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!

Where does all the time go?

How do I keep getting so far behind on this blog? I guess it's because I get busy living my life and forget to make time to record it. I'm not going to go all the way back to the fall and fill you all in on the happenings, I'll just start from here.

On January 22 we set out on our trip to much anticipated trip to Disney World. We have been planning and saving for about 3 years so we were all very excited to see the day FINALLY come! The first day we drove to Atlanta, Georgia where we stopped to see some of our friends, the Evans family. We lived across the street from them in Arkansas and they were like family to us. It was great to see them again and catch up! We got to Disney World on Saturday afternoon and stayed until the following Saturday.

The trip was everything we could have imagined. The kids loved meeting all of the Characters and all of the rides and shows. Alex and Savannah were able to go on all of the rides and there was only one ride that Micah couldn't go on. Our faverite rides were Space Mountain, The go-carts, Arosmiths Rockin' Roller coaster and the Tower of Terror.

And then there was Gray. He was not an enjoyable person to be around that week. I guess it comes with being 2, almost 3. He didn't want to ride in the stroller but then he would stop and pout or just run off if we let him walk. I thought he'd just take a nap in the stroller, but I think that only happened once. We still love him though!

We left on Saturday afternoon but had to take a different route home due to Tennessee being hit so hard with snow/ice. We didn't get home until about 8:30 p.m. Sunday night.

It was a great trip and we enjoyed spending so much time together. We made a lot of memories that I'm sure we'll re-tell over and over for years to come!

And They're Off!!!

Hip-Hip-Hooray!!! After such a fun-filled summer I was very ready to send the kids back to school and get back to a schedule. They are all doing very well in their classes so far. Savannah is in 5th grade, Alex is in 3rd and Micah started all-day Kindergarten. I was a little worried that Micah would be grumpy and tired after school for a while, but he gets on the bus with a smile and still has a smile on his face when he gets home! He also begs me to give him homework. Wonder how long that will last : ) And now I think I'm caught up on all of our happenings! (Except for the ballet recital video's that I still need to post!)



Savannah 5th Grade
















Alex 2nd Grade





































Micah Kindergarten

St. Louis

A friend of mine invited me to go with her to the Shaklee conference in St. Louis. When she asked me I happened to be having a bad day with the kids and she could have asked me to go away to a poop convention and I would have agreed as along as it meant a few days off from the "mom gig"! We had a blast! I'd been using Shaklee products for a while and I think the company and their stuff is amazing. It was great to hear all of the science behind their products and to
get a better feel for the company. After I got home I joined Shaklee so that I can start earning my products for free! It has been a bit of a roller coaster so far but I've really been enjoying learning all about nutrition and how to help the human body to be healthier! If you want to know more about it, I have a website. Check it out! www.greenandhealthylife.myshaklee.com



After several nights of staying up way too late and then getting up really early I was in desperate need of coke. St. Louis, however seems to be a coke free city. Pepsi everywhere. But NO COKE!!!



Here is a sample of my fabulous shoes and all of the foot care paraphernalia that goes along with them. I really like to get dressed up!!


















Me, Chrissy and Cathy on our final night.

Sister Trip

My big sister Becki came out for a visit over Labor Day weekend. We drove down to a little town in Southern Illinois called Vienna, but pronounced Vyenna. It was a very small, kinda redneckish town. When we pulled up to our hotel, we were scared! The "lobby" smelled so nasty (stale cigarette smoke) that we asked to see our room first before we paid. The girls said ok, but I could tell she was laughing on the inside. You see, there was only one other hotel in town and this was the nicer one.
Well, our room was alright, we just had to hold our breath to run up the stairs because it was like 40 years of trapped cigarette smoke in the stairwell. That's right, no elevator. Oh well.
So the first night there we drove around to find a restaurant and picked the one that had the most cars in the parking lot figuring that it must be the best around. It was called Jimmy's Char House.....Think Hometown buffet or Chuckaramma........except a whole lot worse!!! There was a lot of breaded deep fried food. I didn't recognize most of it, but I'm pretty sure there were fried frog legs in there. I had mashed potatoes and gravy and I'm pretty sure they were from a can.

Well, you may be wondering why we chose to go to Vienna Illinois in the first place. Well our cousin (actually our cousins son, so that must make him a first cousin once removed or a second cousin or something) was getting married and we hadn't seen that side of our family for many moons so we went. I'm so glad we did! It was so good to catch up with them and spend a couple of days together!

