• ‘He will quiet you with his love’

    ByKristin faith, holiday, quotes
    1 Comment
    {On the way from Queenstown to Milford Sound in New Zealand in 2009.}


    The LORD your God is with you,
    he is mighty to save.
    He will take great delight in you,
    he will quiet you with his love,
    he will rejoice over you with singing.
    —Zephaniah 3:17

    The year has flown by. It’s been good. And it’s been a journey. We’ve been on all kinds of road trips, established priorities for our family, and grown closer to friends. We’re not the same. We’re changed and challenged and encouraged and blessed and motivated by what’s happened in our ordinary, everyday lives this year.

    The year 2011 ends today, but this journey doesn’t end here. It continues. We still have kids to raise, family and friends to love, meals to share, places to go, things to learn, games to play, and stories to create.

    Knowing that, I wanted to pick a promise to hold onto. Because some days are hard. Being a mom requires energy and patience that I don’t always have. But I want to have it. And I know if I trust God and cling to his truths, I can come out better than I went in.

    And that’s my hope. I hope my stubborn, controlling tendencies are quieted with God’s faithfulness. I hope my opinions and reactions are quieted with God’s truth. I hope my impatient, hurried ways are quieted with God’s everlasting love. I hope my plans are quieted with God’s promises to continue his work in me.

    Because God is with me.

    He is mighty to save. Over and over again.

    He delights in me. And my husband. And my kids. And you.

    He will quiet me with his love.

    And he will rejoice over me with singing.

    Inspired by Ali Edwards and a Compassion International blogging prompt, I want to choose a word for 2012: QUIET. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not going to sit down and let the year pass me by. But I do want my words and actions to speak clearly and not be cluttered by unnecessary jumbled distractions. My hope is I will know when I need to speak up, when I need to shut my mouth, and when I need to listen and learn. For all of that to happen, God has to quiet some of me and make himself known in my life.

    With that, may 2012 begin …

    _______

    I’m not good with resolutions, but new years are good times to start fresh. You can look back on what was on my mind to start 2011 and 2010. Want more? Subscribe to get “Insights” in your inbox. Or follow me on Twitter.

  • Memories hang here

    ByKristin holiday
    1 Comment

    A blogging friend inspired me to share about some of the ornaments on our tree. I like looking at other people’s trees and figured this would be a good way to document ours. So, come along, on a virtual tour of what’s hanging on the branches of our fat, unshaped real tree I love.

    I love collecting ornaments while traveling.

    My mother-in-law gave us this in 2009 as a memento from our trip to Texas that July.

    That’s made in New Zealand, where we went in August 2009.

    Gran-Gran gave these to the kids in 2010. We had gone to Branson in October and part of our vacation was seeing “Noah” at the Sights and Sounds Theater.

    Us adults got this one from the same Branson trip.

    I love this ornament from Chicago. We went in September 2010, but it’s a new addition to the tree this year because we only put up a small tree last year. I was worried that Ben would try to climb it last year. So far so good this year, although I keep a close eye on him.

    Several ornaments came home with us from Maine this fall.

    Cate picked out this lobster one and I love it. The store there personalized it for us.

    This one is made out of Maine lobster, crab and mussel shells.


    And, of course, we brought an ornament home from Boston this fall too.

    The handmade ornaments from Cate are among my favorites too. She is 4 years old. And really into crafts. She’s brought home four handmade ornaments from school already, and she still has a week and a half left before Christmas Break. And that’s not even counting the ones she made last year.

    We — although mostly Cate — made these last year for relatives.

    That’s our family, apparently.

    And we can’t leave out baby Jesus’ family.

    Ornaments that document moments in our lives are good too. We have one commemorating our first Christmas as a married couple. And then there are these, which I love …

    Peggy {my mother-in-law who is better known as Gran-Gran around here …} is a great gift-giver. She had these ornaments made for us in 2002 {the only Christmas we lived in Lexington} and 2003 {our first year in our first Murray house}.

    No worries, Ben has a couple “Baby’s First Christmas” ornaments too. He was born a month before Christmas, so he actually has more baby ornaments than Cate. They were great gifts to get!

    Isn’t this sweet? {Again, courtesy Gran-Gran!} Cate became a big sister in November 2009.

    I like dated picture ornaments too. I’m sure this doesn’t surprise any of you. On my to-do list is finding ones for this year.

    Our childhood ornaments are fun to have, especially now that Cate likes to hear stories about them.

    That’s me. And I think this specific ornament was in a box my grandpa gave me after my grandma passed away in 2001.

    And, obviously, that’s from Greg’s first Christmas.

    What’s your favorite Christmas ornament? Do you have a themed tree or is it a hod-podge of memories like ours?

    ________

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  • {Approved for You} Glow-in-the-Dark Toys

    ByKristin motherhood, road trips
    0 Comments

    We like to go on trips. And we take our kids on our trips.

    I’ve been blogging about most recent trip to the Northeast. Then there was our trip to the other side of the world when Cate was 2 years old. We’ve been to Hilton Head a couple of times. We drove to Texas. And then there were and will be road trips to Branson.

    Of course, there are shorter road trips to Lexington, St. Louis, Nashville and Louisville even more often.

    All of that to say, my kids like to travel too. They’re just used to it. They have songs they like to hear, books they like to read {well, you know, look at …}, snacks they like to eat, places they like to go and people they like to see. They’ll often fall asleep in the car if it’s nighttime or naptime.

    But until this weekend I didn’t realize how a simple glow-in-the-dark wand would help to entertain them. Especially this time of the year when it gets dark so early {we live in the eastern side of the central time zone}. And, honestly, it wasn’t even something I thought of. Nana, the kids’ great-grandma, lives next door and gave them these wands and some mini M&Ms as a belated Halloween treat as we were leaving town, literally.

    So we brought them along.

    And we’ll bring them along again. Well, them meaning the wants. We ate the mini M&Ms, you know. Yes, glow-in-the-dark toys. Surely they’ll make every kid smile in the dark backseat on an evening road trip.

    ________

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