Mother's Day

So, this year for Mother's Day we had limited finances, so I simply told my husband that I didn't need any gifts for Mother's Day. I just needed him to cook for me and just help me with the house a little more and the girls. He did really great and it overall was a very good Mother's Day. Morgan gave me wonderful things that she made at school and then they all had cards and other little things they made during church. It was just overall a sweet Mother's Day weekend for me.
However, like most Mother's Days it left me contemplating how I'm doing in my role of a mother and wife. Of course, like all mothers out there, I judged myself more harshly than I probably should have. I of course looked on all of the things I'm not doing or am not doing well enough, instead of focusing on the things that I am doing.
I only saw that the house always seems to be in some sort of messy situation instead of the fact that my kids are having fun and learning daily and that we get to enjoy lots of time having fun together.  I saw the fact that I'm always doing laundry and can never keep up with it all and that the folded clothes tend to sit in their baskets for days before it all gets put away instead of focusing on that my family has more than enough clothes to wear that I can skip doing laundry for a few days and we still all have clean clothes. I only see that my kids are always asking to snack and I give in a lot of times out of frustration and then they don't eat their meals like they should instead of seeing that at least they are not going hungry.
I guess it all comes back to perspective and the things we choose to focus on. Today I decided to postpone doing any housework until I sat down and watched something just for me. I decided to watch "Mom's Night Out" which was probably the best thing for me to watch. There was so much that I gleaned from it today. It reminded me that we mothers tend to be our harshest critics. We need to sit back and not focus on our weaknesses, but our strengths. We need to look at everything we do and not focus on the things that we don't.
Our job as mothers is far from easy. It is usually messy, loud, challenging, and stressful most days. However, it truly has it's rewards. Getting to see the people that my children are slowly becoming and the sweet moments we get to share make it all worth all of the stress, chanllenges, mess, and noise.

New Year, New Family

So I know that this post comes way after the new year, in fact Valentines Day has come and gone. But over the last few days and weeks I've been doing a lot of thinking about things we as a family and as individuals need to work on this year.
A little over a month ago my husband lost his job. We were hopeful that things would be solved quickly as he had a job interview already set up for the day after he ended up losing his job. However after the interview and things we did a lot of praying and fasting that we would make the decision that was best for our family and what the Lord had planned for us and our future. In all of this praying and things we got the impression that Brett needed to get out of Restoration work. This left us confused and wondering what he was supposed to do for work if not what he had been doing for years. He filled out so many applications it is a blur and during this time we continued to pray and fast for the Lord's guidance in our decision making. The one distinct impression we got was that Brett needed to look for a job with normal.regular hours so that he could go back to school this fall to continue his education. He now has a job in the pest control field (a field he has worked in before) and he will have the regular hours that he needs to be able to go back to school.
During all of this praying and fasting I realized that we all needed to better ourselves this next year and try to all become better people. Not that we are terrible, but everyone can improve. Some of our main goals for this year will be:
1. Get better at having FHE regularly
2. Try to spend more quality time together
3. Try to get out of debt more
4. Try to get healthier (diet and exercise).
5. Study the scriptures more regularly (Individually and as a family)
6. Yell less, and laugh more.

It will be nice to see if we can meet these goals this year and I'm very hopeful that we can. I hope to make progress on some rather quickly, while others I know will take time and patience from all of us.
So here's to a new year and a family that is happier, healthier, and just better all around.