Fun, Long, Busy Day!

It’s 10:15 right now and the kids just barely got into bed—normal bedtime is at the latest, 8:30 pm!  Today, after the initial drudgery of getting the kids to do their chores and me mowing the lawn, we got to go with some friends to the park for a picnic, then went VT, came home and let Bailey take a nap.  While she was napping the boys and I worked together in the garden.  They picked all the peas this morning already, but helped weed in the front flower beds.  After Bailey woke up, we ate dinner (she took a super long, awesome nap), then went to DI and Walmart.  Sometimes you just find that certain great thing at DI that you never knew you were looking for.  Not today though.  I told them after Walmart we could feed the ducks.  The shopping trip took forever–and started right away with Bailey fainting because she didn’t want to get into the seat of the cart and buckled.  We left Walmart at 8:30 and then went to Stansbury Lake to feed the ducks.  It was so much fun!  The kids and I totally loved it (Dillon’s working in Logan again so isn’t here).  We got home and they were hungry again, so we had some cereal and in bed they went!   But then they talked my ear off about Mario Brothers for at least 15 minutes.  Carson said , “Me and Dev got to play the Mario Brothers.  We ARE the Mario Bros. ”  Then, in a real cool voice he said, “Yessssss.” and held up a peace sign.  I don’t know where he gets these things! And Devon totally rolls his R when he says Mario.  Totally cute.  I’ve told a couple of you this, but really…how peaceful and good is my life RIGHT NOW!?  Seriously, my kids have their hard things and yes, sometimes it just is hard, but honestly, I realize that I have it so good. I get to stay home with my kids.  They aren’t being faced with life-changing choices like drugs or a huge list of things.  I can pretty much control what they are exposed to quite easily, on TV, where we go, etc.  Life is SO GOOD right now.  And I know I take it for granted!  How blessed I feel!  Of course I struggle with things and have trials and temptations like anyone, but I just had this total moment where I thought, “Wow.  My kids are so cute and so good to me.  We are in an awesome time of our lives.”  I need to recognize the blessings of my family and staying at home with them more!     See those innocent looking seagulls?  They were pretty greedy and aggressive in the water actually.  But once out?  The ducks overtook us.  Bailey kept saying, “Hi ducks!”  Carson said, “I’ve never seen an eagle this close before!”  He thought the seagulls were eagles:). This I think sums up what we all felt like by the time we got home!