i won a give away!

Enjoy the video above from the first day of my weekend getaway to portland, or. with blog friend kristen, from the blog idaho mom.

kristen would tell you that our friendship began through a give away i had on my blog. she left her first comment, and won a c.d containing one of my favorite mommy songs, "Sacred".

i would like to tell you that i was the real winner of that giveaway. i won a friend.
a laugh with, cry with, jump with, dream with, hope with, breath with, believe with, ride a gondola with...friend!


tell me which blog friend(s) would you most like to meet, and why?

where in the world is denise jones

guess where i am.

guess who i am with.

(it's not donald miller, but i am reading his new book)

so make sure you have popcorn in the house, and maybe a pair of depends,

because vlogs (video blogs) are coming, and you might laugh so hard you wet yourself!

holy jeans

part of being the baby in the family is coming to terms with the fact that most of what you wear is going to be a hand-me-down.

thankfully i'm a first born, so i never had to wear last seasons out dated polo shirt or previously pegged jeans. my sister was just 17 months behind me, and she was cursed with wearing everything i'd outgrown. though her favorite color was pink, she was typically stuck wearing my favorite color from last year- which was usually lavender. until jr. high that is when i had a love for everything florescent.

these jeans were hand-me-overs (clothing handed down by someone outside our family) for josie. when we received them they were "singing God's praises" in the knees- "holy, holy, holy." josie and i put our thinking caps on, and came up with a plan to give them new life.

josie requested leaves to cover the holes. i ironed them on with wonder-under, then stitched around them with embroidery thread (i used two shades of pink). material was added to the pockets with more wonder- under (love the stuff), and iron-on ric-rac was added on top of that to frame it.

i think they turned out darling!

after seeing the finished product josie went through her sister's old clothes and happily discovered another pair of holy jeans. she is planning her design, and is ready to put me to work
revamping her hand-me-downs.

bringing home the bacon chocolate

after the kids were dressed up in their halloween best, we loaded them up and took them to a local church to "trunk or treat."
before exiting the van, we had a very important discussion with the kids...
me: okay, here we are. now this is your one chance a year to earn your keep.
emilie: what does that mean?
michael: to provide for the family
the kids were puzzled.
me: some people say that a man provides for his family by bringing home the bacon.
emilie: but daddy doesn't bring home bacon.
noah & josie: we like bacon, i want daddy to bring home bacon!
michael: bacon means money, and this is your chance to bring home the bacon.
josie: i thought we were getting candy?
me: you are getting candy, and chocolate is bacon. now provide for the family kids, mommy needs CHOCOLATE!

i love lucy

false eyelashes, red lipstick, vintage aprons, and ricky...

i wish i could be lucy every day

i ate a booger

you read that right, i ate a booger.

don't tell me you have never eaten a booger. i would guess 99.9% of the world has sampled their boogers. i recall a boy in my 4th grade class who really enjoyed his boogers. now he is 36, balding, drives a fancy car, and has a fancy job (i wonder if hair loss is a result of excessive booger consumption).

as you see from the video above we visited the jelly belly factory. if you live in cali. i recommend you take a detour and head over to the jelly belly factory and go on their 40 min. tour! it was Su.Weeeet.! literally.at the end of the tour there was a sample bar, with unlimited j.b. samples (you should have seen my kids eyes when they were told unlimited amounts of candy was available... you should have seen the "no it's not" look i gave them in return).
j.b. has some delicious flavors, but they also have some new flavors, "beanboozled." these flavors involve trickery- discovering your chocolate was replaced by dog food, your coconut for baby wipe, your peach for vomit, and your pear for booger. and that, that is how i ate a booger (yesterday anyway).with us on our tour my grandmother "vava," and my aunt vera.

as well as visiting the jelly belly factory we visited my dad. my dad lives in a state hospital. he is paranoid schizophrenic. you'd think that going to a state hospital would be the polar opposite of going to a candy factory. it could be. you'd expect it to be. but it wasn't it. it too was filled with sweetness.
sweetness as i watched my g-ma feed her son all his favorite portuguese foods. the way to his heart is though his mother's cooking, and she needed to love him that way. he needed to be loved that way.
sweetness was having his sister, my aunt, see him again for the first time in 12 years. my family tends to ignore his existence (i know it's not intentional, it hurts too much, the loss of their only brother, first to drugs, and now to mental illness). but it meant a lot to me, and i know it meant a lot to him.
sweetness came in conversations between him and his grandchildren. in talking about favorite colors, favorite foods, go-cart crashes, and how tall the grand-kids have gotten.
sweetness overwhelmed not just my taste-buds, but my other senses as my dad hugged each of his grandchildren and said to each of them, "i love you emilie, i love you noah, i love you josefine." i want that. i want them to be loved by my dad. i want him to be loved by my children, his grandchildren.
sweetness came in my own embrace, nestling for a moment into him, my dad.
and finally sweetness came as we left. he went through the doors of confinement,where he was searched by the guards, and we walked out the other door into freedom. there we waited, waited for him to turn around to see us not wanting to leave, wanting to wave goodbye one last time, wanting to take every moment given to us to soak him up. to us he isn't a patient or a criminal- he is a son, a brother, a grandpa...my dad.
he saw us waiting, waved goodbye, and looked at me, and said "i love you." (tears)

in many ways i have been "beanboozled," i received booger, vomit, dog food... instead of the sweetness i should have had in a dad. and it hurts. it hurts everyday.
i mourn and miss the dad i should have had (tears).
i mourn the life he should have had.

and i hate satan.

but i love God.
i love God because through His grace alone i have mercy for my dad (for a man who has been awful, hurtful, abandoning me, denying me as his daughter, torturing me with lies) but i really LOVE him. and i see him. who he is, under the illness. and i long for him.

and because of this, i see how God loves us, sees who we really are under our brokenness, and longs for us.