Little Bits: Real Love

People often comment that my girls look so in love, so best friend like all the time. I smile because I know how much they mean to one another. The "I love you's" I hear from the back seat, the secrets they share huddled together in the playroom, the way I've seen one take up for the other when other kids do or say something cruel. I mean, Alysse often wakes up singing, "Hope and Ma-ee, Hope and Ma-ee" in the sweetest sing-song voice you ever did hear.

Yes, they love each other. They really, really do.

Until those moments, I always joke, when they really don't. :)

They are sisters, after all. And though I never knew the blessing of having one, I imagine that pushing each other's buttons is part of the love and the memories. Those are the things they'll laugh about years from now, the things that make them know that they are safe with one another. Because one thing I know is you have to have people who are there for you... when you are perfect and lovely and when you're irritable and messy. Their consistency and unconditional love teaches an important lesson... I love you for you, all of you, for the rest of your life.

Or, in their case, until you take my favorite stuffed animal or insert my name into a song without permission.

More December in an assortment of snapshots:

:: Our little elves helping deliver goodies to the neighbors while those cinnamon rolls were still warm... hopefully just in time for dessert.

:: With one special delivery down the street to the firemen. Something Hope's wanted to do ever since we read a book on American heroes.

It's safe to say that my kitchen has been a perpetual state of big, fat mess with a big, fat side of butter.

:: Sometimes our Advent means making or baking, but sometimes it means thinking about those shepherds and worshiping like they did.

Thanks for grabbing the camera, Hopey.

:: We have a pretty small tub these days so usually Joe bathes the big girls and then I follow up with Alysse. This night we switched things up and realized it was one great idea.

Leesie, please don't lose that belly laugh any time soon. Oh and pretty please don't stop singing, "Hap-py baby" for whatever reason your little mind started doing it in the first place.

:: I love books and try to make them as accessible as possible. In fact, the older I get the more I feel that way about most special things... what are we saving all that for anyway? That said, I love that Christmas books only come out once a year. Though those stories need to stay with us all the year long, their pages whisper sacred when shared only on cold December mornings.

New Twist: The Grinch Who Ate Christmas.

:: Favorite game? Playing "Heidi" (Oh, Shirley Temple!) with the Christmas gifts.

This lasted until Aunt Andrea and Uncle Paul's gifts almost met their untimely death.

:: Speaking of gifts, these little glam stocking stuffers never made it out of my purse and into the attic. Which means they made it out of my purse and on "Gigi" in the blink of an eye.

What can I say? She's a multi-tasker.

:: A chili night with some new friends that turned out to be old friends of Joe's! Leave it to God.

I really get my girls. The shift from really, really don't to really, really do is just a part of life. What I mean is, sometimes we all have hard days even when we're trying to do things that are "good." Like trying to get a dinner to another new mom, all the while the kids are grumpy and hungry and the hubby can't get away from students worried about their final exam. Like already being late to deliver and running to put one of the three in the van, while wearing a crazy tank top (meant only as an undershirt), and your old male neighbor walking up to carry on a conversation as you are mortified but try to act normal and talk about his grandson and baking cookies. Like saying "darn it" and being reprimanded by your three and four year old finally enroute to the mama's house until you realize you forgot part of their dinner on the counter. Like when you holler at everyone for your own mistakes.

For instance.

See, though, that's the beauty of real love. The next morning comes and you take faces in your hands and you say, "Yesterday was full of poor choices, some from me and some from you, but know what? The Bible tells us that His mercies are new every morning!" Then taking those mishaps and pretending to crumple them up into a ball of nothingness as we make promises to try and be our best us today, to be kind and thoughtful to one another.

The giggles and flush of red on big and little cheeks alike easily tells me.

I love you for you, all of you, for the rest of your life.
~Katrina