It's the Simple Things in Life ...

that are the most important.

I was reminded of this fact by my children this past week. Since school has started, I really haven't had a whole lot to blog about. Life is still settling into a routine and the unimportant things in life have been taking up more time in my life than I'd like.

Well, I thought I'd share an experience I had last week. For some reason, one day Hailey became fascinated with flip-flops. I'm not exactly sure where that came from, but for about a week she would sneak into the garage (which she's not allowed to do, by the way) and grab her dad's flip-flops to wear around the house. At first I got pretty mad at her, but after her doing it a few days in a row, it just became something I decided wasn't worth the fight. If you know our stubborn little girl, then you know it's virtually impossible to make her do anything different once she's made up her mind. Well, after a few days of tripping over very big flip flops and me worrying about it damaging her feet, I decided to just go buy her a pair of her own.

That was easier said than done since first of all, we had to track some down. Now that school has started, all of the summer clothes and shoes have been replaced by back to school items. After searching a few stores, we found a pair of little girls flip-flops at Old Navy (should have looked there first, don't know why I didn't). She of course chose herself a pair of pink ones and pair in blue for her brother - it's never a good idea to come home with something like that for one and not for the other.

Needless to say, they were both in heaven! The wore their flip-flops the rest of the day and I literally had to rip them off their feet when it was time to shower and go to bed. I figured the novelty of it would wear off after a couple of days. For Zach it did - he still likes to wear them, but isn't quite as attached to the like Hailey is. When Sunday rolled around, she was bound and determined to wear them to church. After a hour long heated battle, I had her finally convinced to wear her church shoes, but only becaue I promised she come right home and pur her flip-flops on. Even now, she still gets up in the morning, comes downstairs, and puts on her flip-flops which she wears all day long. She absolutely loves them!




I have chuckled quite a few times as I've seen both of their excitement during the past week. More than once I've marveled at how something so small and insignificant could cause such a tremendous amount of joy. Then I realized that these flip-flops are not insignificant, life is full of small things that make us smile, fill us with love, or make us feel important and it's those types of things we need to relish in. When life gets crazy and out of control, which it often does for me, I find that I'm not taking time to smell the roses or in this case enjoy the flip-flops and appreciate those little things that make life fun. Thank you to my two sweet children for reminding me to take time for the little things!