Here are some facts about Callie at 18 months.

She’s gradually getting taller and skinnier just like her mom i mean, dad. Down to 18th percentile in weight, up to 78th in height.

She loves to dance, sing, make faces, say hi to strangers at the grocery store. Multiple times. Usually about 10 and very loud. “HI! HIIII! HIIIII!!!!” I’ve recently taught her “How are you?” and it always gets a laugh.

The most hilarious Callie-ism right now is the word “okay!”. For example, Callie murmers something that sounds like juice, to clarify, you say “Juice?” and she shouts “OKAY!!!!” like it was your idea in the first place. This happens about a hundred times a day and I laugh every single time.

Activities she loves: blowing bubbles, taking care of her baby dolls, wagon-rides, swinging, counting to three then going down a slide, spying on our neighbors through our fence slats like a stalker, wrestling Halpert, playing with Jude, her boyfriend. (She actually calls every little boy she sees, ‘Jude’) Playing in her kitchen,  and having pretend picnics on a quilt in our living room.

Everyone says how talkative and happy she is. She will go to ANYONE and probably give them a kiss. She gets VERY concerned about babies who cry at the store. She shouts “BABY CRY????” and then pats and rocks an invisible baby saying “shh shh shh”.

She used to never ever sit still, but in the last month she will actually cuddle and watch a movie or “Elmo!!!!”

Favorites Foods: Oranges and cheese. (Oh my lord, is she crazy for cheese.)

Least Favorite Foods: Anything involving red sauce, ex: ketchup and pizza. (But I bet that will change!)

She won’t let you change her diaper unless she’s holding her toothbrush with “SOAP!!” (aka toothpaste)

She says “Thank you” every time you give her anything.

She’s obsessed with my make-up and screams “SOME???” every time I get ready.

She greets you with so much enthusiasm even if you only ran to the post office for 5 minutes, “MAMAA!!!!!!!!!” : )

She definitely has an opinion now and isn’t afraid to show it. Our method of discipline is time-out b/c she rocks at it. You say “time-out” and she immediately stops and goes to the wall and sits til you tell her it’s over. After a minute, I get down to her level, explain the offense again, make her say “Sorry, Mama” and then we hug. And so far, she has never gone back to doing the same ‘bad’ thing. ( I realize that this is freakish, but we’re going to ride it while it lasts.)

She’s SO obedient about time-out that I actually got distracted and left the room while she was in one, and it lasted a solid 10 minutes until I heard “I SORRY MAMA! I SORRY MAMA!!!!” from the other room. (Whoops) but she still hadn’t left the wall. Hilarious. #badmom

Anyway, this age is a blast. It really does keep getting better. I used to feel a bit lonely all day when she was younger, but now I feel like I’ve got a friend to hang out with. I adore her. I can’t imagine a better, more easy-going, hilarious toddler. I think we both laugh all day long.

Here’s the last few months via Instagram. (I’m a tad obsessed with it, feel free to ‘follow me’ I promise I won’t think you’re creepy. Unless you literally “follow me” around my neighborhood.)

There you go. Lots of movies, tea parties, hammock rides, her hiding in tiny spaces. And yes that is her in time-out at my dr. appointment. And yes I did take a picture of her while she was in it. I told you, I ‘m a horrible person.

And here are the owners! Aren’t they so cute!!!?

Renee is going to KILL me for posting these ones but I couldn’t help it. They make me laugh so much. Tell me you don’t want her around on your wedding day! : )

Jared is a rockstar and built that shelf to my dream-specs. TEN FEET of glorious shelving. I was so grateful. Let me walk you through my thought-process. We have one-story, no basement, no play-room. Kids come with a bunch of junk and most of it I don’t really want to look at all of the time. This low-bookshelf has become our toy-closet. The crates and file boxes house all of it and are much more enjoyable to look at for me. And it makes clean-up time a breeze because everything has a place. And (as you may have learned by now) I love hosting parties. The height of this bookshelf is perfect to double as a buffet. (As seen in Elsie’s baby shower). I normally have that lamp on and it makes Callie’s eyes so blue. : )

Jared bought this book series for Callie’s first Christmas. They’re cute to look at, but they are SO old that the language is almost unbearable to read, so we think it’s funny when Callie brings one over and asks us to read it.

