Sometimes.....

.....I stress out. I worry about what other people think of me.

Today is one of those days where I woke up automatically stressed out.

Why?

Well Thursdays are a busy day for me. I changed my long run to Thursdays now and I am not sure why with everything else that has to get done, but whatev. Thursday is also the "I scrub every surface of my house" day. Normally all this is not a reason to stress over. I have a system for my cleaning, I do it all the exact same way every week, so I can get it all done within about 2 hours after the kids are in bed at night (ya ya I'm OCD, I've heard it all before).

Today however is different, I have people coming over tonight. Totally not a big deal except that they will be here when I usually do my cleaning. Again, it shouldn't be a big deal, but I felt myself starting to stress this morning as soon as I opened my eyes. I worried that they would think less of me if my house wasn't as clean as I wanted.

So what did I do?

Well as soon as I rolled out of bed, I knelt down and said a prayer. "Lord please help me to not stress over things that don't matter. Help me to not take time away from my kids over things that don't matter." I felt the spirit wash over me, and I new I would be ok.

So, naturally I did all the cleaning while Blake is at school and Kade is napping. A thought kept coming in to my mind all day, "If you don't waste time, you will have the time." Isn't that so true? How much time do I spend on the computer or watching TV while the kids are napping, when I could be spending that time getting things done, or bettering myself? I know I am guilty of wasting plenty of time on things that don't matter.

Today I feel extremely blessed to have prayer. Just a little prayer this morning, changed the way I looked at the whole day, and changed the way I was feeling.

Then as if to reiterate the answer to my prayer, the Lord helped me see that the stress wasn't necessary, I needed to just laugh. Blake came to me and said, "Mommy, I had a big bless you (sneeze) this morning and huge boogers came out of my nose."
I said, "well that's pretty gross." (while in my mind I was thinking, where am I going to find these boogers, because surely he wiped them on a wall or something)
To which he replied as if reading my mind, "Don't worry mom, I cleaned my nose with a rag."
In awe I said, "well that was good, thanks, where did you put the rag?"
I swear he rolled his eyes and said as though he was explaining this to Kade and not me, "In the washing machine mom."
I just started laughing, and silently thanked my Father in Heaven for the sweet children he has given me.

Oh For the Love!

So the other day I called my husband at work and was going to give him some sarcastic comment about how I "absolutely loved" cleaning out the freezer with his exploded soda in it. I dialed the number smiling to myself and waited for him to pick up. He answered. I hesitated. And then all I could get out was.....Hi. Why does my husband have to have such a sexy (yep I said it) voice? It makes me swoon. *sigh* I love him.

Right now I am loving lots of things. Here are just a few of them...

Reading scriptures by the Christmas tree. We turn off all of the lights except for the tree lights and let the kids light the scriptures with their flashlights. They love it. And please notice how just as Adam took the picture, Kade just had to pick his nose, and then proceeded to try and wipe it on the couch. srsly. Just a few of the joys of having boys!! :)

If you can't tell, that is Kade lighting his face with the flashlight after scriptures. Love him.

Winter grass. I absolutely love winter grass. It is so green and pretty. I love the smell, and that during winter time I can lay a blanket outside and have a picnic with the boys. They love rolling around in it, and in turn I "love" getting the grass stains out of their clothes.

Baking sugar cookies with these two little tykes. There was no outside play time today because it has been raining all day so we baked sugar cookies instead. They helped roll out the dough, place the cookie cutters, and then frost and sprinkled them. It was a HUGE mess in my kitchen afterward, but well worth it for those faces. I love their smiles, it makes me melt.

Rain! It has been rainy outside for the last 2 days. Although I don't love that the rain today cut my run in half (it started raining in the middle of my run, dangit!), I still love it. I have had all of the curtains open so we can watch the rain fall, and the trees sway in the wind. I wish it wasn't so cold so we could actually go play in it. Oh well.

So what are you loving these days???