What They Remember

Sometimes I have this vision of the family I feel like we should be. The one that wakes up smiling, eats breakfast together and talks about the day ahead before going our separate ways. The family that goes on grand adventures, big and small, on the weekends. Has huge weekend breakfasts and a house full of laughter.

Then I realize that I do not live inside a Pinterest board.

Our mornings are rushed no matter what time we wake up. The little one is crying because we have orange juice and not apple juice, the oldest is pouting over the lack of frozen waffles, HH can't find his keys and me? I'm just wishing the damn coffee maker would brew a little faster and that everyone would just get out so I can get 30 minutes of quiet.

Weekends are spent running errands, doing chores, schlepping the kids from place to place. Once in a great while we maybe squeeze a date night in there. This summer was particularly rough with the move mixed in and it caused a lot of mommy guilt. Guilt over not taking a real vacation, guilt over our lack of camping trips, guilt over just doing NOTHING and yet feeling like the summer disappeared in an instant.

My husband likes to remind me that sometimes (most of the time) the most memorable moments are the not so perfect ones. Like when it rained while on their boys camping trip. It's the trip that will be talked about over and over again, regardless of the other 15 camping trips with perfect weather. The summer we moved, it's not likely to be a summer they forget any time soon. I moved when I was 12 and I still remember like it was yesterday. I mean, watching your dad clean the upstairs by throwing stuff out of a second floor window is hard to forget :)

Sometimes I need to remember that it's not about being the family we think we should be...it's just about being a family. Embracing our good days and our bad days...our boring every day routines and our not so boring, not so every day adventures.

Opinions

We all know the saying about opinions, right? Yea, I thought so.

Love me some Wonka

Here's the thing, when and if I ask for your opinion, I hope you give me an honest one. Does this make me look fat, do you like this color on me, do you think I need to pluck my eyebrows? These things, please, be a friend and tell me the truth. Do not tell me what I want to hear to spare my feelings. I'm a big girl, I can take it. I have a few friends that I can always count on to tell me how it is, even when they disagree with me. These are the women we all need in our lives. Fact.

All of that aside, if I'm not asking for your opinion, I don't really need it. I mean if you want to tell me I look hot in that new dress or that I have mad crafting skills because of my kick ass birthday party planning skills...well then sure, bring it on. However, if it's just an every day conversation and you have something negative to say, please just keep it to yourself. I do not need or want negativity. There are plenty of things I see and hear every single day that I would love to comment on, but I don't. I sit politely and if I'm going to complain, I do it the way good girls were taught...on the phone with my friends in the privacy of my own home.

This is just a friendly PSA for everything, from parenting to clothes to decorating to car choices. If you don't like it, fine, but if you're not asked your opinion, please keep it to yourself.

Moving

We've been in the process of moving for what seems like forever. And Ever. And ever. Okay, so it's really only been a few months, but trust me, it feels like longer.
We've known since the beginning of the year that there was a chance we'd be moving this summer, we just didn't know when. We started trimming the fat, sorting stuff and getting rid of stuff we didn't need. It felt good. We were organized and we got rid of a ton of stuff. It was awesome, we were moving rockstars.

Then it came to actually move...as it turns out, we're not rockstars. We're more like groupies or maybe roadies. Roadies are the guys that just carry heavy shit and set stuff up, right? Yea, that's probably us...we're definitely not giving the real rockstars head in the back of tour buses.

The first weekend of August we loaded up all of our boxes and all of our furniture and moved it all in. It was great, everything fit where we wanted it to, we weren't totally over run with toys because we got rid of a ton months ago.

Then we went back for more boxes. And more boxes. And holy shit how in the hell did all of this fit in to one house?! Our old neighbors kept joking that we had to be done. Had to be.

It was like a damn clown car, I swear

After we had moved we took at least 3 more truck loads of stuff to Salvation Army. At least. It was just that crazy.

Then, THEN, there was the painting. Oh the painting. We painted two bedrooms, playroom and living room. Each required multiple coats. It was as much fun as it sounds. At least for me who is not all about this whole decorating thing.

But, we have the important thing

No, not the fancy TV mount the swivels and slides above the fire place, although my husband my disagree.

Happy Kids