We're still alive and well

Ever get so far behind you don't know where to begin? Sometimes I have so many plates spinning that I just veg out (or look for old friends on Facebook!) and choose to spin none of them! As you might have noticed I haven't posted much here lately. We've been busy with life, but for the most part, no news has been good news. All is well.

We went to Wisconsin Dells at the end of February and had a great two days at an indoor water park. I hate wearing a swim suit, but I decided making memories with my family was more important than what any strangers may have thought (they were probably too concerned about themselves to notice me anyway!). We had a wonderful time! Sometimes I forget the impact that just playing with your kids can have. And beyond the playing, they love to hang all over us in the water and it just seems like close physical contact breeds emotional closeness. The girls were so sweet and we just really enjoyed having fun together. To me it wasn't about the water fun, but just about intentional focus on enjoying each other. Sometimes at home we're too distracted to really make time to put everything down to just play together. The family bonding was well worth the trip!

Since changing to the Mac and needing to learn a new way to digital scrapbook (my old familiar program only works on a Windows PC), I was getting almost a year behind in scrapbooking. I've done a whole lot of collages to try to catch up, but I'd still like to go back and fill in with some more pages that just focus on a few favorite pix on a page. I'm slowly seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but I haven't assembled my catch-up pages in an album(s) yet because I want them to be sequential. The only problem is once I finally get all caught up, I'll be burned out and want to take a break...and get behind all over again! Ahh, such is life.

I've also been spending a lot of time reading about learning disabilities, neuro plasticity (the capacity of the brain to change), all kins of different therapies, etc. As much as I love being a mom, at times parenting can feel like an overwhelming responsibility. It's tough finding the right balance between trying to fix what's not working (academically) with acceptance. I want to convey unconditional acceptance while at the same time work on strengthening areas of weakness to make school/life easier. Emily often asks me why she has to go to therapy and do all this extra work while her friends are out playing. She also wants to know when she's going to be done with it. All the while I'm wondering the same thing. The more I learn about interventions for LDs, there more hopeful I am, but also the more overwhelmed as I try to sort out the right paths to take.

This weekend I'm headed off to a Hearts At Home conference for Christian moms. I really got a lot out of it last year and am looking forward to it. Now if only I can get the laundry done, clean the house, wrap presents for a birthday party Olivia'll be going to, pack up...

Then in a few weeks we'll be taking off for spring break--flying to North Carolina :) We still have some planning to do for that as well as find a dog/house sitter. Anyone need housing in beautiful, sunny Chicagoland over spring break??