Joy

Last night we had a Relief Society meeting. It was excellent. It was about finding balance in your life. There were 2 classes one about building and maintaining spiritual reserves, and one about finding joy in the stages of life. They were both do wonderful. The it seemed like there was some serious revelation in choosing the speakers. Both sisters seemed so well suited to teach their class. I learned so much and was excited to make some changes.

The class that really touched me was to find joy in the stages of life. I realized that I am sometimes failing to find joy in my current stage. Not that I am not happy about being a stay at home mom, just sometimes I get distracted and worry about non essential things and get caught up in everyday life.

The speaker shared 4 principles to help in this area.
~ ask and ye shall receive ( and I am taking this from my memory, so may not be exactly
as she stated.
~look ahead with the idea that you will be looking back-when you are through a stage, you will look back and can see how you handled it.
~perspective-her example was the book Tuesdays with Morrie. He allowed himself to see the bad for only a few minutes in the morning, then looked ahead with a positive attitude the rest of the day.
~creativity-use your creative side to see the good in life and have joy.


I woke up with resolve to not take for granted any of my interactions with my children. I decided to see what they said and did with new eyes. It was so fun!! They say and do so many funny things, are curious, are excited to learn new things, and are down right adorable.

Here are some things I saw with my new eyes.

When Landon crawled into our bed at 6:00 wide awake, I decided to thank him for being my alarm clock to get up and exercise. He was so funny-he stood beside me and did the moves with me.

Jordan got up without me trying to get her up!!! Wooo Hoooo. When we went up to pick her clothes, I had the resolve to not get impatient as she took quite a long time to decide, but to see through 6 year old eyes. She was so happy to find a Care Bears Tshirt she had forgotten about. I let her pick the rest of the outfit and she was happy in the end.

Jordan was also so interested in the smoke detector and the carbon monoxide detector. We spent a lot of time discussing what the each do. We were all in the boys room getting dressed. She asked me what would happen if they started beeping. I said if we had a fire, the firestation would come. She looked at me in a way to say "duh" and said very emphatically "the firestation can't move, mom. The firemen would come." Well, duh.

I was playing with Handy Manny figurines. I asked the name of the girl who was the friend of Handy Manny. The kids said "Wendy' and I said, that was the name of the friend helper on Bob the Builder. " The informed me that "no mom, she is his wife." Have always wondered about those 2....

Spencer was playing with dinosaurs and was pretending that one of them was holding 2 . He said his hands were too little so he had to hold one in his mouth. My children do have such great imagination. Last night he had one of the mouth pieces from Lanny's neb, a domino, and a couple other things all hooked together and gave me an explanation of how it made a rocket ship. He really will play with anything and pretend it is whatever he wants.

I honestly in that moment felt like I wanted to close the door and stay in that room with them all day and just play. They are such wonderful little beings....oh, my heart is so full today!! I wish I could keep that moment frozen in time it felt so good. It will be a good thing to think of when I am starting to get frustrated. I love these kids so much!!!

On a different note-well somewhat related-Landon went to the potty by himself last night!! I had come upstairs after dinner to finish making beds and he told Darin "I'm pooping." Darin sent him up to me and he hadn't yet gone. So he took his diaper of and tried. He didn't do anything so I went on my merry way. I was busy making our bed, then remembered he was still in the bathroom. I go in to find him dovered from head to foot in TP, but a big poop in the toilet!!!! Yeah...he is beginning to know when he has to go. Soo happy-even cleaning up the poopy mess I was so excited.

So I really love seeing through these new eyes. I know I will ocasionally need wipe the dust off, but I am determined to keep them!!