a visit with the big guy

Heaven help me, I don't really feel like blogging. I'm running low on brain cells these days. However, with it being the most wonder(full) time of the year, the family updates are piling up and if I don't blog soon it will turn into one of those never ending marathon posts that leave you cross-eyed by paragraph seven.

Last week we took Chica to see Santa. She was thrilled with this idea but I made sure to call a pregame huddle to discuss our strategy before the main event. We mulled over how nice of a person Santa is. How kind someone must be to fly around the whole world, doling out presents in honor of Jesus' birthday! We were excited! And upbeat! I was hoping this pre-visit warm up would prepare/brainwash her enough to walk up to an unknown, white bearded, booming voiced man in a red suit without switching into toddler meltdown mode.

It kind of worked. We drove twenty minutes to the mall only to find out I had forgotten to put my memory card in my camera. Dan offered to drive to the nearest Target (not a single store in the mall sold memory cards!) so Chica and I scoped out Santa from a safe distance while we waited.

Soon Dan returned and it was time to meet Santa. She had decided during our stakeout that she'd prefer standing next to him instead of sitting on his knee.
Annnnnd victory! No tears!!

Afterwards, she told her Daddy how the meet and greet went.
Santa even gave her a lollipop for her time- and here I was feeling robbed for forking over a fistful of cash for the mandatory picture package purchase. The Dum-Dum totally redeemed it.
We celebrated our successful Santa encounter with lunch in the food court.
Our morning got even better when we ran into some friends and all played together for a little while.

It was quite a merry day indeed.

deeper still

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend for the second time Deeper Still, one of LifeWay's many conferences for women. Last year, I traveled to Oklahoma for the event. This time, Debs wasn't able to be there, but three sweet friends from our new church agreed to go with me. Jen met us there from Nashville and we all had a ball.

Here's our fun group. We laughed so hard and had great conversations. I love a good girls trip.

The teaching and worship was incredible, as usual.

I've found that when I come back from a conference like this one, it takes several days for my brain to reboot. I saw some of the girls at church on Sunday we laughed because mentally, I was barely functioning.

I think in a way six solid hours of rich, challenging, convicting truth breaks down your mind. Old thoughts are carved away under the powerful chisel of scripture. The sword of the Spirit is swift and sometimes painful, yet I've found it's always effective. And just how the earth and all within it came to be simply by God speaking it into existence, His word goes forth into the depths of your mind and replaces the old thoughts and attitudes with new ones. Better ones. True ones.

It can make for one heck of a headache. But it's the best cure for a hard head.

P.S.- This picture with Beth was taken after the event by Rick Kalonick. You can see his website here.

thanksgiving highlights

Thanksgiving was, as usual, a whirlwind weekend. But Danny and I agreed that it was our best trip back home since Chica was born. In many ways, it's just become easier the older she gets. Less stuff to haul around + more sleep at nights = better trip for the Hinton family.

The memories are too numerous to name, (especially when writing a post during Law & Order commercials) so I'll list a few that stand out/are triggered by Jack McCoy's closing argument.

1. The food. I contributed nothing to any of the feasts but it's my friend Blakely's theory that if you bring a grand baby to dinner, you're automatically exempt from cooking a side dish. I like her thinking.

2. Holding baby cousin. He's young enough to be a total snuggle bug yet old enough to look you in the eye. Precious baby.

Because he's the third born and adored by his older siblings, he's been thoroughly initiated into the physicality of toddler love. :) Therefore, as we passed him around, even Chica got a turn to hold him.A few minutes into her turn, she decided her arms were tired and she let go.

3. The Hinton Bowl. It's tradition for the family to partake in a football scrimmage at the local high school before lunch. It's the first-borns vs. everybody else and this year we even had t-shirts. We were hoping Chica would be able to run around a little bit, but the temperature was so bitterly cold, we barely made it onto the field when she was ready to leave.

We cheered on the family from the car with the heat blasting and the snacks flowing. The set-up was just fine by me. Since moving to the south, my cold weather tolerance isn't what it used to be.

4. The last picture we took for my mom's Christmas card. By that point, we were all thrilled the tedious picture taking process was over!

Eventually all the cousins smiled.

