And The Answer To Your Question Is......

Crazy!! Oh Yeah!

Sea Time...

Teeth are coming out, hence their vertical direction!

Having a good attitude under the circumstances

Yeah, she got a fat lip....my little dainty princess...oh wait...what?!?

Cute must run in our family!

Happy indians and grumpy pilgrims..apt!

Guess they both like TV...

Doh!

Merry Christmas Time Is Here....

Love from ALL of us to ALL of you!!

The CRAZY Doug Fam

Here is a link to our "official card" or you can make your own!

Have a joyful holiday!

Christmas Wouldn't Be The Same Without....

World According To Kace: Santa Edition

Silas, Kace, and Gresham holding Libi together!
I am sorta Jealous of her having so many brothers!

"So you boys ready for Santa?" Asked the drive thru clerk of Kace and Silas.

"Santa ISN'T real!" Kace.

"Oh, sure he is!" poor clerk!

"No, HE'S NOT! He's NOT real! He's a LIE!!" Kace nearly yelling, while daddy politely says thank you and tries to quickly drive away!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that day at a toll booth....

"You boys excited to see what Santa is bringing you?" Toll booth lady!

"Sure, sure, Yeah!" Silas trying to head off the general mele caused by an irked Kace who assumes everyone is trying to deceive him!

"Silas, you must tell the truth no matter what happens." Daddy trying not to laugh.

"But daddy, Kace would have freaked again!" Silas makes good sense, but takes wrong actions....don't we all! :D

It's Been a LONG Month!

It's been a LONG month! One of the longest ones I can ever remember! Our sweet flibberdilou has contracted some errant virus which forced her to be hospitalized for three days and released on thanksgiving day which made us all VERY thankful we weren't in the hospital for longer, but it was still a long week of separation for our family! We had a wonderful nursing staff and luckily Will was able to miss only one work day to care for the kids while I stayed with Libi at the hospital! I remember the nurse asking me "You seem so calm!" I was by this point beyond exhausted and just ready to have someone say, "Here Larissa, I will take all the pressure you go take a nap for three days, okay?!" But I remember telling her of when we thought Silas had leukemia and when Kace had his arm surgically set after a severe break when he was 3. I just knew that this time around Libi wasn't my baby to freak out over. She is on loan and very much appreciated, but still she doesn't ultimately belong to me! I could not freak out, even when they told me if it developed into Pneumonia they could not treat her.

It was such an eye opening experience, I mean really who thinks about those people in the hospital during the holidays?! I never have! I never think about the doctors or the nurses, or the families with sick children. While in the ER my eyes met those of another mother whose son who was also on a stretcher being admitted to the hospital. This mom would not look away from my stare. Something passed between two mothers at that moment, a feeling of total understanding and compassion. I have never looked into the eyes of another human being before and seen their pain and felt my own ability to touch that pain! That mom was going through the same thing, although in a different way. Her child, like mine was struggling and she was afraid! I will never forget her eyes. I will never forget how she looked at me and didn't look away. I will think about her because in that moment I felt my own humanity most acutely! I felt my own fearful nature, I saw myself reflected back at me. I attempted to use my eyes and my look to convey support and grace. I hope in the future I can experience more moments of humanity in this manner. Where I look upon another person and can have complete unity of feeling.

I am still learning what it means to be a steward of the lives I am given! I have not learned yet completely how to trust and obey. But I can admit, with total honesty that I am trying!! I want to be able to say, that in the face of a great and terrible illness which could likely affect this little gem's entire life forward, I am following with abandon. I hope one day, and I know my hope to be valid, to seem the fruit of this hope and know my life to truly reflect His image!

Cinderella Came To My House

"Petra, help pick up these things on the floor."

"But I am cinderella,  momma!"

"Cinderella obey's her momma!"

"Cinderella doesn't have a momma!"

Now I am thinking Cinderella should stay at her own home! :D

Top Five Ever

A few weeks ago my husband asked me what my top five books were of all the books I have ever read and I was stumped. First many of the books I love, like Anne of Green Gables and Pride and Prejudice have been read numerous times, while still not being reads that stick in my head and have me thinking and pondering and (dare I say it?) growing! I really thought about the top five books I could read over and over and still come away from them changed in some way. I chose ones which feel like they have drilled into my brain and settled in my mind and never can leave. Ones that connect to thoughts I have yet to think and ones I think over and over again. I am forced to choose books which really seem to live. I can see and hear the human being on the other end of these books and they are haunting in their grasp and vision of life and this world. My heart connects to these books, responds to the words, and is evoked into a wide range of emotions. So here they are my top five of all time...just remember I am 30 so my experience and reading is limited, I hope to have 30 more years to enjoy the human gift of writing! I have not placed the bible in this list, because it goes without saying.

Larissa's bookshelf: top-five-fave




More of Larissa's books »

Note: if you want to see the reviews, click on the box and it will take you to an area where you can view reviews, including mine.

So You Think They're Related?

The Future According to Kace and Gresham

"I am going to get married to a wife and have some ki-i-i-i-ids!" ....Kace.

"I'm gonna get married and have some kids and kiss my wife on the li-i-i-i-i-ips!" ....Kace.

"EEEEWWW!" .....Gresham.

"Why, eeeww?" .....Kace.

"Eeeeww!" .....Gresham.

"I am gonna get married and have a wife and kiss her on the li-i-i-i-i-i-ips!" ....Kace.

"What about God?!".....Gresham.

Silence.

Relaxin' and Chillin'

Courage

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. "He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heros. it is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping withing an inch of it. A soldier sirrounded by enemies, is he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape.

He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indiffernce to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

                                                                                -G.K. Chesterton

Just Another Day...In Crazy! :D