photo source: earle hatsumy
I never intended to have big, fun parties for my kids. It started when Lydia turned one. We had recently moved back to Atlanta and I wanted my best friends, my sisterchicks to be at the party. I see kids’ birthday parties as a time to honor the friends and family who have encouarged us, cared for us and supported us over the last year. That first birthday party is the biggest one—it’s kind of a celebration to say, “We made it! Thank you for helping us through this year!”
I love that I can gather my best friends, my family and new friends together in one spot. It does my heart good to see them all together. It also gives me the chance to do something for them. Yes, I know, they brought my kid a present. But I hope they feel honored by us while they are there, too. I hope they see that we thought of them beforehand. I hope they see their kid having a great time. I hope they enjoy the food!
(And really, their kids usually end up with a gift anyway. Did you see those airplanes?!)
That’s also what I hope you feel and see at this blog. I am purposing in my heart to prepare a special place for you. I want you to feel honored, cared for and planned for when you click away from here. And even though our kids won’t really be running around the backyard together or take home an airplane or a crazy hair do, I hope through the things we discuss and share on this blog, your kids will have a great time!
So, can we be friends? Will you hang at this party with me? I sure hope so!
In honor of friendship, of fun gifts and oh, just super cute stuff. Here’s a quick and fun giveaway for you today.
One lovely lady will win a beautiful Redeemed scarf…
an I am His necklace (the back is the cutest part…click to see it!)…
and a Treasured bracelet...
from the super fabulous Dayspring!
Speaking of honoring their friends, Dayspring is the BOSS of this! When I was at dotMom, they gave me (and all the bloggers there) the most super gift ever–one of the new Lisa Leonard necklaces with an initial charm attached. Hello! Talk about planning for me. I don’t even write for incourage, I have no connection to Dayspring. Yet, they knew I would be at the conference and dug out an “A” charm just for me. I still haven’t gotten over it. (Clearly, I love my name and an “A” just knocked my socks off!)
So, can we be friends? To be entered to win, leave me a comment about…oh, I don’t know, your very best childhood friend or how much you’d like us to be BFFs. Whatever. 😉
CONTEST CLOSED!!!
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I LOVE Dayspring and all their amazing things. I actually got that necklace for my entire team when it was on sale the other week. Can’t wait to give it to them for Christmas.
Would I like us to be BFFs? Yes please, but I’m lucky (blessed even) that I get to see you every once in awhile. So we’re close to BFFs – right? An honor to call you friend, Amanda.
Yes, we ARE bffs! 😉
a
I love the whole party concept. Hospitality is such a gift and blessing, wether you on the giving or receiving end. I have been reading your blog(s) and have been blessed. This has been so much fun and inspiring.
I love how you said that, Marty, “Hospitality is such a gift and blessing, wether you on the giving or receiving end.” Yes! You’re right!
a
I keep thinking of excuses to come down to Georgia…mainly JUST so I can be your BFF! 🙂
Seriously though, you rock and your kiddos are growing up in possibly one of the coolest homes eva!
Ha! That would be fun!
(How’s the new bebe? I was with some bloggers when he was born {maybe dotMom?} and I tried to find you online to see his face!)
a
Love this giveaway!
I don’t know that I had one best friends when I was little – I had several! Sadly none of us live in the same city anymore so we just see each other once or twice a year. 🙁 But I would still consider them my best friends.
Love your blog! It looks great – looking forward to reading and getting to know you more.
Well, my best childhood friend is still a great friend today. I grew up in Atlanta also (I think you grew up there, right?) and my best friend and I went through and did everything together from first grade to our senior year in high school. We were both bun heads 🙂 (dancers in our county’s ballet company- ballet, modern, dance team at school, etc.), both trouble makers as we entered into high school, both searching for our purpose, and both redeemed through Christ after those troublesome teen years. 😛 I am thankful to God that he gave me someone to walk through these years with like Moses had Aaron. 🙂 She truly is a sister to me.
Yup, I still live in the ATL!
And bun-head! I’ll have to tell my ballerina Lydia that one! 🙂
a
My best childhood friend is still my best friend today. We complete each other. We’ve often been told that we are twins, to different moms, who was separated at birth. There was a few years after high school when we went our separate ways while starting our families. When my youngest daughter was born we reconnected. When I had to go back to work my bestest friend ever actually quit her job to stay home and babysit my girls. When my girls were old enough to start Pre-K she quit babysitting and went to work for the school where my girls were in Pre-K. When my girls started Kindergarten, Angie quit the Pre-K system and went to work for the public school system driving a school bus. When Angie’s grandchildren were born, I was there with her and her daughter. When my grandchildren was born, she was there with me, waiting. You get the picture! We simply complete each other in everything we do. We share feeling and we always seem to know when the other needs a pick-me-up and we’re there to make it happen.
