Life. Is. Better. When. You're. Laughing.

The past few days I have spent (wasted) some time on Facebook admiring my friends photos and posts on their Christmas celebrations.

I have debated posting my own photos.

This Christmas was a good one, one that I want to remember for many reasons...

My favorite of which will be witnessing gratitude from my kids.

This year, my kids were grateful, they seemed to genuinely appreciate each one of their gifts and remembered to thank those who gave to them (with little or no prompting from me).

Raising them in this crazy 'me, me, me' society has made it hard to teach this important life skill.

It is one that we are still working on, and probably will be until they are grown but for this small moment I smiled when I heard those two simple words come from their mouths, 'Thank you.'

Aside from this pretty awesome sight, I am also going to remember laughter.

This Christmas, we laughed, a lot.

There is something pretty amazing about this simple thing.

I am still smiling at this memory.

For that reason, I am only going to post a few photos from our Christmas...

They are all the photos that make me smile and remember our laughter.

Enjoy our Hoilday 2014 Out-takes.

This photo isn't actually an outtake, but it sure makes me smile.

The little guy thought he was being so smart when he hid under the goodie table at great grandma's house.

I couldn't help but capture his little hand 'sneaking' up and grabbing some m and m's.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our crazy family to yours! 

I hope you laughed a lot too! 

Reflecting

Someone dear to my heart gave me a great piece of advice recently and it has caused me to do a lot of reflecting.

The advice basically boiled down to this....

You will never have this day with your children again.
Tomorrow they will be a little bit older then they were today.
Today is a gift.
Breather and notice. Smell and touch them.
Study their faces and little feet and pay attention.
Relish the charms of the present.
Enjoy today, mama, it will be over before you know it.

It's funny how words can effect you.

These words aren't new to me, I have heard them before and taken them to heart.

As much as might I want to, I don't have the ability to stop time.

All we have our these moments, and they all add up into something bigger....

Life.

Lately, I have been struggling with a few things.

This journey of parenting that I naively thought would get easier just isn't getting any easier than it was during those years of sleepless nights and seemingly endless sickness, temper tantrums, and diapers.

Today, we struggle with something a bit different...

raising our children and teaching them all about what this crazy life is like.

There have been a few bumps along the way, but we are riding them out and learning together.

I realize that although these 'bumps' are difficult and sometimes feel so insurmountable that we can't ride over them, they are simply what they are...

bumps.

They are a part of our crazy life and without them I wouldn't be able to completely comprehend my favorite part of the amazing advice I was given....

Today is a gift.

We have had a lot of great today's, here's hoping for many more....