Happy Birthday My Favorite Little Girl!

I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend against its force....My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest day. -- Og Mandino

Happy 7th Birthday Miss Peyton "Angel" Grace to you this coming Sunday! The quote above is all that Peyton Grace stands for. She loves BIG! She hugs BIG! She lives life BIG! She melts my heart and can make me dream big and believe that great things in life are within reach. She has taught me...goodness more than I like to admit. I never thought a child could melt your heart like this and she has and does. She makes me laugh harder than I ever thought I could. She can fight for her cause of the day with amazing determination. She is an overcomer. She sings with glee, smiles with intent and loves to skip. She is happy and seeks and finds laughter. She loves animals...all the way down the food chain to roly poly's and is their great protector. She loves God soooooo BIG. She is a leader, a teacher and not a follower. She is the great debater...smile and already delegates at such a young age. I am thankful that Gretchen, her mom has allowed me to be part of this great village that raises her. For that I am completely grateful that she trusts in me enough to care for her daughter. So, Miss Peyton Grace. I love you with all my heart and will never be able to repay God for allowing me to be a part of your sweet life. Thank you for teaching me how wonderful it is to skip in the rain, and dance, giggle and sing! Birthday hugs BIG to you my Lu! xoxoxoxo!

Good Life Quote

It's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. - Chinese proverb

Good Monday Quote

"Tell me and I will forget;
show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand."
~Chinese Proverb

Oh my, sunshine and the beach...sounds yummy!

Happy Weekend to you. I ran across these older file images of the beach. Hopefully I will find my sources for reference and post before weekend end.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGIE!

Today is Angie's birthday. She turns 40 today and looks as if she isn't a day over 30! We go a bit back, but became friends only over the last couple of years, but I feel like I have known her soul way before time on earth. We became friends in a such a time as this, orchestrated by God kind of friends. Her year last year has been just so very hard from the tragic loss of her little girl, Raegan in Sepetember a week before she turned one year of age and many other just life challenges. This girl seems to just draw near to God and find her safety there...no matter what! I seem to have been blessed with friends like this that face the hard wind of loss and cling tightly to Christ! Angie chooses life, she chooses hope, she chooses laughter beyond intense grief! People drop their jaws when they see her in person because of her stunning beauty, but what I wish they would see is this very funny, amazing, tenderhearted, strong sprited, loving, honorable and giving woman that is so full of light that she is like being in the presence of sunshine. So Angie, I wish you so much goodness and the very best birthday ever. I wish you joy, I wish you hope, I wish you know that you are loved and I wish this year to be so very fully of blessings that you just don't know what to do with them all. You are my heaven friend and I know God has amazing planned for your life. Much love to you friend of mine. Anthony wishes you so much too and sends his love as well.

Her hubby (Don) is taking her away for a surprise Birthday trip. Angie, I wish it to be so very wonderful, happy and romantic time for you!

For some reson I cannot get a picture to load today. I will figure it out later and put a picture of Angie with her daughter Raegan for you to see.

Sweet Grace Farms - Wedding Tent

My sister Gretchen sent me this image. I just wanted to post for my Mom, Gretchen and Peyton Grace so they can keep an eyes view of what is to come for Sweet Grace Farms. I love each of you and wish all your amazing dreams to come true in wholeness, with favor and with ease and in true delight. May everything each of you touch prosper in excellence. I love you!

Image via: Sadie Olive blog

Zach and Me Time

Saturday was spent as a creative day with my nephew Zach. We had a blast! We went to lunch, we talked about everything and nothing, we giggled and we had this great creative time to graphically design a t-shirt that had been on his mind. We sat together at my computer, played his kind of music which I loved (loudly) and just had the best time. I am grateful that he would want to spend time with me.  He was incredibly polite and just a gentleman. Thank you Kelly and RJ for instilling these values in him. He even insisted on opening my door no matter where we ended up, including every time I got in or out of my car (which made me giggle every time as he would burst out the car door to meet me). He is going to make a great husband to a wife one day and I pray for her to be every bit as a blessing to him as he will be to her. We topped the day off with coffee and white hot chocolate from Starbucks®....so very good on a rainy day and that time will go into that sweet time memory that I will cherish always.

Happy Monday to you!

Happy Birthday Kindred Friend!

Paige, Happy Birthday to you! I pray today filled with hope, 

peace,  amazing giggles and gentle smiles in between for you.

