Being in the Moment as a Parent

Having 3 young kids I often get unsolicited advice/opinions from people I know as well as complete strangers. My oldest is 4 years old so I'm fairly used to this and although it can be annoying at times I also know that most people have good intentions and take it all with a grain of salt.

By and large the most common advice I get from folks who have older children or adult children usually goes something like this: "Savor every moment.", "It goes by so fast.", "The days are long but the years are short." I seriously hear this from kind older ladies at Target at least once every couple of weeks!

Funny thing is I know how fleeting these days are and I know that they will be gone before we know it! I think this is why I take so many pictures, I'm trying so hard to capture all the details of our lives so when the day comes that I can't remember those details there they will be, waiting for me to pour through the albums.

Although I know how important it is to "savor the moments" with my children there are definite days where I struggle with this. Probably more often than not if I'm being honest. When the baby is screaming, my toddler spilled cereal all over the floor and the dog peed on the new carpet in the living room it's hard to remember and believe that I will miss these days. When I'm going through the bedtime routine with the kids it's often hard to think about anything other than the silence, cup of tea (or glass of wine- depending on the day) and quiet uninterrupted conversations with my husband that will be had 'If I could just get them to bed".

This past weekend we were at a wedding and a distant family member came up to compliment me on our "beautiful family".  She then said the usual "It goes by so fast" comments but then also added her kids are out of the house and all grown up and "The silence is deafening!" She said it with such conviction and I'm not quite sure why it struck me so much but it really got me thinking about being better at REALLY being in the moment with my kids. I like to think of it as a goal or maybe a journey...something to always work on and continue to get better at.

How do you stay in the moment with your kids? Any advice you'd want to share?  I'd love for you to share in the comments!

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Christmas Traditions with Ornaments

I'm a sucker for family traditions and especially ones that occur around the holidays. There's just something about creating memories for my young family that I hope will not only continue throughout my children's childhood but maybe just maybe will be carried on to their children. At least that's the hope, the vision in my head while we participate in these simple customs. That is until my 4 year old drops a favorite ornament smashing it into tiny pieces all over the floor and decides tree decorating isn't for her and my 2 year old's adorable plastic Santa cup unbeknownst to me leaks and the hot coco spills all over the couch!! True stories, but I digress.

 I've posted about a few of our family Christmas Traditions here Advent Calendar and here Hot Chocolate Bar.

This past Sunday we put up our tree....

 

 and enjoyed our hot chocolate bar...

I wanted to share another simple Christmas family tradition we have while decorating the tree. Each child has their personalized first Christmas ornament from the year they were born. Every year these are the first ornaments put on the tree, each child puts on their ornament. Just a fun way to get the ornament decorating started!

 

Do you have ornament traditions in your family? I'd love to hear about them!

Have you done the hot chocolate bar? I'd love to see photos!

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