oh, hello April.

Last fall, amidst all of the moving chaos, I stumbled upon old blog posts while looking for something.  And I found something that sent my OCD, much-needed journaling self into a brief panic before ADDmind was all, "Hey, look!  A box that could be packed!"

But then.  It happened again.  So many of my old pictures are missing.  I am so bothered by this, I am tempted to go find all of our external hard drives and stick the photos back in there.  This is highly unrealistic given that a) I have no time and b) have the memory of potato these days.  I'm actually pretty sure that's 90% of the reason I began this adventure in the first place.

I need to publish my blog posts with corresponding pictures in case something more serious than this happens.  It's unfortunate I can hardly keep up with daily necessities, much less photo organizing and general Martha-ness.  I consider today a minor miracle when I had ZERO speckled eggs, made it to preschool on time, and planned a completely fictionary trip to the Bahamas thanks to a tempting Living Social email.

I gave it a little bit of thought, and now it won't stop sitting there, tapping its foot at the back of my brain.

I'll obsess about this later - it's marked down on my to do list.

holiday traditions are so awesome.

Easter 2013 - I do in fact have two complete legs despite the illusion shown above.

Easter weekend - Disney on Ice, a bit of shopping, and an amazing Sunday spent celebrating at church and then with family and friends.  It was such a great preview for the warm weather to come - black feet, sweaty curls, and crashing hard.  Easter was a fun illustration v.2.0 of what it's like to celebrate holidays raising siblings - Eisley really understood this year, and the girls had fun doing it together.  We had bunny pancakes, and heard the Easter story told by a four year old; both of which were unequivocally awesome.

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This week has been trying.  Terrible twos, and the projected even worse threes never happened in our house.  Four is hard.  She is a sweet little thing, but it's like she has all of a sudden decided that maybe she doesn't always have to follow along.  While part of my heart jumps for joy at the prospect of her being able to stand up for herself, the rest of me feels like It's five o'clock somewhere*.  

*(never done that, but sometimes the carelessness is appealing)

Two nights ago, I most definitely sat a stubborn Eisley on the potty where I knew she couldn't get down, and put Ruby to bed.  Then basically drank my frustrations away by way of hot fudge.  (Bonus: Eisley did go!)

Sometimes a deep reflection of life brings so much joy and so many other emotions combined, that it's nearly confusing.   Motherhood didn't come with a how to manual, and suppose it did--I'd still likely be in the troubleshooting section, and then dialing a non-helpful customer service agent.  We're working on things with love and responsibility, and more love.  Isn't it crazy how the negative moments are standing in a spotlight despite them being so much smaller than the positive?  Sometimes, I feel so clueless in this game of parenthood, it's laughable.  

Today, we focused on our happy.  The sunshine, and chalk art, and neighbor chats.  

Tomorrow will bring new and old challenges, and the happy will be there, ever present.  I'm on a road to somewhere amazing - it's been an emotional road of sorts - and lengthy road to be sure, but seeing a positive difference in myself and my beliefs, and my household are priceless treasures.

Be blessed, friends.

PS - How is it April already?!