Tag: birthday

5 Tips I’ve Learned From Great Gift-Givers

February 7, 2017 /

This post may be a little untimely. After all, you’re probably not thinking about Christmas shopping for next year.

But maybe you have friend with a birthday coming up and who doesn’t love giving and receiving gifts just because it’s Monday, right?

Or maybe you’re an employer who can’t give your team a raise, but wants to encourage and acknowledge their hard work.

I’m super easy to buy for because so much delights me! Give me a copy of Country Living UK to lose myself in and I’m as happy as if you had given me a car. (I’m really not a car person, so that’s probably not a fair comparison.) But not all people are so easy.

Anyway, whether you’re easy or not, don’t you know people who are just awesome gift-givers? I want to learn from them, so this past Christmas I paid close attention to gifts that particularly delighted me and made some notes.

Here’s are 5 things I came up with:

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Soul Food Favorites For a Birthday Girl

January 27, 2017 /

Today is our daughter, Katy’s birthday. She is a thoughtful follower of Jesus. She is kind, loyal, soft-hearted, intelligent, driven, responsible…The short version of her job description as liaison between USAID and the Hill is “to make congress care about global poverty.”

In short, she’s amazing. And no, I’m not prejudiced at all. In honor of her, I thought I’d devote this post to some of her favorite things.

First, like all Crosbys, she is a West Wing groupie. Our family speaks in West Wing dialog, and watch the episode “Shiboleth” every Thanksgiving.

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Second, like her father, is a VORACIOUS reader. Here are two books I’ve read recently that I know she’d love. I recommend them to her and to you.

Small Great Things is an amazing fictional account of a black labor and delivery nurse, a white supremacist who accuses her of killing his baby, and a public defender. Picoult writes chapters alternately in the voice of these three characters – an incredible challenge! I thought the book helped me better understand racism, white privilege, and stereotypes. Great read!

Third, she is a foodie. She is beloved by her co-workers and interns because she is always bringing them treats. She shared this recipe that she tried recently and loved from Half Baked Harvest.

Cream of Mushroom Chicken Wild Rice Soup.

  • prep time: 15 MINUTES
  • cook time: 45 MINUTES
  • total time: 1 HOUR

yields: SERVES 4

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 4 cloves garlic, smashed
  • 1/2 sweet onion, chopped
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  • kosher salt and pepper
  • 6 ounces cremini mushrooms
  • 2 ounces wild mushrooms
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
  • 6 cups low sodium chicken broth
  • 1 cup wild rice
  • 1/2-1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenders
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan

Instructions

Melt the butter and olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed soup pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for 5-8 minutes, stirring often until the onion is soft. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cremini mushrooms and the wild mushrooms, cook another 5 minutes or until the mushrooms are caramelized. Stir in the thyme and cook another minute longer. Remove the pot from the heat and ladle out half of the wild mushrooms. Transfer the remaining ingredients to a food processor. Add 2 cups broth and pulse until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Return the mixture to the soup pot and add the remaining 4 cups broth plus 2 cups water. Bring the mixture to boil and stir in the rice and chicken. Cover and reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer for 30 minutes or until the rice is tender and the chicken has cooked through. Shred the chicken in the pot. Stir in the milk and parmesan. Season the soup with salt + pepper. Simmer the soup for 5-10 minutes until warmed through.

Lastly, her love language is cute dogs. She knows the names of every one on her walk to work and befriends them everywhere.

So Happy Happy Birthday Sweetie, and the rest of you, have a delightful weekend with glimpses of God’s grace!

Dear Magpie and Other 20-something Friends

October 15, 2014 /

Today is our youngest daughter, Maggie’s 27th birthday.

Maggie is the shiny one who has friends all over the world; some she just hasn’t met yet.  She’s the one “car dances” and who keeps us laughing at ourselves and playing games and celebrating life with hoopla. She’s passionate about injustice, and traditions, and a good glass of wine.

For her on her birthday I want to shout “Huzzah!” and give her this sign I saw yesterday that said:

Always keep your beautiful imagination & exquisite humor.

I want to send a plane full of peanut butter M&M’s to scatter around her town so she’ll find them everywhere – nuggets of grace.

I want to go with her on fun new adventures to quirky spots like we’ve done in the past.

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And I want to remind her of what I wrote her two years ago because it still holds true – what I would say to her and to my own 27 year old self…

Dear Magpie,

Don’t let this discourage you, but the older you get the more you’ll know how much you don’t know…how little you’re sure of.  That’s ok though because it will help you to ask good questions, listen hard, and strain to hear God’s voice through His Word and others.

And as you do, you can remain certain of at least these three things.

