Does it ever seem like every time you try to put your family first something happens that takes you away from them? We seem to be pulled in every direction and it continues to get harder and harder to place our family first. We all know the importance of our family. We all understand the responsibility we have as parents to raise our children "right". We all know that no one else can love our children like we can. No one understands our children like we do.



Placing your life in the proper order can be difficult to say the least. It seems as though each time you make your priority list within minutes it's obsolete. Things change so quickly throughout the day and even within the hour which makes life more difficult than any of us would like for it to be.

You may be wondering what qualifies me to be writing this article about putting your family first. I do know a little about fitting everything in during a 24-hour period of time. I know because I am the mother of 8 children. I have been blessed to have given birth to 7 of those -- one came with my husband. Let me explain...

When my husband and I met we had both recently left "bad" marriages. I had three children from my first marriage and he had a daughter who lives with her mother about 2000 miles away. A lot of our friends believed that those four children were enough but Dan and I felt there were to be more and we agreed to welcome each one. We also agreed that no matter what came up our family would always come first. Here's what we do to ensure our family comes first.

* We have a weekly family night where we can reconnect with our children. This is especially important when there are teenagers in the house.

* We join together for dinner every night. This is not a buffet style meal. We actually sit down and eat dinner together and take the time to enjoy the meal and the company.

* Dan and I have weekly date night. This gives us the opportunity as a couple to reconnect. There are some weeks when we get to our date night only to realize that we've barely spoken all week long because of busy schedules with kids, church and work. We know that we are the foundation of our home and that foundation must be strong.

Here's what we know. We know that as long as we put our family first we have all our needs covered. We have happy kids and a solid financial foundation. Blessings given to us for keeping our priorities straight.

Is it easy to put our family first? Not always. Sometimes the other "things" on our list need to get done and on the scale of importance they rate pretty high but when placed on the life long impact scale those other "things" rate pretty low. Our children's lives can't hang in the balance just because we need to get other things done. We must find a way to work around the family schedule. Our family must know their importance in our lives so they will in turn understand the importance of their family.

We see each one of our children as precious. Each child will impact our world and it is our responsibility to teach them and love them so they will have a positive impact on our world. Our oldest, Robert, is currently in San Antonio, TX getting his specialized training in the Navy. He has already begun to have a positvie impact on our world as he helped his basic training division reach Hall of Fame status. Our three teenage daughters, Chaylin, Elizabeth and Isabelle, are each starting to impact the world in their own ways as they spend time away from the family at school, work and youth activities. Our littlest four, Jacob, David, Hannah and Philip, have also begun their journey impacting this world for the better. I feel tremendous joy whenever I hear my little Philip say, "thank you" loud and clear whenever anyone helps him with something.

The importance of my family is proven everyday as I choose them over the world and the things that might hinder our progress as a family. Our example as parents will greatly impact the parenting of our grandchildren by our children. We must teach them well -- the family must come first.