Moriah's visit...don't you wish you had a classy sister like her?

My little sister Moriah visited last week, for her interim break from university. We had her to ourselves for seven days! It was delightful!

(Side note: this girl is going to be going on her first missions trip to Nicaragua & Costa Rica next month & I wanted to present the opportunity for you, dear reader, to help her raise the money to go. It's tough to be a sincere follower of Jesus when you're attending a secular university, so I anticipate God working in big ways in the lives involved as Moriah is obedient and seeks God & what He's doing in other nations. If you're interested in contributing any amount email me at rajbeaird@gmail.com & I can connect you to the girl. BTW, she didn't ask me to do it, I felt a pressing to put it out there. Thank you in advance!)


Ransom got to spend some quality time with his auntie.


She spread some of her beauty around. Case in point: we made snowflakes out of book pages. They're still there.


She made her blonde brownies & tried out a new cranberry orange candied ginger scone recipe, twice! Wish my kitchen could be blessed with her baking more often!



We thrifted. We watched some old musicals. We had a couple knitting parties. We listened to lots of records. We went through a few pomegranates.

We went to the coast with Tia!


I'm so thankful to have been blessed with Moriah's presence in our family for a week. It feels home-like to be around her.

when Jesus was showing off, part 1

This week I feel as though I've been enveloped into a different life, finding random pockets of peace, spurts of creativity, & unexpected favor. It began humbly, Monday morning, with my expectation that this would be an extra trying week. AJ's band is recording their first album this week (hooray!) but since all members are working men with day jobs, the majority of the recording is done after work hours, 6pm-midnight or later. Since evenings are usually when we get family time, I was prepared to be bummed and to have to get used to a single mom lifestyle.

But, I couldn't see the whole picture. Jesus had a different attitude He wanted me to adopt, and through His kindness, I'm humbled to now describe some of the sweet things that have been happening this week.

First, Monday morning we got the knock on our door from our friend & neighbor Kristin, telling us our dear friends Chris & Lysha, who now live in Colorado, were there for the day & a bunch of us were able to & have lunch, hang out and keep happy company together.

Tuesday, as normal, I hosted a girls small group at my house. Each evening, we end our time by sharing prayer requests and praying for the person on our left. First, I was feeling challenged to ask for prayer for something specific (thanks to encouragement from my sister Liz) and different than usual. I asked the girls to pray that while AJ's recording this week that the time he's away would be good for me, full of creativity & good time with Jesus. Second, those girls blessed me by not sticking to the "pray for the person to your left" guideline & a couple of them prayed for what I asked along with my regular prayer requests.

Wednesday afternoon I got a text from Lysha, inviting me to dinner at her in-laws' house two hours away. I got the ok from AJ, packed up the baby, invited my friend Anne to come along, and we were off. We returned to town well after 1 am and I felt grateful for the company I kept that evening, spurring me to creativity & godliness in my roles as a Christian, wife, and mom.

Thursday AJ has a long lunch & we had some great family time. I accomplished laundry. :) One of the sweetest things was playing with Ransom that day. There was a point before bedtime when I was on back on the floor & he was on my tummy & he quietly rested his head under my chin for several minutes. I just held him, gratefully. Between work & recording AJ came home, was there to witness Ransom climbing all the way up the stairs for the first time and was able to read him bedtime stories before he went to the recording studio. When AJ got home, (12:30 a.m.) we watched the latest Terra Nova on hulu together while I finally finished putting together our birthday banner.

I'll finish by telling what happened today in another post, but what I want to express by all this is that Jesus is showing off. He's taking my lowly, downright pessimistic expectations and by many kindnesses, making my attitude more beautiful.

friends in town

Today we were pleasantly surprised to hear our friends Chris & Lysha & their daughters were in town, visiting from Colorado where they're planting a church. Our neighbor friends John & Kristin, Kaylene (another friend visiting from Colorado, part of the church plant), Andrew & I soaked up all of the time we could with them.

dump cake

I had a couple of girls over tonight to hang out & do some life journaling together. Being someone who likes to show love by making food,
I made dump cake.

And tonight, I'm gonna show you how to make it! (Lucky you!)
Our neighbor John first shared dump cake with us. He described it as "white trash cobbler";
it's so simple to make. Oh, and it's also delicious. Not healthy, though, so wear your skinny jeans when you eat this so you'll remember why it's not a good idea to make this too often.

Ingredients:
2 ish cups of fruit (a can of pie filling can be used)
a box of cake mix (yellow is the favorite so far)
a stick of butter


DUMP the fruit into a pan. You don't even have to butter the pan. Isn't that so nice and low maintenance of this recipe? I used peaches and cranberries.