1.  You really do matter.  The world is big and you’re so small, but even your little choices make a difference.   Don’t ever “despise the day of small things” done with great love.  Remember the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world can set in motion a chain of events that will lead to a hurricane somewhere else? Flap your wings.  You matter.

2.  Everything really will be ok.  You’ve made mistakes before and you’ll make them again, and some days you’ll be sure the sky is falling, but the longer you live the more you will remember that the One who hung the stars is still on duty, holding them in place.

You’ll experience His mercies, new every morning.  Again and again.  Ever faithful.  He really does cause all things to work together for good, even when that’s painful.  And He really can redeem anything.  Anything.

3.  You are not alone.  Even when you feel most alone.  When someone has hurt you or betrayed you or you’ve lost something.  No, no one has lived your story, but others have had chapters with similar themes of loss or fear or conflict or joy, and God has given them to you as companions, as well as Himself.  He’s the sure thing. You are beloved.

Sweetie, anyone can write these words, but you will have to live them into your bones.  I know that you will.  You will stretch and ask and risk and hope and pray.

And you will run your race “not somehow, but triumphantly“.  Surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” cheering you on.  With Daddy and me in the front row.

Happy Birthday Magpie.

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Dear Birthday Girl

March 19, 2014 /

Dear Birthday Girl,

Happy 2nd anniversary of your 29th birthday!  I am celebrating you with confetti and streamers, drums and kazoos and baton twirling! (Can you see it?)

You, however, may be waking up this morning wishing you had a husband and kids bringing you a tray of burnt toast, sloshing orange juice on you as they tumble into bed with you.  It’s a nice picture and it may be your picture someday, but today God has given you a different photograph.

When I look at the snapshots of you – not Instagram with fancy filters, but the candid shots when you think others aren’t looking – I see someone who is beautiful and brave, but not afraid to admit when she’s unsure.  I see a leader impacting scores of young women with the courage to speak uncomfortable truth, but the grace to hang in with them when they mess up.  I see someone who isn’t timid to ask questions and one who sets the bar high for herself.  Someone asking Jesus when to wait and when to jump.

I know people say unhelpful things like “Jesus was single.” or “God is larger in your picture because He’s all you have.”  And you want to punch them in the face. (you have my permission).  You are amazing and strong.

In you I see a unique picture, but also one with something in common with everyone everywhere. Continue reading

Five Things I’ve Learned From my Daughter

January 29, 2014 /

God has put all kinds of teachers in our path  They’re disguised as bosses and baristas, friends and foes, artists and authors.  And daughters.

Monday was our daughter, Katy’s 28th birthday.  She celebrated with friends in D.C. where she lives.  As a mom, celebrating her from afar, I started to think of some of the things she’s taught me in the past 28 years.  Here are just a few: Continue reading

A Birthday, a Wedding, and Who You Really Are

June 10, 2013 /

May 18th my mom turned 80.  May 26th our daughter Maggie got married.

Two milestones for two amazing women within eight days.

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You would never know my mom is 80.  It’s a little demoralizing when we’re out together and people think we’re friends instead of mother and daughter.  She classy and spunky and fun and fashionable.  In short, she is remarkable.  And she has a remarkable relationship with both our daughters.

She just finished making 407 cake pops for Maggie’s wedding, ordering flowers,  overseeing a team creating 60 flower arrangements, and creating centerpieces.

That, and Maggie’s been known to borrow her shoes.  Yeah, she’s got game.

But the two things that are most inspiring about her are that she’s always available and she loves me unconditionally.  I know, I know, she’s my mom, and it’s part of her job, but wow, she does it better than anyone I know.

We were disciplined as kids, but I don’t ever remember her criticizing us. Her trust in us and her belief that we would choose well was powerful.

She always believes the best.  I don’t mean she is blind to our faults.  But if I was convicted of bank robbery I’m sure she’d visit me every day with her famous brownies.

She wouldn’t talk about how wrong I was to rob the bank.  Instead she’d talk about how great I looked in my orange jump suit, and how she was sure I would be the friendliest person in the clink.  She would be confident that I’d be the next Chuck Colson, turning it all around for good.

You would think with all this good lovin’ I’d be super secure in my identity as a beloved child of God – the truest thing about me and you.  The one thing that can never change.  In spite of this, a million people and circumstances every day try to tell me and you differently.

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Happy Birthday Magpie

October 15, 2012 /

Today is daughter Maggie’s 25th birthday.

She is an amazing young woman – shiny and fun and creative as a toddler’s birthday party.  But also sincere and committed and serious about the sobering things of life like injustice and world poverty.

On this, as on all birthdays, I look back and remember the day she was born, stubborn from the start, refusing to come out without intense prompting even though my body had been saying it was time for over a month.

I also look back to my own 25 year old self and have been reflecting on what I would say to her and to Maggie.

I think I would say…

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