Since Callie doesn’t go to any type of school or day-care and isn’t getting any of that good ‘structured learning time’, I tried organizing the boxes by category, so that we could have “art time” or “music time” or “building blocks” time. We clean up one box, before we get down the next one. The “music” box is always incorporated as we watch ‘the Voice’. haha. (I might be training my daughter to become a diva, whoops.)

So a lot of work went into this little space. Painted the walls from red to gray. (which i feel allowed so much more light into our house!) The photo montage came down. (But, I painted the frames white and it will be making its appearance on a different wall shortly. In a slightly different arrangement.) Found the white file boxes at Hobby Lobby. The plain crates came from Michael’s and I sanded and stained them. The other two crates were found at flea markets and were sanded. If you’re worried about those cameras being in Callie’s reach, I can tell you they are nearly indestructible. She played with them the first couple days that they were at eye-level, but probably hasn’t touched them in a month or so. I don’t mind if she wants to play with them. My entire soul lights up when my eighteen-month-old comes up to me looking through a vintage camera and shouts “Cheese Momma!!!!” : )

I posted a while ago about taking risks while giving my home a little decor-update. You can click through to see the ‘before’. Here are a couple updates since then. I decide to take pictures with the leftover flowers from our fish fry, but I normally just have a bowl of fruit as a centerpiece. Let’s see, I purchased two more chairs. These are the armless Eames-knockoff. You could fit three across if you needed to, but this suits our needs for now. I can’t believe how comfy these chairs are. They conform right to your bottom. I was a little nervous about a white chair with a messy toddler, but the perk to white is that is can be BLEACHED! Callie was coloring the other day and decided that the white chairs needed blue and purple scribbles all over it. I panicked since I had to BEG Jared to let me get these. But one single Clorox wipe and minimal scrubbing and it was good as new. What a miraculous invention bleach is! (Side note: I wish that gold-ish wall was also just gray, and I’ll get to it eventually. It was like that when we moved in and it’s neutral enough that I’ve just let it stay) Someday we will get a bench for the back so that we can pile a million kids across it (God-willing) but for now, this is just great.

The second update was the dish rack. I’ve always loved our dishes. When we were registering for our wedding, I couldn’t decide what color I wanted, so I chose ALL OF THE COLORS! I love them. But they were hiding in a cabinet and we could really use the extra cabinet space. (Toddlers come with a ton of just…STUFF! Also, I have way too many party-serve-ware-items. I can’t help myself. I love parties.) Now I have an entire empty cabinet to organize! Joy! You should know that Jared was 100% against this idea, but sort-of shrugged in agreement after some persistent whining from me intelligent and charming persuasion from me. I decided to try to pull it off while he was at work. And I did it! I had never used the power drill before,now I feel confident that I can do way more stuff on my own. (allyouwomenwhoindependentthrowyourhandsbackatmeee) And when he came home he said. “Well, look at that! It’s so cute!” (which may have had a hint of sarcasm to it, but I’ll take it!) The brackets are from Lowes (then painted white) and the top two shelves are actually just boards cut to size and I sanded and painted them white. That way they won’t bend under the weight like shelving particle board would.

I should mention these books and that they’re fantastic. “Simple Country Wisdom” has all of the tips and tricks that your grandmother knows but may have been lost along the way. How to season your cast-iron-skillet, the trick to making really good french toast, tips & cheats on chores/cleaning/cooking/gardening. And it’s beautifully -photographed.  Rachel Ray taught me how to make a killer pork-chop. “Happy Housewives” is a candid, witty and inspirational book, that basically says “please stop complaining about how hard your life is. You stay at home. You have the most amazing job in the world, and here are some tips to make it more awesome. Stop whining, you whiner.”