• You are kind
• You love God with all your heart

• You are a wonderful mother and are your girls greatest cheerleader
• You are funny, yet very graceful and love laughter
• You are future thinking
• You are an amazing wife to your sweetie Dan and have shown many 

what it means to have God in the center of a marriage.

• People love being in your company

• You are more creative than you will ever know

• You are an amazing photographer
• You are intelligent and can hold great conversation
• You are just beautiful...Like Miss Universe kind of beautiful!
• You set goals and achieve them

• You love pink, caffeine free diet coke, VW bugs and the beach

• You are great to giggle out loud with

• You are a lover of animals

• You have a sweet and grounded soul
• You are my tender life long kindred friend

• And today, You are the Birthday Queen!

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand! Isaiah 62:3

I am honored to call you my friend. To you and to many healthy and amazing years to come. Celebrating you wonderful today!

A Vacation, If Only In My Mind...Ahhhhhhhh

Okay, I want to be grateful to be alive. In short, work has been so very crazy for me! You know when the song you keep humming is from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs....."We work, work, work, work, work all the whole day through...". That might not be a good sign. HA! I am grateful for work and gracefully press forward working in excellence because 3 weeks ago my co-worker/designer in my company that did my same job died suddenly of a massive heart attack. So, I have taken on his projects to care for and complete as he would have along with my own. This has left me with more work than I know what to do with, and a scavenger hunt to mill through his files and make sense of it all. Meanwhile all of us just missing his great talent and keen sense of humor. I will gladly continue to fill in the places and remind myself to be grateful for every second of breath that is in me! Through all of this workload I talked with a friend of mine last night who was headed for the beach. So, the thoughts of sunshine, and a nice breeze while watching the water go in and out became my days vacation if only in my mind. Also, trying to figure out how God came up with the whole theory of gravity and how he keeps the water in the ocean...(I think too much!), Lastly, the thought of having beach time to just read a good book, or run and play frisbee in the ocean has not been able to escape my mind today. So, here is a post of the view and vacation in my mind...smile. While I am living in this fantasy vacation world, if I could only figure out how to call the animals in to help me clean my living space like the princess did in the movie "Enchanted" I would be so set! Oh my...back to work now! Grateful again...a co-worker that is fully aware of my work life these days just brought me a Starbucks....Yummmm. She is the best. I pray your week wonderful.

Image: via Bora Bora

A Mamma's Heart for the World!

My mom would just be so embarrassed if she knew that I talked about this, or shared this picture because she does it solely for the work of Christ alone and not for Man to see. She does not like this image of her, but I found it at her home and brought it to my office because it shows her heart bigger than any picture perfect smile image. I love that! This image is a couple of years old from a mission trip. She is tying a friendship bracelet on this little one. Last week she was back in Mexico teaching women how to sew. This week she arrived in Romania to work in an orphanage.  I am quietly humbled by her tenderness, her ready feet to take action and her faith. I don't have words without a huge smile and tears to say well, that is just my Mom and the amazing within her. I wish to cheer her on big for serving others that need the kind of hope that only God can show through her.  I am amazed and wanted to share in case she opens this blog and say "YOU GO MOM"! I pray God speed to you and may His tender blessings abound swiftly in you and sweetly fall on you and around you as you touch others lives. I know you will bring everyone great smiles and leave them singing with a full soul and a tangible touch from God. I just want you to know Monamine...you shine brightly to me and I am so very marshmallow (proud) of you!

Breathe and Let Go

Too much going on at work and too many hours spent in the office to post much these days.

So, I am quoting it up in the midst with good thoughts.

Here is one to think about...

"Breathe. Let go.
And remind yourself that this very moment
is the only one you know you have for sure."

Happy part of my challenge filled day. I met my Mom and Peyton Grace for lunch. We got on the subject of eye color. My Mom has hazel eyes, but for the first time in all my years of being around her, I noticed she has this amazing color of silver with a hint of lavender grey around the rim of hazel color that makes her eyes glow. She is often my silver lining so that made so much sense to see it in her eyes! My niece looked into my eyes. Most say I have blue eyes. She looked at me and told me my eyes were Aqua. That little one misses nothing. She by the way has this amazing color brown eyes that are so dark, yet you can see right through them. They speak truth deeply and solidly.

The most beautiful of all is that they both smile through their eyes!
I love that and pray for God to teach me to smile just so.

So, if you get the chance take a second
and try to smile just through your eyes!
It is sure to bring a smile from
deep within your heart. I tried it and it works.