I have the bestest friends ever

My friend, Krissy, came all the way from Arizona to visit me this last week and I'm so grateful she did! I don't think either of us would say it was the most relaxing vacation with two teething and high maintenance toddlers, but we had so much fun! And now the bullet point list of things we did because I don't know how to blog without bullet points:

• Kelsie, half Jack's size and three months younger, quickly established dominance when she arrived and scared Jack to death. It took him a few days to warm up to her spunkiness...

 
 

• We drove 5 hours down to Destin, Florida for a three day beach trip! I think we underestimated how exhausting it would be to load up the car, unload the car, pack up for the beach, carry beach chairs and beach towels and beach bags and two wiggly toddlers to the beach, carry sandy beach chairs and sandy beach towels and sandy beach bags and two wiggly wet sandy toddlers away from the beach, coordinate nap and night time schedules in the same room, pack up the car again... you get the idea. We wouldn't have survived without the Veggie Tales soundtrack blasting at all times in the car, Chic-fil-A's play place, and actual time at the beach that made it all worth it! (Just don't ask us if we would ever attempt it alone again :)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

• We went to the zoo

 

• We went to the park
• We went to the library where Krissy made me a new friend from Gilbert who now lives in Bham!
• We hung out in the apartment.

• And we thought our children would stay under control if we just took a small social media break with them awake but that was not the case...

I'm so happy Krissy came and I hope she's brave enough to come back someday :)

Things I'm loving: wardrobe edition

• My Jesus running shirt, which got me three compliments while running shuffling this morning.

• Jack's "Big Bro" shirt, which was a huge failure in trying to cleverly announce my pregnancy this summer to Spencer, to my family, and to my in-laws, but an unintentional success this week in announcing my pregnancy at the YMCA child center. The shirt wasn't a waste after all!

 

• These Mr. Potato Head glasses, which Jack literally wore three days in a row. God must have known I needed some comic relief this week. Life can't be so serious when you have a son who wears Mr. Potato Head glasses all day long.

I am a duck

One of my all time favorite articles/blog post is called From the Homefront: What You Don't See. In the article, Lewis states, "I like to think that good parenting [and might I add mortal existence?!] is like a duck on the water. What you see is the gentle, almost effortless gliding, not the furious paddling that happens underneath." Throughout my adult life, as close family members and friends have confided in me with hard, heart wrenching personal trials in their life that I would have never known or expected had they not shared, I have always thought back on this duck analogy, and also a line from one of my favorite hymns: "In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see." As I have mourned with those that mourned and comforted those that stand in need of comfort, I have learned to love more, to be a better friend, and to judge less.

In the article Lewis also states, "I started a blog last fall. I dragged my feet into it for many reasons. One of the main reasons I hesitated was I didn't want to be another contributor to the cyberspace guiltoshpere out there... do we need one more reason to feel guilty? Because from the looks of things, other families are happier, their houses are cleaner, their marriages are better, their clothes are more stylish and their craftiness is even more crafty. Their lives are perfectly lovely, while my kids are running around screaming in their diapers."

I love blogging. I love to write. It is truly a hobby and my therapy. I try to be authentic and real when I post. Sometimes however, I feel like a hypocrite. When I post about things I'm loving, there are usually an equal amount of things I'm hating, and contrary to popular belief, bedbugs were not the most traumatic experience of my life :).

My mom gave a talk in church a couple months ago and said, " I know that there is not one person in this congregation that doesn't struggle with something. One thing I have learned, is that every family, and every individual, has some kind of trial, even suffering, they are dealing with. The intensity of those trials varies over time, but everyone has them or will have them. So sometimes when I get consumed with my own challenges, I look around a realize I am not alone. And I can even be grateful for my own problems. I know that our Heavenly Father is very aware of our private and not so private sufferings."

I am a duck, paddling more furiously underwater than ever before, and take comfort in knowing that I am not the only one.