And I added a chalkboard, because a) I love chalkboards. b) I get more excited about cooking dinner after I write it on the menu. (Whatever works to motivate you, right?)

Callie woke up to a treat-filled Easter basket and a new toy. (She loves chopping fruit!) I got this idea for her Easter basket from the insanely-talented Sharon Taylor Designs. She used hardware store galvanized buckets and chalkboard paint. So cute!

And I made a hairbow to go with her Easter dress.She LOVED it!

Alright, so I’m going to talk a bit about Jesus, but DON’T stop reading! Even if the name rubs you the wrong way and makes you super angry. I promise not to offend or be too hokey or bother you in anyway (do I promise that? i think so. Let’s find out…)

As we drove from church to Grandma’s house yesterday. I said to Jared,

Me- “The Resurrection is a big deal.”

J- ‘Yeah. It is.”

Me- “Like. Guy and his whole body taken into heaven? No longer here on earth. God’s only done that one time. Ever.”

J- “I know.”

Me-”Hey! Where’s Jesus’s body? I don’t know! It’s not here. ANYWHERE!”

J- “Riiiight?”

Me- “Why isn’t everyone freaking out today!??!?! This is BIG DEAL!!!!”

then silence for a second.

Me- “Do you believe that actually happened, Jared?”

J- “Of course! (reasons I love Jared. Always 100% sure, no wavering. No over-analyzing. Just full of faith.)

Don’t you?”

Me- (after a pause) “Yes.”

The fact is I do believe it. It doesn’t make any logical sense, yet it’s true. But, I didn’t always believe it. I will actually say I spent the first 5 to 10 years of being a “Christian” actually only being a “fan of Christianity”.(1)

I liked the idea of a group of people who loved God and desired to help others and held themselves to a high moral standard. Loved it. But when it came down to the nitty gritty details on Jesus himself and the facts surrounding him, I’d get nervous and feel like my brain was going to explode, so I’d try desperately to ignore all the parts that creeped me out.

One summer, I went to Young Life Camp. My amazing-hot-joyful-encouraging-wonderful leader, Maureen Woods was the first person I think I  ever told. “I don’t know if I actually believe all of this.” Which I think was the scariest sentence I’ve ever said out loud. She referred me to a book in the YL bookstore called the “Case for Christ”. (Okay the real Case for Christ is a billion pages long, so I got the Student Edition which is about 100 pages with lots of visual aid.)

Let me give you the gist. Lee Strobel is a devout atheist and lawyer. When his wife suddenly becomes a Christian, he gets super-ticked-off and decides to use his tons of resources to prove this Jesus thing wrong once and for all. In his journey of gathering archeological and historical evidence, he ended up proving it true to himself and fell to his knees bawling in awe of all that he discovered. There’s a whole detailed chapter on the Resurrection that blew my mind.

I wish I could tell you I was one of those who just says, “Of course. I believe in something that’s completely crazy-sounding.” Unfortunately, I had to reason through it logically, and decide if it was something I could potentially believe in.

For the record, as soon as I turned the last page, I too, dropped to my knees bawling. Guys, THIS IS A REALLY BIG DEAL. Even if you don’t believe, you have to admit that (hypothetically) if God  literally sent a man to tell us how to live, wouldn’t you want to know what he said!?!?!??!?!

I’ve met so many ‘Christians’ that make me really upset. And I’ve met many ‘non-Christians’ who were kinder, loving, and more patient than proclaimed “Christians”. The fact is that these are people. Imperfect people making human mistakes. I don’t really want to talk about people. I want to talk about Jesus.

The guy is awesome. I’m convinced that if you actually read what he says, you’d say “THIS IS THE BEST ADVICE EVER!” He is brilliant.  He is LOVE. The more time I spend with him, the more patient, loving, gentle and creative I become. (I have know idea what creativity has to do with spending time with Christ, only that when I spend more time with him, my cup becomes overflowing, and the overflow usually comes out in the form of art projects, games, laughter, joy & creativity in general.)

