide what you want and it will happen; your life will be bathed in light. To those who feel low you'll say, 'Chin up! Be brave!' and God will save them. Yes, even the guilty will escape, escape through God's grace in your life." job 22:26


God can't stand evil scheming, but he puts words of grace and beauty on display. proverbs 15:26


Look! Listen! There's my lover! Do you see him coming? Vaulting the mountains, leaping the hills. My lover is like a gazelle, graceful; like a young stag, virile. Look at him there, on tiptoe at the gate, all ears, all eyes—ready! My lover has arrived and he's speaking to me! song of solomon 2:8


Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you'll find it's graceand more grace. The moment he hears, he'll answer. isaiah 30:19a


"Here's what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won't be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. matthew 6:6


"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." matthew 11:28


So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever. 2 corinthians 4:16


All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. romans 5:20

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If you skim through most of the above scripture, at least read the one in romans (the last of the large list of scripture). it's a beautiful word picture of the saving power of grace. and the way sin has no chance against it.


i have been thinking a lot about grace today. i know that i have mentioned this before, but i will mention it again - my grandma used to start all of her prayers with "thank you Lord for another day of grace". she never took it for granted. though she could've had an unending list of requests & petitions (for health, for strength, for a cure for her sickness to name a few..) she ALWAYS started her ongoing conversations with God by acknowledging, daily, the gift of His grace. it was all about HIM. 


i remember when i started dating michael, he was all i could talk about. and i know that for a fact, because a friend of mine even told her it was driving her nuts. she felt like SHE was dating him because she knew every little thing about him. 


shouldn't that be what our relationship with christ is like? where we can hardly wait to soak in more of him, and we can't stop going on and on about him & how fabulous he is. 


i often call or text michael just to tell him that i love him & i'm thankful for him. not to call him to give him a list of things i need him to do for me, or things i need to vent or complain about (don't get me wrong, i'm 100% human, and do way too much of that!!) why isn't that how i normally approach God? 


i want to be more like my grandma. quietly strong & consistently tender. always grateful & putting others before herself. and always acknowledging God's perfect gift of grace.


i'm getting my tattoo today. in memory of my grandma. just under 7 months of losing her, and 1 month after what would have been her birthday. i'm tattooing the words "another day of grace" and striving to live in thankfulness of that gift.





God is good to one and all; everything he does is suffused with grace. psalm 145:9

all things sparkly.

i feel a bit "racoon-y" today
distracted by all things sparkly

i have been mulling over the idea lately of "living simply" and what the looks like.
i know many people who claim to live simply, but find that it's not that simple to always live "simply" and i don't want to make any bold statements here, only to look hypocritical later.

i have been thinking lately about the fact that i often have more than i need. so the other day i did a jewellery purge. i had found this beautiful black jewellery holder (does living simply mean no more random bargain shopping?? again, conundrum) so i decided to only keep as many necklaces as i could fit on the holder (one per "handle" of the holder) and ended up getting rid of a lot more than i realized i owned. however, i have spent a good chunk of time this morning looking at jewellery online. ahh, distracted by all things sparkly.

we just came back from a trip to vancouver to visit my dearest friends emily & thomas. and it was SO good to be with them. and as an added bonus, we got to spend some time with Gord & Janice (and atticus!) since they let us crash there on the drive to & from vancouver.

driving from winnipeg to vancouver i marvelled over the sights. the simplistic grandeur. the wind turbines dancing & swirling magically on wheat fields. the sun shining over the horizon. farms & animals. the first glimpse of the mountains. driving through the mountains. where each peak seems to be a little more majestic than the last. signs of avalanches. secluded lakes. waterfalls & streams. we were literally surrounded by breath taking creativity.

yet how quickly the sparkly distracts! once i stopped browsing the jewellery this morning, i looked out the window to discover that the tree just across from where i park my car is in full bloom. perfect new buds & leaves. in a neon shade of green. spring is here. refreshing.

while we were driving through the mountains we listened to a lot of worship music on our ipods, and one of the songs was "beautiful one" - which seemed so perfectly fitting to sing while being amazed by God's creation. natural sparkle. nothing on earth is as beautiful as him. amazing!

i think it's easier to live "simply" when we spend more time simply living. marvelling in what we have, who we have to share it with, and who gave it to us! spending more time enjoying, rather than buying new things to enjoy. i'm still learning.

beautiful one i love

beautiful one i adore

beautiful one my soul must sing

you've opened my eyes to your wonders anew

you've captured my heart with this love

because nothing on earth is as beautiful as you.