This past week, I felt overwhelmed, stressed, and frazzled and I’m not quite sure why. When I told Ian about it, he thought it was the girls. Honestly, they were the last on my list of things that overwhelmed me. On Friday, while I was trying to get my 5 month old nephew to fall asleep in my arms, I had a moment to sit in silence and think. A rare thing around my house :O) Why was I so stressed out?? This is Christmas time! I should be rejoicing in the season and giving thanks to God for sending his Son to us. Instead, I’m looking at my house in chaos and thinking of all the things I need to do. In that quiet moment, I was reminded to slow down and focus on God! Amber at Amber’s Articles wrote an amazing article about just this on Friday as well.  Then at Mass this morning the Priest was talking about slowing down and enjoying Christ, the reason for Christmas. Okay, God, I get it :O)  With all of this in mind, I’m going to start saying no to so many things. We are going to start doing a little something extra everyday to teach our girls more about the Advent season and what Christmas is really about.

I know a lot of us are moms and spend most of our days chasing children, picking up after them, cooking dinner, and on top of that, the photographer in us wants to capture all of it with our camera. Not only do I need to remember to slow down and focus on the Lord but also don’t worry about capturing every moment with my camera. If you are like me, you sometimes get so into capturing the moment that you forget to live it. My brother-in-law, Steve, likes to joke “Life isn’t meant to be lived, it is meant to be photographed.”

So, with Christmas upon us, slow down and enjoy it! Enjoy some quiet time with the Lord and your family and put your camera away (that will be super hard for me :O).

Be sure to check out Amber’s blog, she continues to inspire and remind me to focus on what’s important.