Besides my little sister, who is absolutely my lifelong best friend, my closest friend from preschool through middle school was Wendy. We lived in different towns but went to church together in the town in between. We spent every Sunday together, trading which family we went home with each week. Eventually the families moved on to different churches and we lost touch. But thanks to facebook, we have reconnected. She was high school friends with one of my friends from college. It is so fun to share life together now through facebook. Seems like the years just melted away.
Love your site! Thanks for sharing your joy with us!
I love that when I can say “I am His”, I am ushered into a family of other adopted brothers and sisters. And it’s like we ARE BFF’s- because we are His! I love, love, love the new spin on your blog- it is so you! My first connection to your blog was through Lydia’s Tangled party- I was planning my girls Tangled party at the time- and I discovered that we are cut from the same cloth. One of my boys is a little younger than Asa and I had sooooo much fun planning his Toy Story party. You have been a huge inspiration to me and I am so thankful.
Keep up the great work, Amanda! You are a blessing to so many.
We moved a LOT when I was a kid. I mean, a lot. So, I didn’t have any real, lasting friendships until high school and college. And now, 15 years on, they remain some of the most influential relationships of my life!! But, being a highly extroverted sanguine, I always have room for another BFF. 🙂
I am new to your blog and I LOVE IT!!! My childhood best friend was Julie and we used to ride around town in the back of her mom’s big old station wagon listening to Amy Grant. We were silly and sweet and all the things best friends in 3rd and 4th grade should be!
My sister is my best friend. I’ve been burned on a few “best” friends over the years who betrayed me. I learned my lesson and I use wisdom on whom to invite into my life and devote time to nowadays. Luckily my sister has been with me through thick and thin, through “best friend breakups” and all my ups and downs, and our friendship gets better with each year. 🙂
I am doubly blessed…because my very best childhood friends also happen to be my sisters. They are my accountability when I step out of line, and can turn a giggling memory into a belly-laugh. I never walk away from a conversation or sister-weekend without a smile on my face and thankfulness in my heart. Truly blessed.
My best childhood friend & I were together 24/7. We stayed BFF from about 6th grade through 9th grade, until I had to move schools. Somewhere along the way, we drifted apart 🙁
I have a best friend from kindergarten, we’ve been close since!!! My name is Julie and hers, Jennifer, we decided to name our first born girls with a J also, Jillian and Jaden. We dont care that we dont talk every day or every week, we care that we think about each other as much as possible and we say we love you as much as we can!! I pray my daughter finds a best friend for life, because they’re blessings!!! I love all my friends that call besties!!! I never want to do life without them!!!
Can I just say how much I enjoy your blog?!! It really is an encouragement from the Lord and challenges me to be a more intentional mom. Thanks! As for my childhood friend. . . we went to the same church, lived on streets that were back to back (so we got to take the path through the woods-well it was maybe four feet of actual woods but fun none-the-less), were in each other’s weddings and now live a state apart. But she is still my dear friend and we make a date to eat together every time we’re in each other’s city. Love her dearly!
Those are gorgeous!
BFF!
I haven’t managed to maintain many friendships in my life, but I do have one special friend that just seems to get me. I met her when she trained me for my first “real” job in Bham over 13 years ago & we’ve been friends ever since. She’s encouraged me in my marriage, motherhood, and my relationship with Christ. When she picked me up for dotMOM, she even presented me with a Dayspring necklace (the I Am His necklace). I wear it alongside my Lisa Leonard necklace everyday as both remind me of the richness of my life.
Oh and on Day 2 of dotMOM, she picked me up & handed me a Bacon-Maple doughnut! See, she gets me. 🙂
I love that you use the phrase sister chicks! I’ve had the same BFF for over 20 years. When I called to tell her I was expecting my first child, she beat me to it to tell me that she was expecting as well. Nothing like a best friend to travel through life with!
I feel like we are already BFFs. It’s funny because in High School you worry so much about friends and today I only talk to one person I knew from then. We are complete opposites, but she is my BFF and I thank God for her different perspective everyday.
I’ll be your BFF. Will you be mine?
I moved around a lot as a kid so I never really had a BFF. But I had a lot of friends… who I had to say goodbye to when the next move came. It was hard as an introvert to be the new kid 8 times before I graduated. I’ve moved around a lot as an adult too. Just when I felt like I was making friends, we moved again. As an adult now it’s even harder to forge friendships, let alone BFFships. Everyone is busy. So am I.
