Favorite moments from an overly busy month

Get ready for some gosh-awful quality pictures loaded with tons of LIFE lately!

My little princess being her usual monkey self at Carter's swim lesson!

Here I was being a total weirdo taking a bunch of worse-than-the-usual-bad-quality pictures with my hubby in the theater for The Great Gatsby (Mother's Day celebration!). The first picture looks pretty decent to me now, but at the time I told him that we had to take another one because I was getting that "look" like I had one too many glasses of wine over at the ole' wine bar that we had just come from. Anyway, I was totally right, I had consumed quite more than the usual one-and-a-half, but hey! Who was counting?

I love my job so, so, so, so, SO much! Look at all those awesome mamas! They are so much fun to be around everyday!

I usually really hate seeing pictures of just food (and healthy food especially. Come on! Stop bragging why dontchya?) on Instagram and other like sites, but man! I AM ON A HEALTHY EATING KICK! It's totally due to the awesome new program added under Fit4Mom (Stroller Strides) called Body Back. Anyway, looking at that blender picture kind of makes me feel squeamish because it looks disgusting here, but oh boooooy is it goooooood! 

I mean... These two (...and Lexi in the last picture!). They are just so darn precious. Truly, they are my world. LOVE being their mama! Lately I've been feeling this weird sense of honor about the fact that Kota wants me to be near her all the time. It's been going on for about 2 months. Whenever she wants me to pick her up, I just get excited that she wants to be with me! SHE wants to be with ME! Cool, eh?

Lastly, I love this dude. This was him after I got back from night #2 of Body Back, cleaning the floors AFTER he had cleaned the entire kitchen! He was talking on the phone with his mom but said under his breath, "Go upstairs and relax. Go!" 

Oh, lover man. How I appreciate you and your ways! 

So that was a ton of information. What those pictures didn't show was how outrageously busy Chad and I have been over the last month. Truly busy. We are blessed that this busyness has to do with an almost-done last semester and a growing business, but man, I totally get it now when people say things like, "Hmm, when do you and your spouse see each other?" 

In the past, I really thought that was quite a weird thing to have to think about. My unconditional answer was "from bed time and beyond, allowing us a sort of 'date night' every night." Now I get it. You really do have to put a stop to your busyness or else before you know it it's been 10 days straight of "I'll be downstairs in 20 minutes," and "I'll see you on Sunday after this bachelor party," and "Let me just finish this last email and we'll watch our show." You can't lose the TIME, my friend! Luckily we had the ultimate Mother's Day date this year, allowing us to laugh like hyenas, away from any form of stress!

Oh, how I love that man of mine!

Being girls!

Kota hates accessories with every fiber of her body. The day we brought her home from the hospital wearing her beanie of flowery over-the-topness? Oh yeah, she ripped it off with her own two-day-old bare hands! Shoes? Forget it. Bows? Ha! Hats? Yeah right, it's not happening sista.

But today (TODAY!), what did my little missy do while the three of us were lying around on the floor reading books? She tottled over to her and big brother's closet, ripped open the sliding door, grabbed her basket of hair do-dads and then brought them to me. Just when I thought this was some random act of the "here Mom, check this out" kind, she turned around, went back to the closet, grabbed that little black shoe, then sat down and tried to put it on! SHE TRIED TO PUT A SHOE ON THE FOOT WHICH HAS WORN LESS SHOES IN HER 15 MONTHS OF LIFE THAN I HAVE WINDEXED MY MIRRORS IN THE LAST MONTH! Yes! Once she figured out that she couldn't do it herself, she scooted over to me to put it on the right way! Then she got the corresponding shoe and we put it on THE OTHER FOOT! Yes, today she wore shoes on both feet!

Next, Carter cracked into her adorable sock collection that literally has never seen the light of day because I've given up trying to put them on. She took off her shoe, which I thought meant the end of our I-can't-believe-she's-actually-wearing-those-things-willingly date, then signaled for me to put the socks on her! After doing it, all while trying to keep my cool, she wanted me to put the shoes back on! Yes!

So. All while wearing socks AND shoes AT THE SAME TIME, WILLINGLY (!!!), she re-found the basket of bows and headbands she had brought over to me to begin with, and then we started the REAL girling-out moments (with Carter involved, no less):

Can you believe this actually happened? I CAN'T! Not only was my DAUGHTER excited for something girly, but she wanted me to participate! And this was all her idea! Anyway, it made me feel less bad about offering her one of Carter's Hot Wheels as consolation items in times of fits!

Oh, to be girly!!!

 Look at that mane of hair!

 More girliness: her princess books!

 "Give the camera a kiss!"

 I love our new play room/office!

 Usual night time activity, I believe.

 My loves.

My babes

Oh, for gosh sakes.

 These darn people give me a very full heart. And I actually had quite the revelation over the last few days, but it's super late and I've got to sleep SOMETIME, so it shall be documented later. But it has something to do with rolling with waking up at 6:30 am and being happy about it, so woohoo!

FAVORITE.

T-ball and the pictures!

So I've been thinking about the 1,700+ pictures saved on my phone. I'm not kidding, I just deleted a picture of pancakes from 2010. Why the heck did I keep that? Why couldn't I just delete the darn thing? Well, I'll tell you: phone pictures are super candid life moments that I never want to let go of! Until about 15 minutes ago, I had 18 of the same picture of Carter, with about a .00000009 degree difference in the angle of his chin. It was just a series of photos where I decided it was crucial to capture not just ONE picture of him smiling at me, but rather 18! And the only reason I figured out that I should delete a few was because my iPhone barred me from taking any MORE due to a lack of storage! Anyway, hilarious.

And speaking of super candid life moments (not that this was candid - hellooooo, this scene was a photo shoot waiting to happen), here are some gosh darn adorable pictures of my big man on his FIRST DAY OF T-BALL! Yes - unbelievable!!! All taken by none other than my trusty phone, because it's awesome!

 Stretching during his "I'm not too sure about this" moment.

 The glove of dreams that he was in love with!

 Base running!

Hanging out with Gavin!

 Learning to field with the other kiddos!

 Super intense, wide leg stance.

 "Here, come stand next to me!" (Proud mom moment!)

The ole' cannon.

 It's on.

 :)