Winner, Easter, Running & 4-Year-Old’s Words

Okay so I have actually completed a few more orders.  This first piece is a 22×30 canvas that I made for my friend Brea.  I actually have another piece for one of her little boys that is almost complete as well and I love how these are turning out.  Brea wanted the state of where each of her smallest kiddos were born with a special verse for each of them.  I LOVED this idea and I LOVE the big maps.  Hope you love them Brea.

And this little 10×10 canvas was actually ordered by my mom.  She needed a small baby gift for her good friend of her’s new grandbaby.  Simple, sweet and very vintage…I like!  Thanks Mom!

And thank you so much for everyone who entered or helped spread the word about our 5 Months Waiting Giveaway.  It was really amazing to read all your comments about Easter…very humbling and practically a sermon in and of itself for me to read.  So who was our winner this month?

Comment #157 Emily…sent you a special email Emily…super congrats.  Another giveaway same time again next month, well, crossing my fingers that maybe I won’t have to make another piece.

We had quite an eventful Easter with lots of fun things going on.  I am not a stresser over clothes for holidays or ever, that’s just not my thing.  Now give me a crooked picture frame hanging on a wall and that is a much different story – bring on the stress.  I did make Harper a new headband for her to sport, but that was the only labor spent over Easter outfits.  Everything I snagged at the best kid’s consignment sale in middle Tennessee, Encores & More North.  They totally rock and I loved getting Harper’s dress for $4, seriously, cannot beat it with a stick.  And yes Huddy has some kind of dog sticker on his shirt and Harper has a black balloon…didn’t notice it at the time.

With each year holidays just get even more fun.  If I have never expressed Huddy’s love of food I am proclaiming it now:  Hudson Hall Kelley is a true lover of food!  There you have it.  The boy is never full and I have had him tested for a tape worm…seriously, I have.  So needless to say a holiday that involves treats stuffed into plastic eggs is like the BEST thing ever to Huddy.  He was hilarious.  For their first egg hunt, my kids took off in gleeful bliss.  Harper was like a fairy, she just bounded and ran and galloped and was just happy to be there.  Sol was more reserved, he took off, but he was his laid back self and just took his time.

Huddy is a story all his own.  Shortly after they started collecting their eggs, I overheard an argument taking place between Josh and Huddy.  Hud just didn’t understand why he had to collect eggs, when all he wanted to do was eat them.  I made my way over to the conversation and Huddy was very convincing, so needless to say, Huddy did not win the prize for most eggs…he’s a live-in-the-moment kind of guy, so he set to work eating his eggs and he was cool with that.

Shortly after, Sol decided to join Huddy in the eating of treats.  Apparently, he thought Huddy had a good argument as well.

And I had one of those moments where you just want to squeeze your child into a million pieces because you are just so darn proud of them and your love for them is just running over.  As everyone was hunting eggs, Harper found an egg that looked like a basketball.  Well, you would have thought she had won the lottery, she came running just as fast as those little legs could carry her, yelling for Sol the whole time.  She ran straight to him and gave him that basketball egg, “Sol look what I found for you.”  That made Sol’s day.  He loves basketballs, kind of like how Huddy loves food.  He kept that basketball egg with him the rest of the day and is still toting it around our house.  Made me proud that Harper is my kid 🙂

On a different note, I am running my first 1/2 marathon this Saturday, The Country Music 1/2 Marathon.

In January I made several New Years resolutions and one of them was to pray specifically about 4 things and to be really, really consistent about it.  I wanted to find something that would make me stick with this and after much thinking I decided to start training for the 1/2.  I found a plan online that called for running 5 days a week…this was what I needed, something that I was physically doing that would be this huge reminder to pray for these 4 specific things.  I also nagged my brother into the training as well.  I needed someone else that was committed to completing the 1/2 also…kind of like peer pressure.  I am excited to have this event with him…it’s like a milestone of some sort and glad we will have completed it together.

(Chris and I rockin’ our kuzoo skills…it’s crazy how good we are)

Our next little boy is one of those things I pray for when I run and honestly I just knew that by race day I would have seen his face and I decided a long time ago that I would run in his honor.  So I will be sporting his shirt and thinking about him the whole time and trying to not die 🙂    Honestly, I have been a bit bummed this week because I still have not seen his face and I just knew, really I just knew, that when I decided to run this thing that I would be running with his face in my mind.  So yes, I may have been a bit weepy and mopey this week, but God used some words from my 4-year-old to slap me in the face.  I don’t know if I have ever “heard” God’s voice more clearly that through the words that exited Harper’s mouth.

We were waiting at a red light and a family started to cross in front of us on the street and Harper was talking about how many kids the family had.  Her words exactly were, “They’ve got a bunch of kids.  How many kids is that Mom?”  So I counted and it was only 4, but there were several adults with them as well, so I told her that there were 4 kids and her response was, “Wow, that’s a lot of kids.”  So I responded with, “You know I’m going to have 4 kids,” trying to show her that really it’s not that many kids, at least it didn’t warrant a “wow” in my mind.  She then opened her mouth and started saying the following sentences…

“Mom, you do have 4 kids.  He’s just in Ethiopia, but God knows who he is, He knows his name, when he’s going to come home and God even made his sweet body.  So don’t say you’re going to have 4 kids because you already do.”

As she started talking I instantly knew that God meant for me to hear every word she was saying, so I grabbed a notebook in my bag and started writing down everything she was saying.  So yes I was driving, listening intently to what Harper was saying, writing crazy fast trying to get it all down and crying all at the same time.  I was the #1 road hazard on the road at that time.

But, boy, did I need to hear that.  God knew what I needed to physically hear and He sent His word to me.  I was a hot mess by the time we got to our driveway and I immediately called my mom and admitted the non-sense of hearing God through my 4-year-old, but that’s exactly what I heard, God’s voice in a small little 4-year-old girl and it was what I needed at that time.  So my patience was increased, yet again, and I am fully confident, again, that yes my little boy will come home and I will see him and physically love on him, but in God’s time and His time will be perfect.  So I may not know what his face looks like while running on Saturday, but God knows and He knows my heart and He knows what his face looks like and I can live with that 🙂  Happy Wednesday!