Lessons

My honey and me at Bushkill Falls, PA

Being in the everyday crush of "things to do" shades my view of life and the things that are important to me. Getting outside of my normal routine for a while allowed me to realize a couple of important things:

1. Contentment is a moment by moment choice. As a family we have gotten into a habit of looking forward to the next activity for fun and fulfillment, leaving the ordinary moments unused. I need to continue to strive for peace in the everyday, mundane moments of my life and encourage my kids to do the same, otherwise, a huge chunk of our lives will be wasted. This is an area that God has placed on my heart for many months, and I guess I need to keep having it repeated over and over and over again!

2.My kids are fun! We spent lots of time playing badmitten, bocce ball and soccer and I became aware of how long it has been since I've played with them. I get WAY too caught up in what needs to be done every day and I easily miss the important things that need doing. It is ridiculous that as a stay-at-home mom I can still fail to really relate to my kids!

So now that we are home, I hope to keep these two lessons firmly fixed in my mind. I know that my main struggle is that I lose sight of what my priorities are, I lose my focus. My list of "things to do" needs to take a backseat to contentment and relationship to my kids. I suppose that I can consider myself lucky that God consistently brings me back to these truths, this is what I will trust for success!
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My friend, Alice, who is also my dad's wife, has started her own blog. Stop by and say "hi" to her, she is a sweet Christian lady and I love that she is part of my family!
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While on vacation I got to meet Jasmine and she is as sweet in person as she is on her blog! If I had paid more attention to our conversation(I think I was a bit foggy after the long drive!), I would have noticed that we talked all about babies and childbirth and maybe I should have suspected that Jasmine is expecting baby #5! Congratulations, Jasmine!!! By the way, Jasmine, your littlest one looks soooo "squeezably soft"! She and the others are aborable!

These are my kids playing in a rain storm. We can't do this in Colorado because spring and summer rainstorms almost always come with thunder and lightning and I am one of those "picky" moms who won't let their kids play outside while there is lightning!

Danika writing in her journal on the back porch

Aubry and Josiah being cute at the park!