joy Archives - Capturing Joy with Kristen Duke

I asked my bloggy friend Kiki at Kiki Creates to design something pretty around this quote. I told her the colors I wanted, and she came up with something beautiful! I originally found the quote from Leigh Anne at Your Homebased Mom on her Christmas card, but I altered the words just a little. Kiki does beautiful design work, and if you’d like the same design, you can find this print in her shop. For the next week (til next Saturday) you can purchase anything in her Stripe Colletion for 20% off with the code: STRIPE20.

I mean, check out some of the stripe collection:

drool….

CLICK HERE to go directly to her shop.

I love beautiful design work, and I can’t do it, so I find it elsewhere. I’d like to learn how to do it though….

She also guest posted on my Decorating with Portraits series in September and used the “I love you because…” printables along with individual prints of her kids. Click here to see her post.

Thanks again, Kiki!

I got the cutest Christmas card in the mail from my blogging friend Leigh Anne of Your Homebased Mom. The title of the card said,

“Joy is portable, bring it with you.”

I’ve always loved the word JOY because its my middle name, and this phrase just jumped out to me. A quote on the back of the card states,

“The root of Joy is gratefulness…it is not joy that makes us grateful. It is gratitiude that makes us joyful.” -David Steindle-Rast

I am grateful for all that has happened in the past year. 2011, You’ve been good to me. Really good to me. I’ve traveled, I’ve made new friends, I ran a half marathon, I wrote a book, I held workshops, I went to Disneyland, threw parties, crafted, held my tongue when I really didn’t want to, made memories with my family and practiced more specifically intentional mothering. This is a phrase coined by someone else, and I’ve really come to love it.

By intentional, I mean not just getting by and rushing around from event to event…party to party…school to piano, but by intentionally engaging with my children. Every once in a while…going the extra mile…planning ahead. Reading chapter books to my kids, popped in some cinnamon rolls for them after school, sat down to play video games or dolls (which isn’t my fave), turned off the computer in the afternoon, gone jogging with my daughter, one on one dates with my boys, lunch jokes, insisting on hugs and a goodnight kiss on the cheek (me to them and them to me), visiting my kids at lunch, striking up conversation with classmates, ask my boys to play catch, scratch backs, play with hair (even my boys like this), painted nails, and having once a month sleepovers with my daughter in our spare room.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have in no way mastered those items listed above. But I’ve done them at least once, and I recognize them as things I can do…to counter act all those things that I don’t do well. I have to remind myself to do a lot of these things because they don’t come natually to my brain all the time.

So for 2012, I plan to do a lot of these same things…with intention.

We are getting together at a friends house for fireworks tonight. I’ve heard that in my city limit, they aren’t allowed, but they are just outside of our city, so I’m not asking! I don’t personally like to purchase fireworks, but it is fun to watch the kids enjoy them, so this works out well. I saw this cute print at Eighteen25 (love their subway art!) head there to download it.

This morning, I got to host one of my best friends for breakfast. I hadn’t seen her in a few years, but we talk eneough and keep posted on each others lives. She lives in Miami and is waiting patiently for her prince charming to come into her life, while working a fascinating secretive job that I can’t tell you about. I am so grateful that our friendship has lasted from before High School to now. We both like to dance, so here is a pic of us this morning…re-enacting many other pics of us dancing (originally taken from her phone).