Her new Happy Ending

Just over 6 years ago tragedy struck our family in a way we never could have imagined. A horrific car accident claimed the life of my brother-in-law Kimball (Ryan carries his name) leaving my sister with 4 young children-she was 28 at the time of the accident. And while she has been amazing and stoic and graceful and thrived over the past 6 years it has been extremely and often excruciatingly hard. But last night things changed...She was married for the second time! And not just to anyone, but someone who she knew from High School and actually took her on her first date and was her first kiss! While I am sad that she will be moving away, I am SO happy that she won't bear the burden of life alone anymore and am excited to have new members of my family.

Congratulations Catherine and Luke!!!

Helping us remember

Grateful for this handsome little boy who told us the story of the Savior multiple times today and helped us remember what Easter is all about.

Balancing Act

Just like most people, I feel like i am in a constant balancing act with all the different roles I need to fulfill-mother, wife, daughter, sister, nurse, YW leader, neighbor, etc-but I can't seem to find the perfect balance in order to keep them from shifting the weight and causing my whole world to topple over. I can't seem to devote enough time to each area that I feel like I am giving it everything I have. I always seem to be thinking about something else I need to do when I should be focused on the present task.

I am especially struggling to find balance between work and being a mother. I find myself spending more time at work than I ever planned or wanted to, but I have to be there for financial reasons. Maybe I am struggling because I am constantly battling feelings of guilt-I feel guilty for leaving him to go to work, I feel guilty when I leave to exercise, I feel guilty if we don't do enough projects, i feel guilty if I let him watch too much TV, I feel guilty if he doesn't eat well or we don't read enough books. I need to learn to balance these two worlds so that I can feel some sort of peace in both of them. I love being a mom, and someday hope to be home all the time but have to figure out how to blend two worlds right now. I realized-after reading a blog post-that when I am home I need to take some time out of each day to spend quality time with Ryan and not push my agenda on him, but let him decide what happens. But how do I overcome that guilt that I feel on a daily basis? What are you doing to find true balance in your life?

Player #1

Ry's first soccer season is officially underway and boy was he excited!!! The game was some of the best entertainment I have had in a long time.
Highlights included:
-Ryan acting as Spiderman and webbing as he ran down the field
-Ryan and his friend showing each other their superhero underwear as they sat on the sidelines
-Ryan almost scoring a goal for the other team (they didn't need his help they had a champion soccer player on their team that left everyone wondering how someone that big and coordinated was only 4)
-Ryan giving us double thumbs-up anytime the ball came near him, grazed him or he actually kicked it. He would get so excited he would forget he had to keep playing.