God is a jokester...

Those of you who know my family understand why I believe my brothers are two of the funniest people on earth. My brother Steven is particularly funny, and likes to play jokes on people by either wrapping really crappy gifts in very nice packages (for example: a single, dirty, matchless old sock wrapped in beautiful shiny paper with a big bow), or he wraps really nice surprises in ridiculous wrappers (he got me a Coach purse for Christmas one year, but was too lazy to wrap it, so instead he folded it up in the middle of an ENORMOUS old blanket and handed the whole nasty bundle to me!)

Anywhooo...yesterday in the midst of my crazy, crazy day, it occurred to me that God's sense of humor is really very similar to Steven's (who knew? It's actually a pretty shocking epiphany since Steven is one of the more irreverent people in my life!) See, I realized that both Steven and my Heavenly Father like to give me very nice gifts wrapped in rather unfortunate-looking disguises. So, for my own amusement, I came up with a little list:

Gift: 3 super snuggly babies who adore their Mommy
Wrapper: 3 screaming banshees and a Mom with less arms than children

Gift: The twins finally slept for an almost 5 hour stretch on Wednesday night
Wrapper: I woke up and realized I was the sole contestant in a wet t-shirt contest, thanks to boobs that didn't get the memo that my girlies weren't waking up to eat at their regularly scheduled time, so they just went ahead and let loose a lovely breastmilk shower at the normally appointed feeding hour.

Gift: Fall is finally here!!
Wrapper: Woke up in said wet t-shirt in the middle of a frozen tundra that was once my room

Gift: Living in a country where we have the blessing of running water
Wrapper: Water running out of Ilaiasi's bathroom and completely soaking the carpet in his bedroom closet...so not looking forward to pulling it all up to air dry. :/

Gift: a generous husband who would literally give his friends the shirt off his back
Wrapper: $105 in overdraft fees because he didn't check the account to be sure his direct deposit had cleared before he pulled money to let people borrow "just for one day to tide them over until payday on Friday."

I'm thinking of making this an every Friday post because it's been kind of fun looking for the "gifts" hidden in God's special "old, enormous blanket" wrapping paper. Hope you guys got a chuckle or two...again, feel free to laugh because I'd definitely laugh if I heard about some of these things happening to you! Happy Friday all!!

Highs and Lows...

This has been an interesting weekend, filled with many gigantic highs and a few semi-big lows.  One of my friends recently shared a quote that seemed to fit my situation exactly:

A woman commented that her life seemed like a rollercoaster ride -- wonderfully high one minute, only to plummet to a desperate low the next.  She expressed her desire to have her life "even out" into a more flat pattern, and her friend, a nurse, told her, "Life is like a heartbeat.  The highs and lows are what keep you alive.  The real time to worry is when you flatline."

I sure hope this is true, because it seems like my highs and lows are inevitably paired.  So, maybe I really just need to focus on being grateful that I'm alive and not flatlining!

Highs this weekend included:

• My wonderful, amazing, super duper fun baby shower for the twins!  We had a great turnout, and it was so nice to just relax and enjoy the company of my friends and family.  The highlight of the day for me was a rousing dance routine to Justin Bieber's "Baby" by my two sweet nieces, Evie June and Ellie Lou, with a cameo by my little monkey Ilaiasi!
• A surprise visit from The Great E-I-E-I-O and my marvelous Mom to help me clean out and organize my craft room (you'll probably remember from former posts that I refer to this room as "The Abyss."  It's not QUITE done, but you can now see the majority of the floor, most of the craft supplies are in the appropriate bins, heavy and bulky items have been moved to the closet shelves, and I don't feel claustrophobic just walking into the room anymore!)  In particular, I thoroughly enjoyed watching The Great E-I-E-I-O scream with wild abandon and attempt to make a somewhat quick getaway when a gigantic tree roach (who no doubt escaped from the heat of the garage to the coolness of our home during one of our laundry excursions, as our washer and dryer are in the garage!) charged her as if leading the cavalry to battle.  Trust me, it was HILARIOUS!
• Ovaka is no longer running a fever.  This is a GREAT blessing!  I felt so sorry for my poor little runt.  He had an upper respiratory infection and viral tonsillitis, and was super pathetic and droopy for almost a week.  He is back to his giggly, curious, obstinate self, much to his mother's relief!