Plus, I have this idea that no one really wants to be my BFF because they all have their own BFFs. I guess I had/have this idea that you can only have one BFF. After all, B is for best. You can only have one best, right? Well, I’m learning from my 12 yo daughter that you can, in fact, have many BFFs. I admire her for that.
I recently started blogging – it’s a personal blog, I have no business that I am trying to promote – and I have noticed something really interesting. Most of the people who leave comments are people who I do not know, other bloggers who are encouraging to me. (Except for my mom, she comments. She’s the best.) I kinda put it all out there on my blog, and it makes me a little bit sad that most people I know in real life don’t comment. But then I remember that I am not blogging for them, I am blogging for me. And that one person.
What has been really encouraging, though, is to realize that there is this whole community of people out there who are potential friends. I just need to find them. It’s a big blogging world. But somehow I found your blog – it was b/c I won a print from hello mornings – and I’m glad I found you. Let’s party.
Oh! My! How pretty is this giveaway! I just started following you yesterday on suggestion of my friend Mandi H. To tell you about my BFF, Kaliska, we have been BFFs for a little over 20 years! Gosh that sounds like a long time! She has stuck with me thru some ugly stuff and has never given up! At this point, we are just blessed to have one another to talk to on a weekly basis, to tell it like it is, and just someone to have your back regardless of how stupid/crazy life can get! 😉
hi there, i’m saw you on Pinterest and then i found this page, my husband and i started talking about homeschooling our daughter Kayden, but i wasn’t really sure about the idea. but I’ve been reading a little bit of the things you have in your page and it have help a little. i would love to be part of this group. i could learn a lot.
God bless.
maria copeland
I haven’t had the same best friend throughout my entire life, as some have (although I am still in contact with them, we’ve just developed different interests/ passions), but I love how even through life changes, God has always made sure I have had one “sister chick”. Right now, it is my next door neighbor. She truly is a gift and an answer to a prayer!
You are special…your sweet spirit, love, and embrace come through your writing…thank you! My most memorable birthday was a couple of years ago…I decided to celebrate my friends on my 50 th b- day! so, my two daughters and their best friends and my three bff’s went on a short Mexican cruise…we are Californians so it is like hopping on the ship and off we go! i got to dance in the clubs with my daughters, they had to stand for a million photos for mom, and oh yes…I did kareoke for the first time! check off the bucket list! we had a blast…it wasn’t about me, but about us!
I had a few best friends growing up, as I and they moved a couple of times. But my mom has been a constant in that, and now my husband is most definitely my best friend. Thanks!
My best friend growing up moved to our town from another small town. We became fast friends, sharing sleep overs, laughs, her brother was the first to take me snipe hunting and her mother sewed matching outfits for us all through junior high. We grew up graduated and wouldn’t you know, I ended up in the small town where she was from, her mother ended up moving back here and now we still get to see each other two or three times a year! God is good.
I would love to be your friend Amanda! I love your witty spirit and the way that you attack life with creativity and purpose! I also LOVE the way you shine Jesus to others!
Freda was my very best friend growing up. Now we both have grandchildren, and we don’t see each other very often. Our granddaughters, who are not the same age and attend different elementary schools, were cheerleaders through the Upward program. At the end of the season a couple of years ago all the cheerleader teams united in a final program at one of the local churches. Quiet by accident Freda’s granddaughter and one of my granddaughters (who don’t know each other) stood side by side on the stage. It was a very special moment for me, and I am happy that I was able to capture the moment with a photograph.
Oh, yeah! I like giveaways, and I like cute stuff. And I like you! You’re even on my blog today. But your short hair is always cuter/cooler than my short hair, so maybe I like you a little less than I thought I did. 😉
I love my BFFs!
We just moved to VA from CA and all our family is in TX. My little baby turns 1 in 4 weeks and I’m so sad all those that I love are so far away. It’s been a rough year and I would love to celebrate this milestone with everyone!
I used to sell Dayspring cards when I worked at Newsong Christian Bookstore. Their cards are simply the BEST and a great way to share a smile 🙂 (And I just love that bracelet!!)
My best friend, Shanna was the world’s BEST. She was always positive, sweet and super fun to be around. She once drove from Cumming to Marietta just to leave me a yellow rose and a note!
Sadly, we lost her 10 years ago when she went in for her second heart transplant at the age of 23. She always shined God’s light. I look forward to seing her again when I get to Heaven. No one has even taken her place in my heart.
