So many things on my mind

The flu/cold/diarrhea  monster has been holding my family hostage for what feels like months.  Cycle after cycle of torture and harsh treatment has had me working overtime administering Tylenol, Vics, essential oils, echinacea and of course replenishing fluids, cleaning up fluids, wiping boogers, wiping butts, and wiping up messes of all sorts until I have not a single ounce of energy left to take care of anything else......like myself.

This motherhood gig is tough I tell ya!

And yet as I am up all hours of the night consoling the inconsolable and patting their tiny backs while they cough themselves silly, I think of those mothers in other parts of the world, whose homes are no longer standing, who console a different kind of inconsolable and who are fighting a fight I know nothing about.  I pray for them....that sleep will come to their weary eyes and comfort to their hearts.

We all have our challenges and tonight I am so very grateful to have mine.

Beautiful For Me

This has been a fun week!  The fun started last weekend when we had a birthday bash for Emilee at my sister's house!  Our hearts were completely filled up with friends and family and festivities!  I'll write a whole post about it tomorrow.

On Sunday we came home from a busy, exciting weekend, and along with fatigue and fun memories, we brought along our niece for a week long stay in the country!

We have kept up a daily routine of snacking, playing, watching movies, doing puzzles, coloring pictures, fighting over toys and tattling!  Then the the nightly ritual of dinner, dance party, bath time, cheese & crackers, bed time stories and then laying little sleepy princesses into their beds for the night.

This morning they were watching a Veggie Tales movie called "Sweet Pea Beauty".  It was playing in the living room while I worked around the house.  I know the message was about working more on our inner beauty and worrying less about they way we look on the outside, but I didn't catch a whole lot of the story.  The thing I did notice was the beautiful song that played during the closing credits.  It made me think of these photos taken on Sunday night at Emilee's birthday dinner with Tyler's family.  Three little faces completely content and excited about life, beaming and beautiful, just as Heavenly Father created them to be!

I can't stand the thought of them ever feeling less than beautiful!  I don't ever want them to look at their sweet little faces and not be able to see what I see in them now.... what I will always see.  It must be so painful for our Heavenly Father to watch his daughters feel less than the "beautiful" he created us to be!  I am working hard to be a better example to my daughters in this way!  I am finally starting to believe that if Heavenly Father didn't think we were beautiful just the way we are, he wouldn't have created us this way.  My new goal is to be beautiful for him!

I'm back......

.....and I feel like I just woke up from a night of no sleep! I look like it too!  The last month or so has been a whirlwind of emotion, change, experience and growth!  I might be exhausted, but I am exhausted and happy!

Previous to my "Blog Fast", I challenged myself to go for 40 days without any sweets.  During that time, I found I really didn't need chocolate as much as I always thought I did.

Blogs, however; are an entirely different craving for me.  I realize that I crave information, connection, creativity, and good writing!  I love learning about other people's lives, interests, aspirations and accomplishments.  Blogs inspire me!  I have missed them.

In their absence though, I have learned that I have a big problem with balance.  Learning to enjoy all things in moderation is a big deal to me, but right now I am not very good at it.  I have also learned that I tend to go unconscious at times, turning to outside sources to avoid fully living my own life.  I am not fully present in every moment.  I realized this, when I was finding myself spending too much time reading, or watching movies when I couldn't turn to the blogs I usually escape to.  Why would I do this?  I don't know!  I have a beautiful life filled with love and purpose and yet I seem to keep myself at a distance from everything I love.  Hmmm....interesting.

I am learning to be more aware of who I am and how I am spending my time.  I am trying not to judge myself....just observe and notice.  During the last 40 days, a lot of wonderful new things have happened.  My life is headed in a new and exciting direction, and I am so grateful to my Father in Heaven for giving me such an abundant and full life!  It's my choice to accept it though.  I think the Lord is offering all of us every good thing we desire.....we just have to ask for it and then make the choice to take it!

I highly recommend sacrificing something you might be holding on to a little too tightly.  Stretch yourself.  Take the time to step back and look at your life and behavior a little more closely.  I promise the Lord will show you the parts that need to be let go of, and the best part, is he will replace those parts with the thing you really want......happiness!