the important things in life.

I was having a rough week, as usual, I had over-estimated my super powers to take on more work than I should have. This made my time at home with the kids not as pleasant as it should of been. It didn't help Natallie who 99% of the time sleeps 12 hours a night was getting up 4 nights in a row in the middle of the night for random reasons like wanting to pee in our toilet. Negotiating with a 3-year-old that she can't sleep in our bed at 4:00 am took up way too many brain cells. This made getting up with Noah at his regular 5:30am really unpleasant and left me with barely any mental functioning capacities by 7:00am.

After 4 days of being maxed out during the day and not sleeping much at night, I realized that my in-laws were coming to visit for the weekend. I started thinking of how the house was not clean, I hadn't meal planned or grocery shopped and certainly didn't have any fresh cookies baked yet.  As I was getting my pre-worry on about getting things ready for Grandma and Grandpa,  I came across this blog , the author said something that just resonated with me .... "hospitality isn't about the condition of your house but more about the condition of your heart". 

And reading that made me think back about the parable of Mary and Martha and I was getting all huffy in a Martha-mode. And in between trying to find the Windex to clean the windows and washing the bedsheets I heard what I needed to hear:

Stop cleaning. Stop worrying about the fingerprints all over the windows. Let go of the toys on the floor. It's OK that the baking wasn't from scratch. Just be present.  Enjoy the moment. Don't do and just be.

And somehow I did.

And the visit was absolutely splendid.

Grandma sewed both kids aprons and matching oven fits. Natallie adores her and was non-stop baking pretend muffins for all of us.

The weather was gorgeous and we started out the day at Terra Nova park in West Richmond.

The kids ran and Grandma chased.

Noah loved watching the planes fly by.

 Dad took Noah on the zip line

Grandpa even went down the slide with Noah.

I even disregarded my own regimented "baby must nap at 2 hours at home" law and Noah napped in the car as we drove out to Whytecliff Park in West Vancouver. The view was spectacular.

 We marveled at the birds.

Admired the cherry blossoms.

Collected shells and had a picnic on the rocky beach.

Nothing like glorious sunshine and watching the kids soak up their special time with Grandma and Grandpa to help me remember what is really important and it's not if I vacuumed the carpet (which if you must know, I never did get around to doing).