DUMP cake mix over the fruit.
Cut the stick of butter into pieces.
DUMP the butter pieces over the cake mix.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes till golden brown.

This is the glorious end result. There will be some places that still look powdery because the cake mix didn't get butter absorbed into it, but that's no problem.

There you go. Don't forget to wear your skinny jeans.

non-dairy milk tasting

Tuesday nights I pack up Ransom & go hang out with the ladies while Andrew has band practice. Sarah, Coralie, Anne, and I had this idea to have a milk tasting. It probably came up because I am one of those dairy free people and my friends have recently tried things like coconut milk & rice milk in an effort to branch out. (What sweet girls, eh?)

Here's the line up: coconut water, oat milk (vanilla), chocolate hazelnut milk, almond milk (low fat vanilla) , rice milk (vanilla), and coconut milk.

We scored each milk with five being the best & one being the worst.
Chocolate hazelnut & coconut milk were the favorites. Rice milk surprised us & ended up being more likeable than we expected. Oat milk was good, until the grainy aftertaste hit, but we think it'd be good in baking & such.

This little boy on my lap was interested in my scoring sheet & pen.
For awhile he just laid in my arms, content to cuddle. Lately he's been doing this with Andrew & I, happy to be held & to look at us.

He gets a five out of five. :)

party planning as a ministry

This past weekend was a blur of parties. We had three graduation receptions to go to & I had one baby shower to attend. Add these parties to an already busy Sunday (a work day in our home), and hokey Pete did I feel like a party animal by the end!
Hokey Pete.
This post is about the baby shower. It was a glorious change of party pace. A thoughtfully put together celebration put together by my friend Rachel to bless my friend Laryn and her daughter-on-the-way Lux.
Rachel & her husband just moved into their house a couple of weeks ago (if that) and the house is charming. I was inspired and so I took lots of pictures of the party details & also some of the decorative things Rachel did around the house to make it beautiful.

I've been to a handful of parties that have blessed me, even though they weren't for me. A few girls I know, Rachel being one of them, have such a way with party planning that being part of one feels like I'm being ministered to. Presenting food in a simple but pretty way, thinking of quirky not shower-y games to play, making even the little details beautiful, all to make the bride or mom to be know that she is loved & supported and that life is worth celebrating.
I think this sort of thing makes Jesus happy because it's like I feel a part of his joy when I'm a witness to people being blessed in this way.

May highlights in photos

Contained within this entry is a picture-heavy post (that's for you, familia!) of some photo highlights of the month of May. I'll include little captions with some of them. Enjoy!

Andrew had a birthday, so we took him out to breakfast. Here he is receiving his gift from Ransom.

We celebrated with dump cake at the home of some friends. It was his twenty fifth birthday. TWENTY FIVE YEARS!!

Ransom tried out a bumbo chair, and decided it worked pretty well.

Transfixed.

Mothers Day morning, my first! We have a mirror at the top of the stairs, and we'll stand in front of it and ask, "Who's that little boy in the mirror?" Ransom will often smile and gasp when we do.

When no one's around I ask the mirror, "Who's the fairest of them all?", but I haven't received an answer yet. This mirror is lacking in magic.

Another Mothers Day photo.
Andrew bought me coffee on the way to church (a sure way to please me), we ate lunch at Chipotle and had (vegan!) frozen yogurt at my favorite local spot, then went treasure hunting, also known as thrifting. Andrew gave me supplies for a coupon binder, too, which thrilled me!
Sundays are a work day for Andrew and have a tendency to feel frantic as we tag along, but Mothers Day was a wonderful day with relaxing gaps between responsibilities. I had several "Oh my gosh, I'm a mama to this adorable baby" moments and was able to enjoy this little boy.


We were able to reconnect with Brad, a professor of ours from Bible college, who was visiting from Canada with some students he was leading.

The students took over the Sunday night youth service on Mothers Day and did an amazing job. We spent some time with Brad and the students afterward and Ransom was a big hit with the girls. :)

Ransom wearing his mohawk hat. Our friend Jenni made it for him. On this day, we went to the public library and Ransom got two compliments on it, one of them from an amateur fashion designer! Ha! Ransom's such a fashion forward baby...

We got to reconnect with our friend Chris.

Ransom watched me as I planted some herbs on our front stoop.

We had some quality piano time this month. Ransom tried it out himself.

We went to a graduation reception for Forrest and were able to reconnect with our friends Cory & Bekah & their little boys!

Ransom having tummy time while he's at work with me.

He caught a lion! Okay, maybe I gave it to him. :)

Thanks for reading!