These are some new pictures of the kids, taken this week. I just couldn't help but share them!

Three of Julia's favorite things:
- baby dolls
- clothes with "kitties" on them
- mirrors (full length preferred)

You can only imagine the pure bliss as she stood on our bathroom vanity, decked out in her purple corduroy kitty dress, hugging her latest favorite baby, and admiring herself in the medicine cabinet mirror (which, when you're less than 3 feet tall, passes for full length) while I arranged her hair with sparkly silver clips.

"Julia, hold still" I requested repeatedly, as I do every morning when she finds herself utterly powerless over the urge to spin, smile, and wink as she poses for the little girl in the mirror.

As I retrieved the stray hairs that had fallen into her face during her last dance move her eyes caught mine in the mirror and she smiled shyly, almost embarrassed to realize that I had been watching her play in her own little world of one. I laughed and she giggled the chiming giggle that can only come from a two year old princess.

She turned, cupped my face in her hands and said, "Mommy, you like the mirror?"

"I think YOU like the mirror, " I replied, poking her playfully in the belly.

She turned back to her pint sized refelction, and with shining eyes declared, "I like me!".

"I like you, too, baby", I said softly, kissing her dimpled rosy cheek.


How long has it been since you looked in your mirror (espcially the full length one!) and exclaimed "I like ME!"?

When I was little the closest thing to heaven to me was my yellow, wood framed, three-way mirror. The sides were on hinges and I could adjust it so that with the slightest turn of my head and flip of my bouncing brown curls I could see myself from every angle. Oh what joy to be able to get such a clear view as I practiced batting my eyelashes like a movie star, puckering my lips at a stuffed frog to transform him into a prince, and watching myself cry simply for the drama and triumph of knowing that I could produce real tears on demand.

Somehow, mirrors don't quite hold the same magic for me anymore. I doubt that it's just me, though. As we get older we can't help but see things we don't like when we come face to face with our reflections. Physical imperfections, emotional scars, relational inadequacies, heart impurities......

I wonder if things would look different to us if we could stop by wal-mart while we're running errands this weekend and pick up a "divine mirror".

"God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them..."

"But if any man (or woman) is in Christ, he (or she) is a new creation...the old is gone...the new has come...."

Looking into the mirror of the Word, while convicting at times, should also be refreshing, like bathing in a fountain of youth, taking you back to the time when you were small, and simple, and could look with confidence and see beauty, and say without inhibition, "I like me!"