Looking Ahead to 2015

If you're one of the few people that is actually still following this blog, you'll notice that I've been a little busy.

When I started trying to keep up with this blog, it was primarily to document our lives, so our "future" children could have a glimpse of their childhood, as they look through the "blog2print" books that I create every year.

A couple weeks ago, God hit me over the head and got my attention.

I took all four kids to the studio to try to get some Christmas pajama pictures. While there, I was having a hard time getting my remote to fire. The kids were restless. They didn't want to cooperate. I was stressed. Somewhere in the midst of this, we realized our car wouldn't start, all about 30 minutes before Sydney and Zach were supposed to be on the road, back to Cape Girardeau. I'm not sure exactly when, but at some point, I did what I do WAY too often.... I lost it.

I got impatient.

I "firmly" started telling everyone to sit still and not to make another sound. Because, if it killed me, we were GOING to get that picture.

The next day, I opened the folder on my computer to try to find the picture I was hoping to get. Instead, I found a candid that my camera had taken while I was trying to test the remote.

I found a picture of our absolutely wonderful 12 year old playing and wrestling with her brothers.

I was so busy trying to get my studio lights up and running, that I missed the fun my family was having, while I was busy acting like a lunatic. If I could go back and change things that day, I would have put the darn remote to the side, jumped in, and wrestled and laughed and played.

Don't get me wrong. Life right now is CRAZY. We have three kids under the age of 5 at home with me, all while trying to run a business, and we work daily to nurture a co-parenting relationship with Sydney's mom's side of the family. It gets HARD. But my resolution as I head into 2015 is to take a deep breath, slow down a bit, and embrace the beautiful chaos that God decided to entrust me with.