It is relative peace. Only the toddler is awake and I expect the baby to sleep for a while longer. I can make lunch with minimal interruptions and enjoy the meal with my daughter.

Of course everything explodes a moment after I think this.

Three text messages arrive in quick succession.

Then smoke from the oven with the baking sweet potato fries set off the alarm right outside the baby’s room.

I have to jump to hit the button to silence it. Several attempts later I hit it.

I check and the fries aren’t burnt.

The ingredients for a smoothie go into the blender.

More text messages.

Smoothie won’t blend.

Another smoke alarm. I silence it on the first jump.

Fries aren’t burnt.

Stir smoothie. Still won’t blend.

Text message.

Baby wakes up.

Add liquid to smoothie. Finally blends.

Get baby.

Toddler walks in the kitchen with wet inner legs.

I clean her up while the baby screams on the floor.

As I walk into the bathroom to toss her pants into the tub I laugh.

I laugh because I want to cry but in that moment I am able to find joy 

Most of the time I don’t find joy. It’s too easy to get weighed down by the demands of motherhood and managing a home to see beyond the chaos. But there is joy there. There is beauty. There is grace. We just have to look and be open to it.

That’s what I want to do in this blog. Find joy, beauty and grace. Explore the ways they manifest themselves in our day-to-day lives. Search deep and hard for them in the difficult places. Rejoice when they jump out as us. Because when we find them, we find God. And when that happens our homes are blessed and we become the woman, wife and mother we desire to be.

So journey with me as I learn to make joy, beauty and grace apart of my life and to laugh in the midst of chaos, even if it means letting the fries burn.