Enjoy Videos | Happy Videos for a Hospital Day!

make me laugh and i'm yours
unknown

Thank you everyone for your care and kindness after the sad family news I posted about yesterday.  You all are quite lovely and it sure makes a girl and her mama bear feel loved!  On a much more enjoyable note, I've spent the morning decorating mama bear's hospital room!  It's so cheerful now!  Our nurses yesterday called her room the "Oh Suzanne Spa" (I was giving her a pedicure and manicure most of the afternoon) and today the nurse and tech just call her space "The Happy Room."  That's what we like to hear!  In continuing with the theme of happiness, here are some fun videos that'll make you smile:

(Who doesn't love sneaky books playing together? Come on.  I think everyone in the entire world can agree that that is a happy little situation.)

My mom's FAVORITE place in the world is Disneyland.  I actually mean FAVORITE. Not her favorite place to vacation, or her favorite childhood memory... no, no... Disneyland is her favorite PLACE.  Her parents, who lived in Orange County at the time, visited Disneyland in it's first few months of being open, and they took my mom (who was born in 1958) as soon as possible.  Some people don't seem to enjoy the "magic of Disney" the way my whole extended family does.  To be honest, I probably wouldn't get it either if I hadn't been raised by a second Disney-loving generation ;)  Disneyland is NOT a theme park, it "a whole new world." I love this little video because it shows how Disney has truly remained the same the last 60ish years, while at the same time growing exponentially!  It takes great skill to keep the current Disney Parks as charming, sweet and imaginative as the original!

I never watch the weather (why would you when there is an app for that? Amen?!).  But.  If this quick-witted jokester was my weatherman, I just might have to tune in ;)

Feel free to recommend any happy and fun videos you particularly like!  If mom needs something new to do I'll be sure to show her :D

Enjoy Weekends | Intsagram > 2 and a Video

"i spent the best two weeks of my life, thus far,
with you.
but i had to go back home."
karen abad

Today I bring you not a collage with many photos, or a post with much to say.  I bring you one photograph from my past week.  It's one of my favorite pictures of he and I ever.  It sums "us" up so well.  My hair straightened (that's his favorite), he in a Patriots jersey (our new favorite team to cheer for thanks to the Shorey family of EGM), my new pink water bottle from Dre and Becca that I take with me EVERYwhere, little Jaxter trying to decide if he likes me (this little guy is the first baby among "my age" friends), snuggling on the couch, laptop in the background to sneak in a few minutes of work, that mistermister of mine falling asleep.  I love it.

You should follow Elizabeth on instagram (she took this photo and is the handsome baby's momma!)
- She has a way of making plain little things so memorable and lovely.
- She has been married for just over a year and also just became a mommy! It's fun to look into her fun, happy, new world.
- She is very loved by me. So, spread the love!

When you have a spare four minutes, enjoy this sweet, quirky, and loveable couple.  It's hard not to watch this and feel lighter and cheerful.  Happiness is contagious. 

Enjoy Project | Videos | I'm Kristen Bell

"He's coming for the PAR-ty?!?"

Tell me you've seen this? Please please please watch this. Even if you've already seen it. It'll make you smile, and smiling is just delightful.

I've always been a bit of a Kristen Bell fan (her name is perfectly spelled).  She is kind of my ideal blonde-haired, spunky, sweet, well-spoken, All-American girl.  I liiiiiiiike to think I'm kind of like her. (Don't worry... I know I'm not.  But it's just like how you know you don't look your doppleganger, but it still feels good that the computer thought you looked most like Angelina Jolie.)

Enjoy this awesome girl and her weird animal fetish and fantastic emotions.

Music + Times | Part 1 {Personal}

after all, my plans they melt
into the sand

band of horses | older

Have you ever noticed that music is strange and fantastic emotional time-travel?  Have you ever listened to just three seconds of a song and instead of driving on the highway to a meeting you are tan, talking to your best friend late at night, alive and well?  Though in reality approaching an exit in your frosty, rusty Corolla in a grey day, you instead smell warm night, tacos and fruity deodorant.  Instead you hear glowing laughter, you are having lingering conversation, you are with very specific people on a very specific night.  And the verse to the song hasn't even started yet! Am I the only one who has ever experienced this phenomenon?

Of course not.

That is why the world loves music.  I don't mean why "artists" and "musicians" and the "intellectually understanding" love music.  It's why all of us - even us who aren't trained in the art - love it.  Music makes us feel.  Music and smells take you back in time.  Music and friends get you through current times.  Music and dreams excite you for future times.  What an enjoyable gift God gave us in music! 

