Let's get real

I just put all 4 kids in bed. 

Isaac didn't get lunch
 (although he did eat oatmeal late, lots of grapes, I know he snuck some candy b/c of his chocolate chin, and I made him an egg salad sandwich at like 10:30 b/c I told him not 'til lunch on the special rolls - but then to not give in, I made him a half of one on the regular bread.) 

          He didn't get the "lunch" (egg salad on the yummy rolls) b/c he didn't finish his smoothie. 

                    And he didn't finish his smoothie (with pumpkin bits in it) b/c he spilled it ALL over my dining room floor.  (like how I call things mine when I'm upset). 

                              And he spilled it b/c he moved out of his one spot on the floor where I told him to stand. 

                                     And I told him to not move from that spot b/c he spit out a sip of smoothie b/c he didn't like the pomegranate seed that slipped into his mouth through the straw - so instead of taking him right to the bath - I made him stay put, standing on his smoothified shorts I made him take off just then. 

So yea, I wasn't happy about that entire smoothie on MY dining room floor.  I made him clean it all up (I helped).  Then instead of everybody getting to play "pumpkin pumpkin ghost" (like duck duck goose), I made them all go potty and to bed - while Isaac had a bath.  I felt defeated.  I had made a list to do list w/ the kids, felt ambitious, but it wasn't working! 

I was having a "Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." 

I wanted to go blog that to get it off of my chest b/c the days when I'm home with the kids, I want to do fun active things, learning things, outside things, and crafty/creative things with them while spilling my love into their hearts.  But I also want to organize my piles of papers and clean the bathrooms and go for a run.  I get so frustrated when all I do is check emails and clean up toys and smoothies and pee!  I know I'm not prioritizing my time like I should. 

Speaking of which, remember that lesson in YW (Mormon lingo for the young women youth group at church) that I gave last Sunday on "Time - the wise man's treasure." Remember the hand outs? (The left overs were on Isaac's chin this morning.) I had a couple of object lessons b/c I'm a visual/hands on/random kind of girl. One was about putting the big Halloween balls into the jar first so that all of the marbles and rice can fit in too. Or else, if I fill my jar/day with little rice/emails, then I can't fit all of the big Halloween balls/priorities into my jar/day!

So, instead of just giving up on the day and taking a nap, I decided to vent blog, and I clicked on a blog my friend Marcie told me about.  She is an amazing person.  First she talked about YW in Excellence (which I'm planning for this Wednesday for our girls), then about her dad, then about carving pumpkins and her kids etc, and then about this:

Go read her post here. 
I liked it. 
She talked about my object lesson:

"I love the analogy of life being like a pickle jar. If you fill it up with big rocks first, you can fit in smaller rocks and sand without much problem. But if you try to fit those big rocks in after the sand and gravel you'll find they just won't fit. The big rocks have to go first.
In life we can choose what those big rocks are. If we let them be the fluff then the important stuff will never fit. But if the big rocks we choose to always put first are our families and our faith, other things will fit in as we allow them."

She also linked to this "Good, Better, Best" talk that I also used in my lesson about how there are plenty of good things to do out there, but we should only say yes to the better and best ones.  (My interpretation.) 
 
She's an amazing mother with a beautiful family.  She's a good example.  Now I'll snap out of it and will slam dunk a big Halloween ball:) 
 

We did have fun carving pumpkins:)