Lilly Katherine LOVES spring!  She loves the flowers, but she especially loves the HONEYSUCKLES!

About 2 weeks ago, I was running with my friend, Andria.  We both caught a whiff of that unmistakeably sweet aroma, and our heads whipped around to find a huge honeysuckle plant.  As grown women, we couldn’t help but stop and enjoy the first honeysuckles of the season.  Oh, that taste and that smell just take me back to childhood faster than almost anything.

I knew then that I just had to get Lilly Katherine to a honeysuckle plant as soon as possible!  So, last week we headed out to our honeysuckle spot…

She ate and ate on those honeysuckles.  She even grabbed ZipLock bags for all the kids so they could take some honeysuckles for the road.

AnnaLeigh wanted me to take her picture.  Goodness I love that little face.  However, the DUMB dog in the background (Sam) decided he needed to go with us, too.  I swear he causes more gray hairs on my head than all 4 children combined…well…maybe not combined, but he’s the worst child I have, for sure!  :)

Lilly Katherine’s “To Go” bag.

The added bonus…there were also dewberries right beside the honeysuckles.   Beautiful dewberries!

It was like a nature buffet for my kids.  I loved it!  That is what I did as a kid.

However, let me allow you into my head and tell you that I was working very hard to suppress the mom-sense.  You know…the “WHAT IFs!”

The mom in me was thinking “What if there is a copper-head waiting to bite little fingers under that dewberry bush!” and “What if a dog peed on these plants” and “What if they grab a bee or a spider or worse…a WORM!”  and “What if they eat a bug.  I’m not washing these for them, so there’s no telling what they’re eating!!!”  aghhhhh!!!!!

Yes, it is hard for me to shut that crazy mom-sense up, but for the sake of my kids’ childhoods, I feel that they need to experience fresh honeysuckles and dewberries, straight from the earth…without my words of “wisdom” (aka FEAR).

So I let them pick…

…and pick

…and EAT! :)

Sweet Georgia just sat in her stroller watching the endless nature buffet.  I don’t even have a picture of my little love, but she was not much a fan of our finds.

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Thank you, Lord, for your creativity!  Thank you for your amazing colors and smells and tastes.  Thank you for allowing the beauty to grow wild, with no help from human hands, so that no one can take credit for your mighty and amazing works. 

Thank you, Lord, for time with these maniacs.  Thank you for your creativity with their personalities and their differences.  Thank you for every minute that I have with them.  After another lesson this week on life being much too short, please help me to spend more time stopping to smell the honeysuckles with them.  Help me to invest in them individually and together.  Please help me to parent with love and kindness, and please help me to be more patient with them, because you and I both know, that’s not really my thing. :/

Lord, thank you for trusting Brad and me with this amazing, huge, hard, rewarding privilege!  Thank you for equipping us, and I just pray that you would keep my babies safe from snakes and dog pee and bees…but most of all, keep them safe from harm, from sickness, from disease, from the people in this world that are out to do horrible things to others.  Please keep them safe in your arms.  Also, Lord, please guide their lives with wisdom and discernment that comes only from you. 

Thank you for all of your wonderful, awesome creativity!  You are amazing, Lord!  Thank you!

Amen

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-kate

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