Celebrating Joy!

She will be five this year...FIVE! As I type, I look over and see those big, blue, eyes smiling at me and I wonder where the days have gone! It seems like only yesterday I brought her home from the hospital, all snuggled up in pink. Now, she is on the brink of entering Kindergarten, learning to read and tie her shoes and all I can seem to keep thinking about are those toothless grins from the changing table many, many, months ago!

My man - the hubby - he also turns a year older this year. Four days after she turns five. No two people more alike deserve to share the same birthday month as these two do! And I have to say, the thirty's look good on him!

My dad! One man who I admire so much. He also celebrates another year as well as my grandmother - all this month!

Yes, March arrives and the busyness of planning begins. Parties and celebrations. Food, decorations, and gifts. I tend to get a little stressed over the details of pary planning - wanting it all to work out just right. 

Will the house be clean in time?
Did I remember to invite everyone that I intended to?
Do I have enough food? plates? cups? forks?
Are the gifts really what they wanted?

It gets to be a bit much! However, this year I am vowing to not let it stress me, but to instead let it all fill me with joy! Joy at celebrating the lives of people whom I love the most! Even if the house shows a bit of dust or crumbs or fingerprints on the windows. Even if I run out of forks...it has happened to me in the past. I will remember that the occasion of celebrating a birthday is meant to be just that; a celebration!

So, this month I am celebrating! Celebrating the lives who bring me so much joy!


 "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." Isaiah 55:12