We all went on a beautiful hike to a waterfall where we watched a pore little frog in a pond get attacked by a small fish. The frog lost. I'm still a little creeped out by that. It rained on us on the way back. We also went to a town called Metropolis where we went to the Superman museum. Very cool. Then we went to lunch at an interesting little place that listed about 22 different deep fried catfish dishes. I had a hamburger.

It may not have been a luxury vacation but I had so much fun with my sister and cousins and I would do it again in a heart beat!

Camping in the Black River Forrest, WI

We took a quick 2 day camping trip to the Black River Forrest in WI. It was Beautiful and the weather was great. We had Rain at night and not too hot during the day.

BEST Apple Pie I EVER ATE

In a little town called Troy in Wisconsin there is an old, old electric train that you can ride up and down a track. One of the stops is at this wonderful little market called The Elegant Farmer. It has all sorts of goodies. Cheeses, breads, mixes, jars of salsa, fresh fruits and this amazing bakery. We read in a newspaper that Bobby Flay had challenged the Elegant Farmer to a Throw Down on their Apple pie and the Elegant Farmer WON! So we had to try the pie! We bought a caramel apple pie, some black berries and some cheese curds, took it out to a picnic table, gave everyone a spoon and dug in! It was so good that we went again in September when my sister, Becky was visiting. And now I've found the recipe online and made the pie for the first time over the weekend. YUMMY!

Here are the best pictures (out of the million or so I took) of the kids. Notice we didn't get many with Gray in there. Oh well. Maybe next year. I took tons of pictures....too many to post. Mandy, Lesli, Liz and anyone else who wants one...I'll put them on a CD for you.

The Cousins are Comming!!!

In July we had a lot of visitors! Jeremy's Mom, Bella (Jeremy's sister Liz's girl) Sister in law, Mandy and her kids (Makenna, Parker, Nate and Smith) and later in the week, brother Seth all came for a visit. It was pure excitement and craziness, but as always the highlight of our summer is to get together with family! The girls all slept in Savannah's room and did girl things (giggling until all hours of the night and writing songs) And the boys all slept in the boys room (that was one stinky room!). Here is a peak at our week. The gang arrived on Friday night (July 10th).

Saturday, Mandy and I rode the train downtown to shop the Magnificent Mile. We saw a dress for $3,000 and a purse for over $2,000. We discovered a great store called Lush that sells organic soap where we each bought a "buffy". It is an exfoliating soap that the sales girl said would get rid of our cellulite. Well, I've buffed and buffed, but somehow that stubborn cellulite is still hanging on. Hmmm. In another mall we somehow got talked into buying this great little nail file that shines up your nails to look like you have clear polish on. I still think that was a good investment! On our way back to the park and ride, we (ok, Mandy is innocent....I) wasn't paying attention and rode all the way to the end of the line only to have to get back on to go back a few stops to our car. OOPS! Sorry, Mandy.

Chris

Mandy



Sunday we rested and Monday we dressed the kids up and took them to the park for a photo shoot. I'll post those pictures separate. Tuesday we went to Lego Land. It wasn't great, but the kids had fun.


Parker and Alex

Wednesday, all the girls went back to school shopping while Jeremy loaded up all 6 little boys and picked Seth up from the airport. They went to the lake for the day. And you guessed it. They took zero pictures!


Thursday we went to the horse races at Arlington Park. Then we went out to eat Chicago style pizza and then home for our annual Kids B-day Party.

Friday was our big day! We got up early and got on the train to go downtown. All 5 adults and 9 kids. We ate breakfast on the train then took a bus to Navy Pier where we took a ride on the Tall Ship Windy and listened to the Pirates tell stories about Piracy of the Inland Seas. The kids even got to help with the sails.
Makenna and Savannah on the train

Chris and Gray


Seth and Nate


Jeremy and Gray


Lesli and Savannah




After the Ship and a quick bite to eat we hopped on a couple of these family sized bikes and tooled along the Lake front and back, stopping for a photo op. This was my favorite part of the day! Jeremy and Chris


Jeremy, Chris and the kids.


After the bikes some of us rode the Ferris Wheel.

Savannah, Makenna, Bella and Lesli


Jeremy, Micah and Alex


And then took a long walk through the city to have dinner at a fun diner called Ed Debevic's. A place where the waiters are rude and yell at you and dance on the tables, but it's all in fun. Then we walked back to the train station and rode back home. Very fun day!