"Come into my arms, where a dreamer can meet the Lullaby Lady from Hushabye Street." Hushabye Street was playing on a cassette tape my entire baby and childhood.  I never remember not knowing that song.  When I hear it I'm laying on my back in my wooden, bead-cut, crib staring up to the dark ceiling.  Through cracks in the door I could hear the muffled voices of my parents and the dishwasher starting up. I could see a haloed glow.  And night after night sleep was victorious with me "till evening greets morning on Hushabye Street."

18 months after I was born, my brother Timothy entered my world.  The closest friendship he and I ever had was when we were homeschooled in middle school together.  Our "tradition" for lunch was to make a box of pasta with red sauce, eat half of it, throw the rest away, leave the dirty dishes out and then head to the basement for hand-stand contests.  Yup.  We were often in our parents pajamas, too.  (I have no idea why...) We would spend up to hours on end before basketball practices in the underbelly of a home on Boxberry Terrace trying to walk on our hands.  Tim always swore he walked 10 times when I went to the bathroom or wasn't looking.  I always blamed him for distracting me - "I have better balance then you! You just distract me!" - (like I didn't distract him ;) haha).  We got into a habit of taking our blue $14.99 boombox down with us, and we'd gymnast it up to Tim McGraw duets or Steven Curtis Chapman.  One particular day I grabbed a hairbrush and dramatically belted Faith Hill's portion of "Like We Never Loved At All."  I handed Tim a water bottle to join in.  He didn't accept my offer.  He just stared and shook his head "You are so weird." I sang the chorus alone.  But by Tim McGraw's part in the second verse my own Tim had joined in with me.  And we weirdly sang the rest of the song together.  It was quite excellent and breathtaking and probably perfectly in tune ;)

Maybe that's just your way of dealing with the pain/ Forgetting everything between our rise and fall / Like we never loved at all

Tim, if you ever read this, I love you and miss those times.  I've never forgotten them and would love to have more of them.  Just promise you won't push me over if I get to nine hand-steps?

Jason Reeves came into my life a-la Colbie Caillat.  His songs were songs I loved before I felt.  I thought they were pretty and kind of edgy (give me a break. They WERE edgy compared to Selah and WOW Worship CD's).  I played his album on repeat for months.  Little did I know how I feel them.  This song doesn't take me back to one place like the previous song did.  This song takes me backs to a watercolor smear of years.  The first piano notes "dun dun, DUN DUN, duuundun" make me feel 14 and 20, confused and clear, empty and full.  And I have poetry and drawings of my life when you weren't on my side and I didn't know /

The person who introduced me to Band of Horses is now my "house-mate."  If you've followed the blog a bit you know that I live with my friends-turned-family, Dre and Becca.  You also might know that they just had their first child, little Behr.  Dre is obsessed with Band of Horses.  When this song plays I think about driving around in their blue SUV looking at townhouses.  I think about priming the walls with Dre will Becca sat on a cushion on the floor, trying to keep her pregnant self moderately comfortable.  I think about coming into a house with music already playing because other people live there - I don't live alone.  I think about cleaning their kitchen, waiting for them to come home from the hospital with Behr for the first time, scrubbing to "Dilly" and "Older."  I think about how "after all, my plans they melt into the sand." 

I think about how so many friends have dreamed with Dre and Becca about this little nugget of life.  I think about the Pinterest boards for his nursery, additions to his walls and shelfs from friends near and far, and watching that bump grow and lower as we imagined and talked about and analyzed what he might look like, what he might be like.  I think about the way Behr's neck smells.  I think about how he smiled right at me today.  I think about how someday I'll be strolling along in a store and Band of Horses will pop on the radio and I'll jump into the emotional time machine... I'll be taken back to August 2011 - January 2012ish.  I'll smile and love the memory.
If you find this post random at best, completely boring at worst, I do have a direction I'm going with it ;)  No, these are not my favorite music recommendations for you.  And if you listen to any of these songs you might think "Um. Okay?" I don't listen to these songs frequently at all.  But when they appear, they stop me in my tracks.  You have "those" songs too.  Go find one of them today and listen to it and remember why that song affects your body.  And then say "Oh, I see why Kristen posted those."

BUT.  Someday on this blog I'd like to tell you folks a story.  And I'd like to use songs in the story.  In the next few weeks and months, as I plan on blogging more, if "random" music posts show-up, bear with me, and find some little thing to enjoy.  And feel free to tell me about a song or two that takes you back in time.  I'd truly love to hear.  I'd love to know more about you.  It would probably even make me feel less scared about letting you know more about me ;)