What's your sign?

So the next few posts are going to be about my new favorite topic: Living in Reality.  I'm not sure why (I have my suspicions about why) we feel such pressure to present ourselves and our families as much closer to perfect than we are, but I know that we do feel that way and that we respond to it by covering our own imperfections and hiding ourselves from the people we suppose would care.  I also know that there's a great freedom and relief in not hiding from reality and not investing our time in hiding our realities from one another.  I can guarantee you that reality will keep knocking at you until you look at it.

I'll be the first to tell you that our family has it's problems.  We have not all behaved perfectly all of the time, but my greatest joys, the greatest depths of emotion that I've shared with my family have all come at times when I allowed each member to be exactly who they are, without imagining intentions or influences.  Reality is lovely - sometimes horrible, but also lovely.

So I'll go first with showing you a little reality about our family.  I love those little signs that are popular lately that look like this:

I had this picturesque weekend fantasy that we could make some adorable ones of our own so I bought all of the craft supplies and then Olivia and I got this idea that it might be more fun to make ones that actually are things people in our house would say to one another. I mean, I know Kenny loves me more than anyone on the earth, but he doesn't always communicate in poetic, picture-framed words and Olivia probably MEANS she loves me better than everything in the sky, but forgets to cross-stitch it for me.  Now don't go thinking the following phrases are the ONLY things you would hear in our home. I'd love to hear what signs you would make.  We say nice things A LOT, but here are the ones we made this weekend: