New word for the year: BALANCE (Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...)

Wow...wow...and wow...I cant believe 2013 is OVER.

Christmas went SO fast for me.  I worried about giving my children the magic I felt at this time of year when I was a child. But really if I think about it, I think the magic cant be created it is just natural and normal.

But we of course stayed busy trying to do it all and create that magic for the kids.  Either way I think we succeeded.

Gingerbread houses, Santa at Bass Pro Shop, Mission Inn with my sister April and the kids doing the robot, Decorations. The kids LOVE putting up decorations.  Even though they told mom and dad numerous times they could not believe we never got the star up this year. Yep it never made it up.  Sad.

But my favorite was usually in our own home, where I LOVED, loved seeing the magic through the eyes of a child and for the first time with Tate. He loved the lights, the ornaments, the Christmas music in the background.  Everything was just so magical for him and it helped me get into the holiday spirit better.

 

And I'm still getting asked by some people: "Did you get a dog?"  They saw this letter on my other social media sites.  The answer is: NO, we did not get a dog for Christmas. It was the closest I ever got to actually caving in, but I didn't. We will be waiting until the originally disclosed agreement (at least: Ella 10, Asher 8, Tate 4, Baby 2). ha ha  Call me a mean mom, but I call it my sanity.

So with all this being said LIFE is just so hard to BALANCE sometimes. Don't you agree?  So I decided that my new word for 2014 will be BALANCE.

This is something I just really struggle with.  I feel like I am always trying to do it all and so very often failing at most everything. I'm grateful for a very grounded husband who reminds me that we are doing great and only doing the best we can with everything we can.  So I thought this would be a great goal for me in the new year.

• I know I will be wanting to lose ALL that baby weight in 4 months (wont happen unless I sacrificed everything in my life). 
• I will want to cuddle ALL day with my newborn baby boy (wont happen with a 2 year old and 2 other older children).
• I will want to be the BEST wife.  Be so supportive of the hubbies new job, hot dinners on the table each night (not including taco bell), the house cleaned, laundry done, and everything organized (my husband already told me I am going to need to"mental" chill on this and not worry about it once the baby is born).
• I want to be the awesome (tiger) mom.  Practicing Ella's piano perfectly each day, sports, great grades, and actually enjoy doing homework with the kids (ugh, ugh, and triple UGH!).  But I know I will just need to do my best.

So the list could go ON and ON and ON but I am just going to do my best and try to get BALANCE in my life for 2014 and take everything in stride.