On a final note… I must say we should be “connecting” best friends bc my sis in law really is your BFF…so doesn’t that make me something?! LOL
Awww, connecting BFFs! Love you, Beck! xo
a
I have just reconnected with my best friend from childhood. We have had so many laughs over the kids we were and the moms we have become. Our oldest daughters are the same age. We talk and chuckle about how the girls are like us in so many ways, but are their own beautifull miracle. Friendship amongst women is so important. I tha k God for all my girlfriends … Past, present and future! God bless what you do and thanks for offering to be my new friend! BB
My cousins are my best friends. 🙂
Amanda, I am so thankful you and your heart. I love the encouragement and insight you pour out on your blog. You make me want to be a better mom and child of the King. I would LOVE to be your BFF, no really, I would love to sit down with you someday. Thanks for all you do!
Thank you, sweet friend! You made me smile. 🙂
a
I agree with your thoughts about first birthday parties. When my oldest was young, I was in a moms’ exercise class, and his first birthday was way more about us mommies hanging out than the kiddos.
PS- Would love to win:)
In just the past two years I have reconnected with my BFF from childhood, it has been a blessing to have her love and support in my life once more!
I remember when I met you at Blissdom last year. And you were oh so sweet and made me feel right at home like I’d known you for years.
I actually didn’t meet my best girlfriend from “childhood” until I was 15. We moved a lot when I was little, so friendships didn’t last long. But when I was just entering high school we finally stayed put. And I met Carrie. Who I thought was a complete snob when I first met her. We went out with a group of girls, and after one hilarious random incident, we became inseparable. To the point that our teachers knew never to allow us to sit together because we would pass notes and never listen. We have gone separate ways over the last few years, but still stay in touch as often as possible. She’s having her first baby next spring. She’s due two days before my birthday {SQUEE!!} and has promised to hold out and have the babe on my birthday. 😉
I met my childhood BFF in 7th grade and we stayed best friends all the way through high school. It’s been harder to stay in touch since we both went off to college, but when we do talk, there is still that special connection. She’s one of the only people from that stage of my life who I am still in contact with.
I had an awesome childhood friend and still am in touch with her. I just love your new site Amanda and love getting to know you.
My best friend lived across the road. We spend so many summer nights in the woods planning out days out.
I have a group of friends that God has blessed me with since grade school. I don’t know what I would do without them. Friendship is such a blessing!
It was fun reading through some of the other comments hearing all about bffs. I had various bffs through out childhood b/c we moved rather often. I always thought it would have been cool to have each bff from each era of my life be a bridesmaid in my wedding. It didn’t work out that way at all but it would have been neat.
I was just thinking last night that I need a friend who will challenge and push me to be more than I am at any given moment. So, maybe you can do a little of that in the virtual backyard. Maybe I can even take my laptop out to our backyard when I read here. But not when there’s snow.
Love it. Virtual backyard.
And I have loved reading everyone’s BFF stories, too. Special friends!
a
My best friend is a coworker of mine. We just met two years ago when she became my co-teacher at the Preschool where I work. She is always there when I need encouragement or just to vent. She also isn’t afraid to call me out on something when I am in the wrong. She shows me my wrong in a loving way and helps me find a solution. We do Bible study together and teach our 3 year old students the love of God. It is lots of fun to be with her on a daily basis!
I would also like to be your best friend because I would like daily advise and encouragement on whether or not to home school my kids. My son has gone to preschool at our church because I work there, but he is going to kindergarten next year and my husband and I are now debating on me homeschooling instead of teaching. I love the influence I have on my students, but I would also love to home school.
It’s a big decision! Homeschooling has been a big blessing and adventure for us. I also think that just trying something out is a good idea–you can always change the next year. 🙂
a
i would love for us to be bff’s…so you could teach me how to pray over & with my children & family.
Old and new friends. You just can’t have enough of them. What a great way to look at parties! I’ve never thought of them as honoring your friends. I think you’ve just encouraged me to be more purposefull with my planning. Thank you!
Would love to win! I love anything with my name on it 🙂
Amanda,
Thanks so much for your encouraging blog! You are an inspiration to Christian moms every where! BTW- I love the new website 🙂
Dawn
I’d love for you to be a BFF of mine~well you kinda are in a bloggy-internet-sort-of-way! 🙂
Most definitely!
a
My best friends are actually a group of girls I’ve never met IRL! We met on Twitter, I think, and have become really close over the last 3-4 years. They’re my go-to girls for prayer requests, venting, silly life details, and anything else. It’s a shame we’re all in different parts of the country!
Isn’t the internet cool? Accountability on the webs! LOVE.
a
I do feel like we are friends in a weird way. I have emailed you to ask for advice and you replied back – thank you.