I’m starting a fun, new little blog series called With Purpose & Passion. I read an inspiring, encouraging, and grace-filled book this summer called Your Beautiful Purpose by Susie Larsen. That book showed me that there are times in life when I will be running wild with purpose and passion, and other times will feel a bit more stale. But as long as my true purpose rests in God alone, I will bounce between those other places of passion and purpose with ease and confidence.

So in the spirit of celebrating the purpose and passion of others, I wanted to periodically feature some of my favorite people who inspire me.

A couple of years ago, I met the beautiful Betsy Storey. She is such a sweet friend, and now she is a mama-to-be.

Betsy recently launched her calligraphy business, Heavens to Betsy Calligraphy. She is creating the most beautiful, personalized address stamps with her custom calligraphy.

I knew that I just had to have one for the new house. We hope to be moved in for Christmas, and I just can’t wait to stamp this gorgeous stamp on the back of all of our Christmas cards this year!

 

*Heavens to Betsy created a mock up address stamp for promotional purposes for us. This is not our actual address. 

I also really wanted to order some little stamps with just the boys’ names on them. I thought they would be good to stamp onto gift tags and calling cards and cards sent to grandparents for holidays. I absolutely love the way they turned out, and I know we will get a lot of use out of these.

My heart still flutters a little extra when I see my boys’ names like this. I can’t believe they are ours!

I asked Betsy to share with you a little bit about why she loves calligraphy and she found passion in calligraphy.

So that’s my friend Betsy and her beautiful calligraphy stamp business. If you are in the market for an address stamp, I highly recommend contacting her. She’s a joy to work with!

 

Today is going to be a really wild day. I woke up this morning praying for the kids’ attitudes… and mine.

Hayes has his speech therapy session this morning, followed by his occupational therapy session. It’s not part of our normal therapy routine to have two sessions in one day, but this week is unusual. So we had to switch things up and schedule two big appointments for the same day. And in all the scheduling of these appointments, I started to get discouraged.

I was discouraged that we had to rush around so much in one morning. I was discouraged that Hudson had to come along to both sessions where I beg him to be patient and quiet while we work with Hayes. Hayes gets pushed to his limit, and starts to shut down at the end of back to back sessions, and I was absolutely dreading that.

And then I turned it around on myself.

He’s my second born child. He didn’t get enough one-on-one attention from me in his first few months and that’s why he needs speech therapy and occupational therapy.

And, oh, remember that he had to wear that doc band. And he doesn’t know his numbers and letters, and doesn’t know all of his colors and shapes. Those things are all my fault.

I can tell myself lie after lie. I can become completely blind to the fact that Hayes is doing great. That he’s a wonderful kid. He’s even perfect in my eyes. He’s smart and bright and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’s still in speech and OT despite meeting his goals because his therapists like working with him, and we don’t have to “graduate” until he’s 3 years old. And we are blessed with two of the best therapists we could ever hope for!

But those thoughts still come in where I completely give up on giving myself any grace, and I just beat myself up.

And, yet, when I talk to a friend about the same topic of how things are so different with her second born, I do everything I can to build her up. Cover her in grace. Make sure she knows that she has not failed this baby. Because I know that she is a great mom. This baby is loved and adored and prayed for, and will have a beautiful childhood.

If I can give that grace to her, can I save a little for myself, too?

The Father is doing that for me. He’s covering me in grace every single day. I don’t have it all together. I get fed up with myself and my imperfections and my inability to get it done. And, yet, He’s got me covered. I need Jesus desperately.

Because some days I am doing great! And other days, I know that I need Him to carry me through from one hour to the next. And what a joy it is to ask Him to do that. I can delight in that!

I may not be a perfect mother, but I love my babies immeasurably. I may not have it all together, but I certainly don’t have the energy to waste on pretending to have it all together. And some days I may beat myself up over these things, but my God loves me and has me covered.

2 Corinthians 12:9

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

Happy Friday, y’all! It’s time for another Five on Friday with Darci, Natasha, Christina, and April. You should link up because it’s the most fun, easiest link up of all time and a great way to find fun ideas every week.