But I liked this shot a lot more. :)

5. A sweet conversation with my step-sister Grace. If we lived closer, we'd totally hang out.

6. Black Friday Shopping. Standing outside Kohl's at 2:50 in the morning in 18 degree weather. It separates the girls from the women. (Or the sane from the loonies, depending on how you look at it.) I see it as deals so good, the stores practically pay me to shop there. :)

7. Spending time with family. No family is perfect. But I'm thankful for the one God gave us. They've loved us well for a long time.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving Bloggers and remember, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. Add that to the list of things I'm thankful for. :)

what's in a (nick)name

My husband is the king of nick-names. He loves to dole out nick-names to unsuspecting teenagers in the youth group. He's so talented when it comes to nick-naming that once he starts calling a teenager by a funny name he has made up, it becomes that person's name for years. Not only will he continue to call that teenager by that name, everyone else will too. What can I say? He's powerfully affective in his nick-naming abilities. It's a gift.

For more than two and a half years, he's been exercising and perfecting his gift on his favorite little girl in the whole world- his daughter. Not to be outdone, I've thrown around a few nicknames of my own here and there.

Behold, a list of names we call our daughter on a regular basis:

(Some have phased out, but the majority are still in use. And yes, she responds to every one of them.)

*Beanie

*Love Bug

*Doodle

*Chica

*Bubba

*Bubba Bear

*Bugaboo

*Zerugabel

*Zerubbabel

*Bumpo

*Buppo

*Bungalow

*Bungy

*Bingo

*Bungle Bear

*Big Goyle

*Buggy Bungo

*Bumpalo

*Baby

*Baby Girl

*Big Girl

*Bear Cub

*Bubs

*Cub Scout

*Cub Scout Buggo

*BooBoo

*Bungalie

*Bunco

*Bubbly

*Buggo

*Bigems

*Lovey

*Lovey Smith

*Rolly Polly

*Doll Baby

*Sister Bear

*Girlfriend

*Honey

*Jay Bird Baby

*Reesie

*ReesiePeesie

*Reester

*Reester Peester

If the poor thing ends up having an identity crisis, I think we'll know why. :)

fall hodge-podge

While scrolling through an entire autumn's worth of pictures, I found some that never made it to our little blog. They're as sporadic and unique as the leaves that are still falling in our southern state. Enjoy!

In October, Danny took a trip to Colorado to attend the wedding of a friend from high school. Originally, Danny was the only Hinton slated to go. I was going to stay in Kansas City and wait for Danny to come back so we could go to another wedding, also of a friend from high school. (Confused? To summarize: two friends from high school got married on back to back nights. One wedding was in Colorado, the other in Missouri.)

When a flight to Colorado popped up that was too good of a deal to miss, I joined Danny at the last minute. We left Chica with the grandparents in Missouri. I'm so grateful it worked out, because it was a fabulous little trip (our first in more than a year) and it couldn't have come at a better time for our marriage. God knew just what we needed.

The day before the wedding we drove through part of Rocky Mountain National Park. It was beautiful and had all kinds of lookouts. We stopped a couple of times to get out and explore.

This is Estes Park. We had to drive through here to get to the entrance of the park. We had lunch here too at a local restaurant.

The wedding was in Boulder, Colorado. This picture was from Pearl Street, a really cool part of town. (I have no clue why this font is underlined, nor how to fix it. Sorry!)

Here are the high school friends the night of the rehearsal dinner. Jason, the groom is in the middle. And that guy on the far right is Shawn, a devoted reader of the Hinton Home. Hi Shawn!! :)

We're not the only people who've procreated! Here's Adam with his sweet baby girl. She had those kind of striking eyes that can overpower grown-ups. We should pray for Adam. :) Her mama was really sweet too, I'm glad I got to meet her.

I'm a total mountains girl. I couldn't stop taking pictures of them.
The morning of the wedding we went to breakfast at a local hot spot.

Here the boys are just before the ceremony started.

The very next night at Jen's wedding. All of us girls went to high school together. It's hard to believe we have real jobs, husbands, children, etc. When did we grow up???
Last week, Chica and I took a trip to visit Megsy, one of our favorite college girls.

We had a fun lunch and toured her house. Chica was a sight to be seen in the sorority house. The sisters were ready to initiate her.

The rest of the fall was sprinkled with "photo shoots" of any kid whose mama would let me. :)

How's that for random? I can't believe how many pictures I took that didn't have my daughter as the subject. I'm off to hunt her down with my camera- can't have her feeling neglected now. :)