Juggling Glass Balls

Once in a while I feel like I've gotten in WAY over my head and my "to do" list takes on a life of its own. This is usually my own fault as I am the one who over-schedules my days and sets up a standard for myself that is far too high for even Superwoman to achieve. I start to "drop the ball" so to speak by missing appointments, forgetting to be where I said I would be, not following through on something I promised to do etc.

Several years ago I was in a church meeting and the lady giving the lesson talked about the juggling act we all do. We juggle the kids, house, bills, exercise, scripture study and church callings (service), marriage, temple attendance......well, you get the idea. Sometimes we start to feel overwhelmed and start dropping balls. It happens to everyone, but the important thing is that we DON'T DROP THE GLASS BALLS. Those are the important ones and as long as we keep them going, everything else will be alright.

I've been reflecting on this a lot lately and trying to decide what my "Glass Balls". I guess for me it is the relationship I have with my family and friends, my personal relationship with my Heavenly Father and my health. As long as I keep those precious Glass Balls in the air, the rest can hit the ground once in a while!

Charlie

Speaking of joy, the newest member of our family, Charlie Decker Wallace brings us PURE JOY every day!! I'll be honest. We were not planning to have anymore kids and were surprised when we learned there was another little one coming along to join us. Now that he is here, I am so in love with the little angle that I can't even imagine life without him. I'm so grateful that my life doesn't always follow the plan that I invent for myself!

Charlie was born on January 14th. 6 lb. 13 oz. 19 inches long. He had to spend the first week of his life in the NICU due to some lung trouble. He has been a mellow and happy baby from the start. Thank goodness I have an easy one this time!! ( I think I earned it.) Charlie is now a very chubby baby as you can see, and I love every fat roll on him!

All of the kids LOVE him to pieces! Sometimes a little too much. Savannah is a huge help and loves to dress him, hold him, make him smile etc. Thank Heavens she is old enough this time as I really don't know what I'd do without her!

A Quest For Joy

Around Christmas time my good friend Stacy Poll and I were reminiscing about the "good old days". Stacy and I met in Jr. High and have been BFF's ever since. We used to have so much fun. Clean fun of coarse : )! But now in the present we both realized that we don't have fun anymore. It's just work. We've forgotten how to have joy. So we decided that our New Years resolution should be to go on a Quest to find Joy again. So now that it's nearly June I've decided to get started! HEY, don't judge, I've been busy. Here is a quick re-cap of our past year.

We sold our house in Illinois.........

.......and moved in with Jeremy's parents.


4 months later we moved to this tiny little rental home. It had 1 bathroom, no dishwasher and no disposal. We called it the "mud hut" We were so very crammed in there.



We also began building our new home in Mountain Green.



And we had this. (His name is Charlie and he's very sweet).


Then we FINALLY moved in to our house. It is beautiful and I love everything about it!!!

What a great year full of so many things to be joyful about!! And yet after this long journey I find myself completely exhausted, fuzzy brained and unable to be productive. Obviously there are many parts to a joyful life and there needs to be balance. Spiritual, emotional, physical, social. I'm going to take it one step at a time and not necessarily in order of most important.

STEP 1
Energy. Must find more energy!! All of the moving, pregnancy and Charlie waking up at night has really taken it's toll. I'm sure it's not that I'm getting old. Not to mention that I haven't been eating very well so this is where I've decided to start. A friend of mine has a blog about healthy eating and I got some great ideas/reminders from her. She suggested smoothies every day which is a great way to get in all of those vitamins and nutrients we need (and sneak them to the kids). She also suggested setting out a veggie tray during the day before dinner. The kids are so hungry at that time they'll eat anything! Ok, who am I kidding....I will too. Usually I'm sneaking some chocolate while fixing dinner, but I'm willing to mend my ways : )

Frozen grapes, carrots, spinach, yogurt, watermelon, cantaloupe, lemon and lime juice, strawberries, honey and protein powder (Shaklee of coarse!) The kids liked it and I put the leftover in some glass jars. They are supposed to stay good for a few days, but we finished it off by the end of the day!

