Finding The Life │ Volume 2

a personal 12 month project

I honestly don't even know where to start with this day.... we are so over winter in my house. Everyone is tired. Everyone is stir crazy. We've all become pretty sedentary.... This is the point I break every winter. Around the end of February I'm just so over it. I want to be outside. I want to smell the rain. I want to feel the sunshine kissing my cheeks. But alas, we still have a month or 2 (or 3) to get through. Also, wishing for spring/summer is always bitter sweet.... yes we will get to be outside more. Yea we'll go on more great adventures instead of watching cartoons in our pj's all day... but it also means that Daddy is back to working crazy hours and we essentially won't see him again until the fall. 

This was my second attempt at my Day In the Life for this project... the first attempt, I never made it past lunch. Even this day isn't 100% complete. I mentioned this last time, but I will say it again; documenting my own family for an entire day is HARD! It's so hard to parent, be involved AND document. I don't get to go into full on photographer mode when I'm shooting my own family. I keep telling myself it will get easier the more I do it, and it likely will... but for now while I learn how to juggle all 3 of those tasks, you'll just have to bare with the missing bits. The bits where my kids had a meltdown in the van on the way to the store so I couldn't take a photo. Or while we were in the store and they decided to run away ( in opposite directions), so I couldn't take a photo. Or when the little one went for a nap and the big one and I ended up falling asleep on the couch together, so I didn't take a photo for 1.5 hours... yea, those things.

Anyhow, here is our day. An ordinary, boring, midwinter kind of day where we don't really do much... but hey, guess what? Even though to me our day felt uneventful and un-extarordinary, I know that I will still look back on these and smile because they're REAL. This is our reality right now and some day I may forget how much I enjoyed them being little, even on the bad days.

Early.... always always early.... and the little one points at the coffee pot as it chugs away saying (in his oh-so-cute toddler speak) "Mama! Mama! Kaw-pee! Mama kaw-pee!" [mama, coffee].

My good old girl waiting for the okay to initiate post kid eating clean-up . More coffee.... ALL THE COFFEE...

Even though it feels like we don't do much.... they still manage to destroy any room they're in for longer than 30 seconds.

Insert pre-grocery trip cuteness.... K wanted to wear his Batman cape to Safeway, so of course I have this image in my head of this cute little batman flying down an empty aisle in the grocery store... but yea, this image was quickly followed by the above mentioned melt down and kid scatter.... so my vision didn't come true. Ah well.

Clean up crew in action post lunch. She saves me so much floor cleaning since having kids.

Pillow forts are the best places to hid from Momma's camera. 

Also, this is where we insert the missing 1.5 hours that resulted from me falling asleep in the pillow fort with the big one.... it's so cozy in there it's hard not to fall asleep.

Post nap snacks and bed head in the case of the littler one....

And because you fall asleep on the couch, you realize that even though you were JUST at the grocery store, you forgot to take anything out of the freezer for dinner.

the thief in action. At least it's carrots he's stealing.

And then after feeding carrots to your dragon, he is abruptly abandoned on the kitchen floor when brother calls you away to play.

Kitchen dinner prep dance party fail. But I still kind of love it so I'm including it.

Followed by the trouble they get into when they think I'm busy... they get busted every time though.... so once that's cleaned up, it's time to distract the monsters while dinner is cooking and do something we don't do too often... jump on mom & dad's bed.

The bed jumping mission is never complete without one jumping on the other and some tears though.

Proost (cheers)

And then the Daddy monster arrives home from work. Just in time to wash stinky boys and read bed time stories.

And so ends Volume 2. Thanks for sharing in my story friends. Thanks for sticking with me. Next up in this beautiful blog circle is  Ashley Cooper of AshCooper Photography . Head on over HERE and check out her story and leave her some love!

This thing we call life is hard. But it's also full of beauty. Remember friends, real is the new perfect.

Cheers friends.

-Alicia