Free-For-All Friday -- Things That Made Me Smile

Thought I'd share some photos of things that recently made me smile in today's edition of Free-For-All Friday.  Enjoy!

When Hannah went to Heaven, our church was in the process of building a new activities center/youth building.  Two dogwoods were planted out front, and one was designated as "Hannah's tree."  The week of Thanksgiving one of my sweet friends from church asked me if I had seen Hannah's tree lately.  Uh no, I hadn't paid much attention to it recently.  She said I needed to go look at it, because it had a flower on it.  Sure enough, there was a bloom on that dogwood tree ... during the week of Thanksgiving!  Made me smile!

Here's something else that made me smile.  One of our While We're Waiting board members gave birth to this beautiful little boy last week.  This guy is really a blessing to their family, after their little girl was stillborn a few years back.  God is still in the blessing business.  Look at that sweet face ... He's even got a little smile!

This picture of our dog Lacee made me smile.  She spent last Saturday morning at the doggie beauty salon, and it obviously wore her out.  Being beautiful is hard work!

We finally got our Christmas tree up this past week.  We decided to get a live tree again this year, so off we went to Lowe's to pick one out.  After critically examining what felt like every tree on the lot, Bethany finally chose the "perfect one", and we brought it home and decorated it.  We decided just to do a "JOY" tree this year, and the results made us all smile.

Take a close look at this picture.  These are the feet of Bethany and her basketball teammates.  If you look carefully at the toes of their shoes, you'll see that they spell out "PHILIPPIANS 4:13".  Isn't that cool?  Big smile from this Mom. (Oh, and Bethany is the "H"!)

Bethany's boyfriend, Brad, came home from college yesterday, beginning his five-week long Christmas break.  That makes Bethany smile ... which, of course, makes me smile!

Finally, what may be my most favorite picture ever.  A dear friend emailed this one to me, because she knows how much I love the word "JOY".  You just can't help but smile when you look at this picture, because it's just so stinkin' cute.  But, the reason I really love it is because it so perfectly captures what so many are feeling this time of year.  We know we're supposed to have the joy of the season (and deep down we do), but with all the busy-ness, stress, and emotion of the season, sometimes we just want to sit down and have a good cry.  I love the girl in the middle ... her face just makes me smile.

So, there you go ... a few things that have made me smile over the last few weeks.  Hopefully they brought a smile to your face, too!