 -ONE-

I had the opportunity to take the boys to see Disney’s Planes on Tuesday morning. It was Hayes’s first movie theater experience, and Hudson’s third. We invited our friends Emily and Jack to join us, and the boys got the biggest kick out of being there. It was a really fun morning. We didn’t make it through the whole movie. Hayes and Jack made it to the halfway point before they started wanting to get up and be a little more mobile. But they did great and we saw most of the adorable movie!

 

-TWO-

My sweet mama recently updated her blog again. (What’s the Plan?)For those that haven’t been reading, my mom has melanoma. It returned in May, and she is blogging all about the process of fighting this awful disease. She said to me yesterday that she just wants her decisions to honor the Lord. I am so proud of her. But you better believe that I’m praying for complete healing.

-THREE-

Todd already has me on a mission to secure babysitters for the first couple of home football games. I can’t believe football season is almost here! I honestly don’t get that excited about going to the games anymore. It’s just a long day, and it’s an ordeal to be away from the kids all day. But we will definitely be bringing Hudson back to another game this year!

-FOUR-

My friend, Lindsi, recently told me about this fantastic new website called Match My Monogram. If you’re trying to sell monogrammed clothes or you are looking for gently used, monogrammed clothes (with your child’s monogram), this is the site for you! It is so well-organized and easy to use! You can search by name and by monogram. It is the greatest concept and I think so many of you will love using it!

-FIVE-

I am currently obsessed with gold. Gold leaf lamps. Gold foil on my planner. Metallic gold wallpaper for the new dining room. Last week I received my beautiful Lara Casey gold foil print. I need all the things in gold foil now. I’m trying to come up with even more quotes that I can get put on card stock in gold foil.

This little beauty will be hanging in the office area of the new house. I just love it!

My Instagram feed has been full of back to school pictures lately. It seems like all the kids are heading back to school, and with each little “first day of kindergarten” chalkboard printable I see on Instagram next to an excited/nervous/carefree child, I find myself getting choked up.

And then I think about my own boys. Hudson is starting 4K this year. It’s just until noon. It’s still at his same preschool. He’s incredibly excited.

But all I can think about is that my boy is four and next year he will go to kindergarten.

And, y’all. After that I am can physically feel my heart speed up. And I feel like I’m losing oxygen. I am overcome with fear.

I’m not scared of my child actually being in school. He’ll do great! And I’m not scared of something bad happening. Those things don’t scare me.

My fear is all about the passing of time. It’s like there’s this imaginary calendar that shows how many years of school we have, and once kindergarten begins, days start getting marked off one by one.

It’s the knowledge that my parents are getting older. Those thoughts leave me gasping for air and feeling like I’m suffocating.

Why do we spend our whole lives praying we meet “the one,” rushing to get engaged, rushing to get married, and rushing to start a family? And then when we have that family, we dread bed time because we know our babies will wake up a day older. (Okay, so maybe there are a lot of days when we actually look forward to bedtime.)

But my God doesn’t want this for me. He wants the exact opposite. He wants me to enjoy each day, and not spend them being scared or sad because a day is gone.

He wants me to live in the moment with my kids.

It’s impossible to seize every single moment. I have enough grace for myself to recognize that I cannot possibly make the most of every single moment and be intentional with every single second. It’s just not something that any mother can be expected to do.

But enjoying them and loving on them for who they are. On this day. That is something I can do.

And while four years old sounds so old to me right now, I know that when he is eight years old, I will look back at four and think of how small Hudson was.

I can barely remember to take pictures of them in the big moments these days. I probably will even forget to take a first day of school photo.

I won’t get it all right. They’re going to keep growing up. And I’m going to love them more and more every single day. Our conversations will become more interesting. They’ll lose teeth and look a little more awkward. We’ll all get our feelings hurt. And we’ll all laugh and travel and sit around together as a family.

We’ll make mistakes and we’ll pray and we’ll sit up all night trying not to worry about them.

But that paralyzing fear that causes me to lose my breath? That stuff has to go.

Because I’m rejoicing in my growing boys and thanking my heavenly Father for the gift of being their mother. We’re welcoming pre-K with open arms and preparing his little self for kindergarten next year.

And, in this case, I’m not looking at the big picture. I’m enjoying Hudson and Hayes for who they are today, and thanking God for every tomorrow.