And a brief mention of the lows:

• Missing church on Sunday...various reasons, none of them good.
• Finau working insane hours...it happens every summer, and I know it's coming before it actually happens, but it always stinks -- more so when you have a sick fat baby and a recommendation from your doctor not to lift anything heavy.
• Less-than-stellar participation for the first giveaway.  I contemplated whether to add this or not, but, as I stated in my "about me" information on the side panel of my blog, I am documenting both the ups and downs of this little venture, and I think it would be remiss of me to sugar coat it.  So, yeah, I'm a little disappointed by the lack of interest.  I don't really know what I expected, but I'll be honest and say that three participants is not really what I envisioned.  However, there are still 4 and a half days left in the giveaway, so I suppose it's possible that we'll have a big surge of entries.  If not, better chances for the three who did enter, huh?  See...there's always an up side! 

Anywhooo...enough with the lows already!  Let's get back in the smiley mood, shall we?  I'll leave you with my favorite joke.  I think I found it on the wrapper of a Laffy Taffy many, many moons ago:

Q: What's brown and sticky?

(These earrings are available in my Etsy Shop, and are just a little
distraction in case you want to take a guess at the joke's answer before seeing it!)

A: A STICK!

Hehehe...I don't know why, but that one cracks me up every time.  Ok...I think that's about it for today.  Hope everybody has a terrific Tuesday!  If you haven't entered the Giveaway yet...it's not too late (Make sure to comment on the Giveaway thread, not this one)!!  ;)

Boundless Blessings

Today I am feeling incredibly, immeasurably grateful and unfathomably optimistic.  I have the most wonderful friends and the most amazing family, and lately I have been blessed in ways that I couldn't have ever imagined.

This weekend, I met up with one of my dear old friends that I played sports with in ELEMENTARY and MIDDLE school.  Yes, we've known each other a LONG time!  She is the mother of adoreable 5 year old twin boys, and graciously gave me her boys' double stroller, infant carseats, and a double jogging stroller.  I'm sure she has no idea what a HUGE blessing this is for my little family, even though I tried to convey my gratitude.  We've been so, so, SO blessed this past year, but very few of these blessings have been financial ones, as we've doubled our family and cut our income in half.  These strollers and carseats are some "big ticket" items that would have required us to really save up right until the girls come, and I am just so incredibly appreciative of her generosity.  I definitely feel like the Lord has had a hand in every experience we've had lately, and in an unexpected twist of fate, this childhood friend of mine is a very accomplished jewelry maker who has been doing this for far longer than I, and who is interested in getting together with me to "talk shop" so to speak.  I am SUPER excited about this, as she is my first real-life friend who shares this interest with me.  We even talked about possibly going to some jewelry making classes together soon.  How fun is that?  So, good things happening in both my personal and professional life that came from just an hour-long visit with an old friend I hadn't seen in years.  Blessings, blessings, blessings!

This weekend my Mom and The Great E-I-E-I-O are also throwing me a baby shower for the twins, and I am beyond excited about it.  I think it will be so much fun to get together with a bunch of people that I love and who love me and my kids to celebrate the upcoming birth of the twins.  Amusingly, the theme of this little shindig is "She's about to POP!" and it is a completely accurate assessment of my current state.  Just for your personal amusement, I've decided to include a picture of my gigantic, uncomfortable, nearly-popping self.  Seriously...TEN MORE WEEKS??  Holy moly, this is going to get interesting! 

Feel free to laugh............you better believe I'd be laughing if it was you!  :)

And, one final note: this Friday will be The Pink Persimmon's FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY!  You will need to be able to add a comment to my blog to receive an entry, so if you are interested in participating, please try to add a comment some time before Friday to be sure you are able to.  I *think* I fixed all of the comment glitches, but if you're still having trouble, I'd like to know about it so that I can keep working on the problem.  Remember, even if you don't have a blog, you can add a comment using the "anonymous" option.  If you try and you're not able to add a comment, please either leave me a facebook message or email me at kalaniat@aol.com.  Yep...I think that's about it for today.  Hope everyone's day is fantastic!

P.S. I'm thinking about making a set similar to the items below for the giveaway.  Thoughts???

www.etsy.com/shop/thepinkpersimmon