500th Post!!

This blog is the best journal I have ever kept - a record of our family's happenings and milestones, generally a positive outlook on the craziness that is raising two young children while one spouse works and the other is in school.

For example, though not a regular occurrence, I left the house this morning before the kids were awake and got home around 7:30 pm just in time to snuggle for a bit and put them to bed. I missed these kiddos today.




For my 500th post I wanted to share a favorite quote that graces a friend's blog, and I have been wanting to steal it for some time because it is the perspective I am striving for, though I often fall short. It is how I want to prioritize my life, even amidst the craziness that I often feel when I am having one of those rushing around, dropping off the kids, driving to work, only to realize I left my laptop at home kind of days.

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenck's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." -Marjorie Pay Hinckley