A Message To My Children: Life Is Choices

Diets do not work. Food is not bad. Don't say you can't have something. Think about your food every time you eat. Ask yourself if you're making a healthy choice or not. And don't feel guilty when you don't. The purpose of food is fuel for your body. Don't let it turn into anything more than that.

People are flawed. They will say mean things about you that aren't true. Don't let them define what you think about yourself. Choose to believe the truth: you are beautiful and kind and made in God's image.

Sometimes life will be hard. Mistakes happen. Problems exist. You can wallow in the negative or choose to be thankful for the good and do what you can to make things better.

No matter how hard you try not to, you will make a bad choice. That's ok. Do what you can to fix it, but don't dwell on it after all is said and done. Decide to make a better choice next time.

Be quick to listen, but slow to speak and act. Before making any decision, seek God's will.

You can't control anything in this world. Life is unfair. The only thing you can control is how you react to things. You get to choose how you let things affect you. If good things happen, soak it in. Let the bad bounce off.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I need to take my own advice. I'm working on it. I pray you'll grasp it sooner than I did.

Batter Up!

Baby R absolutely loved baseball this summer! She wanted their team name to be the Royals (natch) but was outvoted so played for the Colorful Crystals. :) As I said before, she is so fun to watch - she really gets after it out there! And she's generous - she always runs down the ball, but will let others have a turn throwing it; tough - she rolled her ankle playing 1st but after a little fuss, she settled down and told me she thought she could finish the game; encouraging of teammates - she told a little boy how proud of him she was; and, of course, adorable - one game she was running the bases and while on 2nd called out, "Mama! I need something!"

I yelled back, "What do you need, baby?"

"I need a hug!"

Seriously. This girl!

Unfortunately, most game nights I didn't get to watch her as closely as I would have liked. I often had S and Cinco with me which was a bit of a challenge at times. Especially on picture day.

We were running late (shocking) and her team wasn't on the field. We finally realized it was picture day (I had forgotten) and they were over at the main tent. I pushed Cinco across the bumpy field as fast as I could in the umbrella stroller, and let the girls run ahead. All the individual photos had been taken and they were getting ready to do the team shot. Luckily, R got there in time, and they did her individual photo after the group one. Then she and S ran off with the team to the field to play while I filled out the paperwork to order the pictures.

While I was doing that, Cinco was trying to get out of the stroller. He didn't understand why the girls were free to run but he wasn't. I was also trying to keep an eye on my dad who had come to watch the game and was making his way along the sidewalk with his walker. I was nervous he was going to catch it on a crack and fall. Needless to say, my attention to detail on the form was not the best.

A few weeks later we got the pictures. Beautiful photo of Baby R - genuine smile, just gorgeous. But at the bottom it said 2015 and S's name instead of R's. I filled out the form wrong! I felt like such a jerk. I'm trying so hard to keep R from having middle child syndrome, and then I go and do something like that?!?! Luckily we were able to reorder them and just got the new ones yesterday. Of course, we'll keep the ones that are wrong so they can all tease me about it when their older. Isn't that what all kids do?