Via Kandid Kiwi

Hello, DPP photographers! You may join the project up until Christmas Day if you so choose, but the cutoff for having your name added to my list of participants is TOMORROW.

FYI!

Livia’s Snow Agenda: Roll out of bed. Put on snow clothes. Play. Come inside because Mommy is cold and hungry. Eat breakfast. Drink hot chocolate with a candy cane for swirling. Ask to go outside again.

Today is my birthday and it’s been absolutely delightful. I’ve been showered with love from friends and family. At the end of the day, I feel quite blessed by all the joy in my life.

I’m feeling kind of stunted when it comes to writing something about my birthday. Let’s take, for starters, the photo I’m posting. No, it was not my finger that actually pressed the shutter button, but it was my camera and I picked the settings. (Thanks for the shot goes to my sister-in-law Kristin.) While it’s perfectly fitting, even requested (uh, thanks, Haley) to post a shot of yourself on your own birthday, it still feels a bit awkward. But, hello world!, this is the writer and photographer behind the scenes, and today I’m 32.

I am updating the blog today on the coolest birthday present anyone could ask for:

I have two things to say about this new laptop: 1) A million thank you’s go out to my husband who listens to me, supports me and loves me and 2) Bring on the freelance work! If you’re looking for a writer or need some work done on a photography project, let me know.

The icing on the [birthday cake] was that it snowed today. I loved it. Thanks, God, for the beauty of this season.

Via In Photos

Via Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Via Welcome to Our Life

Via Sam’s Family

We’ve been singing God With Us in church quite a bit recently and I’ve been struck by the chorus in particular:

All that is within me cries
For You alone be glorified:
Emmanuel, God with us.

Perhaps it’s the longer notes of the word Emmanuel or maybe it’s simply a well-written song in general, but it gets to me. Like lump-in-the-throat gets to me, every single time.

Emmanuel. God with us! All year long we sing this song and all year long it rings absolutely, positively true. It’s not a song meant only for the Advent season, but it applies so perfectly at this time of year. God is not a distant figure, a Creator who has stepped back from his creation. He sent his Son to earth to redeem his beloved people from the distance sin had caused. And so we celebrate, with gratitude, the birth of Jesus Christ.

This amazing God, loving and righteous, is with us. Emmanuel.