On the contrary, when I go a day, week….a month without checking in with him, I’m SO IMPATIENT! Oh my gosh, I don’t like myself much really, truly. I get confused why the world isn’t revolving around me and why I’m not getting what I “rightfully deserve.” Yikes. Basically when I spend time reading the bible, praying, I become the best possible version of myself. When I don’t, I become a diva. I start keeping score. And I can feel it. Down to my soul.

Phrases you will NEVER hear me say: “You are going to hell.” “You should not be gay.” (Side note: I don’t think I’ve ever met a gay person I didn’t immediately love. Actually, there was one. He didn’t laugh at my jokes, so I mean, it’s pretty justified.)

The fact is I don’t care. It’s not up to me to decide how your story will go. My favorite verse ever in that whole dang bible is Romans 5:8. Meaning, you can come to him. Right now. Exactly as you are. Then as you grow and learn from him, he will let you know what needs to change. I repeat, He will let you know. I don’t have to.

He waited 10 years to reveal to me that I was a glutton. His timing is perfect. I’m convinced he doesn’t reveal your sinful nature all at once because it would overwhelm you and you’d implode. I usually find out a new “something to work on” every few months or years sometimes. Two years ago, he revealed to me that I  had been holding grudges for certain people from my past. I truly had no idea. Now having fully let them go, I have more room in my heart for joy.

He ALWAYS has our best interest at heart. “Sin” can be scary word, but when conquered it always results in more joy. He’s not trying to punish us with a list of what not to do. He’s trying to encourage us to become better! More selfless, MORE PATIENT, MORE JOYFUL! The end result for me has always been more joy.

WOW that was longer than I anticipated. If you’ve read to this point, I will mail you a friendship bracelet.

To sum it up, 1. My day-to-day life is greatly affected by whether or not I spend time with the Lord. 2. Jesus is a really cool guy. 3. Even if the concept has rubbed you the wrong way in the past, I challenge you to check into him. 4. Even if you don’t, I will love you regardless. 5. Unless you don’t laugh at my jokes.

Note: (1) Clint Coyan used this phrase “Fan of Christianity” in his talk at Cru and I loved it because it had described me exactly. (Clint in case you were wondering if that talk impacted anyone, it TOTES did.)

I’ve decided I’m no longer going to wait for special occasions to throw a soiree. From now on, any excuse to throw a party and I’m taking it. Jared caught some fish, so boom. It’s party time. We are very blessed to have such an amazing church full of great young couples. Love these guys.The official color scheme of this party was “oh-this-is-a-color-and-laying-around-my-house”.

Callie kept sneaking baked beans from off the table and spoon-feeding them to Addie. We don’t think Addie even liked them that much, she’s just really go-with-the-flow.

That’s where the photos stopped. What happened next was a fiercely competitive wiffle ball game full of blood, sweat, and tears. I can’t really remember who won the game. I think it was my team. I’m not sure. I think I lost track…..Ok. we lost DANGIT. By one friggin point.

1. Target- Color changes Everything, Agency: wieden+kennedy
It’s colorful, it’s got parkour, IT’S FRENCH! What more do you need?

2. JC Penney – March Is Madness, Agency: Grandlarge.inc
I think JCP has been KILLING it lately. I love the simplicity of the ‘square is fair’ campaign too, and of course the ones with Ellen. They are fun, poppy, and SATURATED!!! Now will someone go fly a kite from a rooftop with me?

3. Lowes- Never Stop Improving, Agency: BBDO.
Oooh, I want to DANCE through all of my life-stages!!! I think this commercial might be laced with some holy spirit up in therrr because I nearly cry when I watch the whole thing. And I LOVE the new slogan, Never Stop Improving. I believe it applies to your home but also to yourself! I hope I never stop learning, growing, improving. I’d much rather get most improved player than MVP.

Dear Target, JC Penney, and Lowes. If I am your target audience, then you NAILED IT! : )