August at the beach & a reminder to myself in the future..

We have just a week left of summer vacation, and thus a week left at the beach for the summer.  Just like last year, I've loved spending August at the beach.  Life slows down a bit, although mostly we just do normal life in a different place for a month.
I've been doing some extra cooking and food preserving for the winter and the upcoming baby this month too.  Here's what I've finished so far:

- 7 quarts & 6 pints of roasted tomato & herb marinara sauce (freezer)
- 2 batches of granola
- 8 batches of blueberry freezer jam
- cooked up pinto and black beans & made up a batch of spicy bean cakes for the freezer
- made up a batch of chicken stock to freeze

For this last week, I plan on making up a bunch of pizza sauce to freeze, and trying my hand at canning up some salsa.  I've never done that, but hopefully I can find a winning recipe  :)

I've also been slowly, very slowly been coming to grips with the fact that I have GOT to slow down and pay attention to my body.  As much as I want to, I can't do everything I want to do and operate life like I'm not 7 1/2 months pregnant.  I've been struggling with severe pelvic/lower back pain at times over the last couple months, and also just being flat out exhausted by evening.  Some of this has to do with having 3 kids to keep up with and take care of, but I think if I was honest with myself, it's more due to doing too much.  I've been cutting things back and while I'm still tired in the evenings, it's not totally painful to stand and walk.  I am a slow learner  :)

And as a reminder to myself in the future, here's what I feel like God has been showing/highlighting to me over the last week or two....

When I over schedule or overdue things, it leaves me too tired to be the parent I need to be. 

Willow's attitude has been getting out of control, and she has been ignoring us when we tell her to do things like "come" or "no".  I realized that I have been allowing myself to be a lazy mom, and have been overlooking things when I should be dealing with them because I've been either too busy or tired.  My first priority should be the kids and raising them, not cooking, my projects, cleaning, rearranging the house, or anything else that captures my time and attention.