My Disney Experience

"Everybody SMILE!!" "Nolan, put your arms down!" "Judd, you have to open your eyes!" "Y'all, just smile!" "We can be done if y'all would just look at the camera and smile, one more time! Please!" 

As a parent, I just wanted a good picture to put in a frame or, more realistically, to make my home screen wallpaper on my phone. I just want everyone to look happy and smile for a picture, when behind every picture was a melt down, a fight, and/or an empty threats. It was very rarely all smiles.  

The picture above took months of planning and preparation!  It was ordering tickets, having shirts and caps embroidered for the girls, and buying matching shirts for the boys. Its was buying everyone new Teva sandals (cause the ones they had just wouldn't cut it). It was packing 7 people and sticking them on a plane without losing anyone or driving an entire plane full of people crazy with fussy, loud children. It was lines and heat and rushing and whining. It was pure chaos! 

I tried my hardest to make sure that the Disney experience was the most magical week of my children's lives, but here was there reality of the week... 

So what did Disney World teach me?  Well, for starters, life isn't about the fake smiles and the posed family pictures.  It's about the memories.  It's about enjoying whatever life throws your way.  It's about learning to walk slowly through the rain and stomping in the puddles.  

It also taught me (gulp....its' about to get serious) that we put a lot of thought and planning into temporary fun.  Sure the memories will last forever (at least for those 5 and above) but at the end of the day, that experience was temporary. The shirts, temporary.  The shoes, temporary. The hats and souvenirs, temporary. I will forever be grateful for the experience, but I want to focus on so much more than the temporary.  I am responsible for 5 beautiful, sinful, heathens and I have the responsibility to pour something into my children that is far more than temporary. These experiences mean very little in the grand scheme of things.  I will not stand before God one day and give an account for all the "experiences" I gave my children while they young, but I will give an account for whether or not I taught them about Jesus.  

The memories we made at "the happiest place on earth" are precious to this momma, but they mean nothing if I fail to point them to Giver of true happiness and the Creator of the heavens and earth.