Miracle.

Do you ever have those moments when you realise how incredible life can actually be?

I'm having one of those nights tonight.

I'm seeing the little miracles that happen everyday.

I'm seeing how fragile life is, and how lucky we are to have the things that we do.

 I have three amazingly beautiful children who drive me completely up the wall.

Seriously. 

They do.

It's not at all uncommon to hear me wonder out loud why I actually bother.

I know why.

Because they are my everything.

I live in this place thats famous for it's beaches.

The sunshine.

The wildlife.

Yeh? Whatever.

Have you ever seen the beauty or smelt the smoke of sugar cane being burnt off?

Truely it's magic.

I just spent the night laughing with my girlfriends enjoying a stupid movie.

This is a true miracle for me.

I never believed I'd have true friends, but somehow over the last five years of living in this paradise I've managed to surround myself with beautiful people.

How lucky I am to realise.

A very special one of those friends is quickly heading in the direction of having a dream come true.

I am so excited for her that I can barely contain myself.

I'm fairly certain that soon I'm going to be doing a happy dance for her in my living room.

(And Miss, you better believe it will be some hell of a happy dance cause I am so believing for you in this. x)

I dunno. Guess I'm feeling kinda gushy tonight.

Happiness is good though.

Sure beats the other options.

(pictures via weheartit)

Oh, and stars kinda rock as well.

xx

The Vision. Part 3.

I wrote the other day about my life vision. 

Vision is such a intriguing word. 

I was talking with friends tonight about what it means to have a vision for the future.

Not a 'how should i live my life' kinda vision.

A 'how am I going to do God's work' vision.

You know the kind.

The kind that effects other people.

The kind that makes the world a better place.

The kind that uses your unique gifts and talents.

The kind that you are passionate about.

This kind of vision I've always struggled with.

I never saw how I could effect other people,

I never saw that I could make the world a better place.

I never saw that I have unique gifts and talents.

I never felt passionate enough.

I am surrounded with friends with big obvious talents and even bigger dreams.

It's always left me feeling inadequate.

I can't tell you how many times I've cried about the fact that I have no obvious talents and that I've never been struck by lightning with a big dream or passion.

I have things I care deeply about. 

And things I want to do. 

But I never felt it was enough.

I wanted big. 

Tonight I realised that I do have passions. 

Passions and dreams that run deep within my soul.

Ones that I can't shake or change.

They just didn't get there in a slap in the face obvious moment.

They grew over time until they became apart of me.

It's exciting thinking that all this time I was busy focusing on the crap in my life.

Focusing  on why I could never do anything meaningful.

Focusing on my lack of big in your face talents.

All this time my talents, hopes, passions and dreams were there.

Simmering under the surface. Just waiting for me to stop long enough to look.

Now that I've looked it's finally so clear.

I've had my lightning moment.

There's no looking back now.

xxx

all images via weheartit

The Vision. Part 2.

When looking for pictures for the previous post I found several that touched a cord. 

I couldn't leave them floating in cyber space without sharing them on here.

all images via weheartit

The Vision.

I have a vision of my life.

How I live it.

The values I hold.

Priorities I have.

I have a vision of morals I want to instill in my children.

Things I want to ensure they believe about themselves.
The moments I want to have with them.

I have a vision of my marriage.
Of what makes us, us.
Of the "rules" we follow, and the ones we break.
Of the things that define us.

My life is not living up to the vision.
At the moment it is completely wrong.
Not in the: 'We didn't expect this but it's pretty darn good way.'
No, at the moment it is ok. Just plain old boring ok.
We are getting by.

Or we were.
Until today.
Today I snapped.
I packed up some things and ran away from home.
I broke down.
I yelled, screamed, and cried by eyes out.

I ran away from home once before.
I can't remember how old I was.
I think it was somewhere around 9.
Anyway, when I was somewhere around 9 I ran away from home.
I planned to stay away forever or until my parents realized I was gone and cried and came looking for me.
I went and hid behind the back fence so I would be able to hear when they started to panic.
I never heard. I;m not sure they even noticed I was gone.
I must have hidden out behind that fence for a whole 15 minutes before I got bored and came home.
I honestly can't even remember what happened next. Obviously I didn't make for a very dramatic runaway when I was 9.

So today was my second runaway experience.
I spent the whole day learning some new things about myself and longing to be home with the one person who always, no matter what, manages to make me feel better.
Our marriage may not fit with the vision. It my not meet my standards. It may not be great. But it's defiantly got potential.
So sometime after dinner when the kids started to get restless I packed up my ego and headed home.

At this point in time nothing has technically changed.

My life is still the same.

My kids are still overwhelming.

My marriage needs still needs some work.

But something on the inside has changed.

I've let it out. That means things can start to change.

We've started. And thats what counts right?

That you start.
Cause the truth is, there is no end.

Life goes on.
Your children will still be your children even when they're 30.
And love doesn't just disappear when the marriage is harder then expected.

The vision is the goal.
I won't give up.
I refuse.

Life is hard, but it will be great.

xx



all images via weheartit


.

Doctor come quick.

I have 2 sick kids home from kindy today and one cranky constipated baby. 

She'll hate me when she's older if she ever finds out I wrote that about her but it's a fact.

Today my Nana came home from hospital.

Having the kids home has changed the plans a little but has been mostly easy to manage so far.

Noah has been oh so delightful.

Helping Nana to open doors, holding her crutches.

Every ten minutes or so he walks over before softly asking:

"Can I help you Nana?" 

It melts my heart and fills my eyes with happy tears.

He could kick any doctors ass when it comes to bedside manner.

I am positively overflowing with pride at my sons caring behavior today.

image source

Audrey Style.

wall decal

I have adored Audrey for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl I would walk past the cartoons and straight into the corner of our local video shop dedicated to old movies, and pick up yet another Audrey movie to watch for the 5000th time.