I'm off to the store today to get veggies for the veggie tray!

Alex's baptism

This post should have come a few months ago....ooops! Guess I've been a little preoccupied with moving, getting settled, building a house and the new baby to come. But this was definitely a very important event that needs to have it's own post on "The blog".
Alex was baptized on July 3rd by his Dad. It was a wonderful day and we were blessed to have many of our family and friends celebrate with us. We had only been in Utah for 24 hours so we were all tired but we were so happy to have finally made it "home" and to be able to share such a special occasion with our loved ones.
I think the look on Alex's face sums up how we all were feeling. PURE JOY! And you can find this look on Alex's face 99% of the time which is one of the things I love most about the kid! Love you Alex!

Back to School.....Again!!

The kids started school on Aug. 25th and so far they are loving it! Savannah is in Middle school and has made lots of new friends. She has already experienced the joy of turning a piece of ordinary wood into a work of art (a giant die) in shop class and is on to the torture of P.E.!!

Alex is in 3rd grade and has also made lots of new friends. He is in the same class with his cousin Makenna, which I admit I wasn't sure would work out very well, but it has not caused any trouble and he is enjoying his new school. His teacher says he's always happy and a joy to have in class!

Micah is in 1st grade and is one of the top readers in his class. I get to watch him at recess a couple of times a week when I take Gray to preschool which is located in the elementary school. He is always running around with a group of kids and a huge smile on his face. This new school has 3 recesses which the boys are LOVING!!! And so am I!!!

Gray is in preschool 2 days a week and for the most part he loves it. Once in a while he cries when I drop him off. We're hoping he comes out of his shell a little!

And here's the big announcement, for those of you who don't already know. We're having another baby in January. This was a big surprise and has taken a little while to come to terms with. We found out 3 weeks ago that it will be another BOY!!! One more and we could have our own basketball team.....but we won't!!

Home again, home again jiggity jig!!

We're home! We're finally home!

In January, Jeremy took a new position with his company that would allow him to work from home when he is not traveling. We spent 3 1/2 long months fixing up our house in Chicago and then put it up on the Market in March. Just when we were starting to loose hope we got an offer and had to be out 3 weeks later. We closed and moved out on June 30th and were in Utah July 2nd. Just in time for Alex's baptism on July 3rd!

We are so happy to be home among our family and friends and of coarse the beauty of the Mountains!! We are staying with Jeremy's Mom in Mountain Green while we build our new home (also in Mountain Green).We haven't started yet.........still trying to decide on a house plan. We plan to die in our next home (NEVER moving again!!) so we're feeling a lot of pressure to get it just right!

A Visit from the Chocolate Fairy

Late last night I had a visit from the chocolate fairy. I was on a conference call when I recieved a text from her (I'm assuming the Chocolate Fairy is a female.......because the love of chocolate is truly girl thing) that said "If you haven't checked your porch your chocolate fix is there"

Earlier in the day I had posted on facebook "There is just not enough chocolate in the world today. At least in my house there isn't enough."

So after a brief moment of debating weather this was a trap by some psycho trying to lure me outside with the promise of chocolate and then mom-napping me while my children were sleeping and my husband was out of town, I looked and this is what I saw.



Well it looked just like this, but bigger.

There were more brownies last night.

I won't even tell you how many I ate.

Hey! Don't judge! Would you be able to resist this?



And they were still warm! I just knew that if I faithfully paid devotion to the Chocolate Fairy by partaking of chocolate EVERY Day I would be rewarded!!! Thank you Chocolate Fairy! I believe!!


Ok, really the best part is (aside from the fact that my kids were asleep and my hubby out of town and I had a whole plate of warm quadruple chocolate brownies in my possession) that I don't know who my chocolate fairy is. But while trying to guess, I came up with several good friends who love me and that I could easily imagine would do such a thing.

But it did make me wonder.....if one of my friends received a late night visit from the chocolate fairy, would my name pop into their head while they were wondering who it could be? It's been far too long since I have been of service to my friends.

So THANK YOU Chocolate fairy for the kindness you've shown me AND for the reminder of the importance of service!