Beauty.

Mother's Day

This year I think I've realized that Mother's Day will always have a sort of stigma for me. It's just a hard day. 

Personally, I look around and I am blessed! I have miracles making me Mother's Day cards and an awesome Mom who I can call 8 times a day for advice if I wanted to. I have a MIL who raised my amazing hubs & loves on my kids and I even have a step-mom who looks after my dad and always welcomes us into her home. And I want to celebrate all that. 

But this year I had friends whose husbands tragically died, leaving them to parent alone; I had friends whose Mothers died {cancer, tragic car accident}; I had friends who lost {more} babies to stillbirth. And I know for them, or for anyone who is dealing with loss {of a child or mom} or is struggling through infertility that it is just a hard day period. There are those of you who will tell me that those people should rejoice with those who rejoice. But that doesn't make the day any less sucky. 

I don't think Mother's Day HAS to be this way. I think we can honor while not excluding and rejoice without pointing out those who haven't "earned" their right to "stand" on MD {I use "earned" in quotes as it's someone else's word, and while grossly misplaced I believe it is the way many see it}. So, today I've just had a burden on my heart. I've thought about my sweet girls and I've thought about Josiah's birthmom, but more I've thought about my friends who just want to wake up and have this day be over. Justified or not. 

And now I'll end my MD rant and show you my sweet ones ...

dinner. 

making my princess a princess

Ariel and a fire breathing dragon. 

I got a few sweet gifts from the kids, including a mom trophy! How awesome is this, lol!

tulips from my brothers girlfriend. 

My momma made me this pillow. How cool is that? 

My love bugs! 

I LOVE, love being a mom. Usually by 6 pm I look TORE UP and feel like I need to stick my head in the sand so I can't see what is going on around me. I'm probably tired and hungry {like my kids, ha!}. That's our tough hour around here: you know, where the dog is barking at the mail man and you discover you're missing one ingredient for your half cooked dinner and your living room is covered in legos that you've stepped on 7 times and your kiddo's still aren't cleaning up even though you've asked {yelled} 23 times already, and you're husband is going to be home anytime. Or is all that just me?

But FOR REAL, this IS what I was made to do. Being a mother is our most important mission field. I feel beyond blessed at what God has given me and am so thankful for so many sweet moments throughout each day. I swear daily something will happen and I'll wonder how incredible it is that I get to be mom to these amazing little souls.

Now, if I could just have Mary Poppins stop by on week nights between 5:30 and 6:30. ;)

New Mexico to Memphis.

Beginning of the trip is here. 

We left New Mexico and drove to Texas. Ella wanted us to buy her a pink horse and Josiah was terrified of cowboys. We ate at the Big TexanSteak Ranch because that just seems like it’s what you ought to do when in Amarillo. It was fun and these old country crooners came to our table and sang ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ which was my favorite song as a little girl. 

 While we were there a guy ate a 72 oz. steak. Crazy!! After dinner we hit the road again …

Next was Oklahoma City. Before we got to our hotel we stopped at a truck stop. It was rather late at night {those time changes weren’t helping things} and we had already changed the kids to their jammies.

Josiah {with his freckles and footed jammies} and I are standing next to the cappuccino machine while the clerk rinses it {AMEN for cappuccinos’ in Oklahoma!}. The lady glances at Siah, and in an incredibly strong southern accent states “Want me to teach you how to do this? I could put you to work”. He stares at her and then responds, FULLY MATCHING her thick southern accent “Ma’am! I ain’t gunna work at a place like this for my whole life”. {My mind was going like this: OH MY! That was so rude. BUT so funny. And does she know he doesn’t have an accent?} She looks over at him and says “Yeah, there are other things you can do with your life. What do you want to be when you grow up?” He replies, accent still intact “Well, I just aint figured that out yet”  … then he turned and walked over to his Daddy. I smiled and thanked her for my coffee.

At least his standards are set high.

From Oklahoma we drove to Tennessee. Every time we crossed a new state border we hooped and hollered and acted like it was the greatest thing in the world. Ella had been so excited to go to Tennessee and was so disappointed when we got there and she discovered we hadn’t been saying under-the-sea. Like where Ariel lives.

The biggest surprise for me is that we were having a lot of fun in the car. And we were seeing lots of cool things. When it got dark the kids got to watch a movie and Jason and I listened to audio books. I expected car time to be hard {and don't get me wrong, it had it's moments}, but overall it went REALLY well.

We woke up on day 5 in Memphis & went to Elvis’ Graceland. Jason grew up on Elvis and really wanted to go. The house itself was very cool and interesting.  The area around was a tad on the crazy level. It was all Elvis obsession to the extreme. I am not sure that Elvis would want things like they are. And his family? I am not sure why they allow it

. 

Feeling overwhelmed as a SAHM? Know what you do matters:

Every load of laundry, every dirty diaper, every story read 800 times, every load of dishes, every giant disaster mess, every frustrating day with a defiant child, every kissed boo-boo, emergency room trip, every sick child, every sleepless night is a direct investment in every person that little child's life will touch for eternity. You are loving them as God does. And the mark they make on the world is BECAUSE of the vomit you cleaned up, the love and comfort that you gave, the mark you made on their life.

You aren't changing diapers. You are changing the world.

The almost non-existent Easter.

I thought I should post my “Easter pictures” now, smack in the middle of vacation blogging, before I completely bypass them and leave them out of our 2013 blog book {my only source of family scrap-booking}!

Since we didn't return from our vacation until about 30 hours prior to Easter morning, I didn't have time to prepare a thing. Jason did all of the shopping on his own. We got home in the middle of the night, and when the kids woke up the next morning afternoon they both had fevers. Did you catch that Jason did all of the shopping on his own? Amazing! {not that he was capable of doing it, but that I handed a complete holiday over to my husband!}

Fevers and all, they were up for egg dying. I had them use mixers to color dip, it worked well.

Those fevers continued until Sunday morning, so we stayed home in our jammies. Once Jason got home from work he hid some eggs out back & brought out the baskets he created. Very Easter “official”, lol! We did buy a pie from Pollys Pies. It was what our family needed {the day off, not the pie!}, and the kids didn't really seem to mind.

Since they didn't get to wear their snazzy Easter outfits we held them over until the following week. I snapped a few photos because they just looked so cute. 

This kid could wear flip flops every single day of his life, if I'd let him. 

Loving her pig tails! 

I am honestly not sure if I missed Easter this year. We did dig into our bibles and that's what it's really about anyway. I will tell you what I did miss - Paula Deen's strawberry salad. ;)