Every now and then I go searching for Audrey pictures. It's something I love and helps calm me. While I rarely find anything I haven't seen at some point in time, nothing beats a little bit of Audrey styling.

 

Butterflies.

I am completely in love with butterflies right now.

Butterflies are dainty and soft.

Beautiful and free.

They can fly.

Whats not to love?

image source

Believe.

"Look at the lilies and how they grow. they don't work or make their clothing yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for the flowers that they are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith"

Matthew 6:28-30

Sometimes it seems that we get so caught up worrying about the 'stuff' we miss it.

We miss life.

We miss the beauty of it.

Imagine what it would be to die tonight. 

Wonderful experiences missed.

 Beauty left unadmired.

Love not expressed.

The beauty of flowers is a gift from God.

They speak of his desire to bless us.

A prelude to the promised beauty of heaven.

Yet despite their beauty they don't last.

The only way to be sure not to miss it is to shift the focus. 

Stop worrying about ourselves.

Stop wasting time worrying about the mundane things that we can't change. 

It;s time to start living each day fully embracing the beauty of life that God has put here just for us.

image source

image source

image source

Perfection

Normally I hate Mondays. 

They are normally full of chaos, tantrums and tears.

Don't know why, but it happens every Monday without fail.

Not today. 

Today was one of those perfect days every mother dreams about.

Happy children,

Fun and games,

Outside play,

Synchronized napping (even from Noah, who never has day sleeps).

Not even mess to clean up.

Everything was so perfect I might even make pudding tonight.

image source

L.O.V.E.

love: [luhv] noun, verb, loved, lov-ing


–noun

a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour. Have you ever had that moment when you realise how self-centered you actually are? For me that moment hit this morning. And it wasn't a quietly creep up on you kind of thing. It was defiantly a hit you square between the eyes, momentary blindness thing.  Last year I was pregnant. I was allowed to be totally self absorbed, right? And besides, I wasn't completely unaware of what was happening outside of my own little bubble. I spent many a night laying awake worrying about you. Yes, you.  My darling friend. Your last year was heart breakingly, gut wrenchingly horrible. And whilst you were in my thoughts often, I don't recall ever taking any action to make your day a little more bright. I am so incredibly sorry. I love you much more then you could possibly know.  Unfortunalty I can't go back and do those days over. But I can make you smile today. image image

The never ending...

When I first discovered I was going to be a mum several things crossed my mind. The main one being "why the crap am I not totally freaked out right now??" (I was 18 and had just peed on a stick in the shopping centre toilets because I was to impatient to wait till I got home). All I could think about for the following 8months was the tiny life growing inside of me. The tiny life that God had allowed my body to build. No amount of science or worldly knowledge could do what I was doing in that moment. I was growing an actual living breathing human being, whom would be mine to love forever. I was aware of the fact that this was going to be an incredibly hard and long journey.

What I didn't comprehend though was the amount of mess a baby makes once it stops being a baby and grows into an actual noisy, sweaty, adventurous child (also overlooked was that a baby grows into a child). Perhaps if I had been a little older and wiser I would have realized the importance of teaching Master N to wipe his hands when he finished eating, the correct way to tidy up his toys and not to touch the DVD's. But I didn't. I had hardly worked out for myself how to live without my own mumma cleaning up after me so it's no surprise I didn't work this out sooner.

Now I am slightly older and watching other friends join me on this great parenthood adventure. I can't help but feel a pang of regret when I see them teaching their children the things I didn't know to teach mine when I first started out. If I had taught them those things would days like today still happen?? Would I still have days when the boys are so wild and loud and excitable that they can't help but leave a giant trail of mess everywhere they look? My guess is yes. My guess is no matter the amount of training you do, a one year old is always going to be neater then a three year old. My guess is that (no matter your age) when you are crazy enough to have all three of your kids in three years your life is going to be messy. Very very messy.

But you know what? The 20seconds they spend being adorable somehow makes up for it. Somehow when they climb onto my lap all covered in kid sweat and snot and whisper in a teeny tiny voice how much they love me, I forget about the tear my hair out phone called I made to my best friend only seconds earlier and realize that no matter how bad it gets, I wouldn't change them for the world.

Who... are... you?

Caterpillar: Who... are... you?
Alice: Why, I hardly know, sir. I've changed so much since this morning, you see...

Who am I??

I am Amie, mumma to 3 little munckin's. my world revolves around them.

 i love lollies and gelato.

 I never understood why people buy puppies until I found one I adore.

 I hate that I don't always keep in touch with the people I should.But am trying harder.

 I am currently obsessed with bubbles, white paint and Martha Stewart... she is my hero. 

If I had a day to do whatever I wanted, I would choose to sleep.

 I'm addicted to Grey's Anatomy + Twilight and wish it would never end.

 I hate folding laundry but love clean floors and crisp linen, but don't get to experience them often.

I believe I am turning into a 40year old woman. I also believe that living without purpose is not living at all. I don't always know what my purpose is.

 I like to read. I hate to dance, if I could dance that would be different.

 I like to sing but, well, Michael could tell you about that. 

I wish I had the ability to tell the people I love that I love them more often.

I love searching the net for beautiful things

 Milk used to make me queasy until I had my last bubba.

 Seeing the mountains shows me Gods magnitude. 

I like beads but never wear them...why??

 I like the sound of the sprinklers outside.

 I don't think many people actually know me. I like the smell of hairspray.

dreaming

I always dreamed I’d live a life full of colour; A life of laughter, fun and beauty.

But I guess what you dream about isn’t always what you get.

But tomorrow is a new day.

Life is a choice.

I chose to see the colours.

And whats more colourful then a shiny face first thing in the morning.