Happy Mother's Day {a little late}

I don't know why we've been so busy lately or what exactly we've even been doing...but I just can't find the energy the time to sit down and blog. Dusty helped with spring football over the past few weeks, so I went to pick Avery Claire up every day. That meant I didn't get there until at least 4-4:30 {and 4:55 on Mondays because I have to stay late. I know 4:00 doesn't sound late to most of you, but keep in mind I get up at 5:30ish and Dusty and Avery Claire leave the house at 6:45. So she'd be at daycare from 7:10 until whenever I got there to get her. That's a long day. And then Dusty wasn't getting home until late, so it was just me and AC. By the time I suppertime, bathtime, and a few minutes of playtime were over, my house was a disaster and I had things to get done for the next day. And we're still trying to get P90 in.

Anyway, not that you cared about all of those excuses for not blogging.I promise to try to do better. Every time I blog, I tell myself it'd be so much easier not to have download/upload 60 pictures at once. Then I get behind again.

Look at these sweet handprints I got for Mother's Day...and even sweeter is the little voice that tells me every time she looks at them "I paint my hands!" I will cherish those sweet hands forever and will never forget that sweet, proud girl telling me about painting her hands at daycare and then washing her them.

We went to visit our moms for Mother's Day. I took one picture {and it wasn't even with our moms}. I don't know why I'm such a horrible picture taker when we visit. Guess I'm just living in the moment while we're there. My husband and I did manage a date to see The Hunger Games, and it did not disappoint! I think I may even have him hooked!


I wanted to do a sweet post for Mother's Day, but again, you know...I just didn't get around to it.
I've learned so much about motherhood over the past couple of years. When you dream of having a family, you see sweet little babies that grow into sweet, cute little toddlers that grow into little kids that go to school and play sports and take dance and then just keep growing into cranky teenagers that learn to drive and make you wait up on them at night, praying they are safe. Then they grow into young adults that go to college {hopefully} and get jobs and try to make it on their own. When you dream of having a family, it's all through rose-colored glasses.


What you don't think about, or know about, is that those babies will cry and keep you up at night. You will stress about reflux and constipation and fever viruses and what they need to eat and don't need to eat. Then they grow into sweet, cute toddlers {that part's true} that whine and still cry and test your patience. You still stress about constipation and coughs and runny noses that never stop and what they need to eat and won't eat and why those dang molars won't just come in already. I can't attest to anything past the point of toddlerhood right now, but I'm willing to bet none of it's easy.


What you don't realize is that, even though you are stressed by things that will one day seem very trivial, you wouldn't trade one single second of that time with your sweet child for anything in the world. For every hundred whiney minutes you experience, you will experience so many sweet moments that erase those whines. You will be so thankful that a little whiney, cranky, very healthy, normal toddler is all that's stressing you out.


What you don't know about when you dream of having a family is how fervently you will pray for your child. You pray for your child's health and happiness. But you also pray that you are the best example of a Godly woman that you can be for her. You pray that you are doing all of the right things that will help mold her into the best little person she can possilbly be. You don't know how hard it will be to discipline her and try to remind yourself of how important that discipline will be to help mold her into that "best little person." You don't know that you will pray that her little independence and her stubborness is used one day to help her stick up for what she believes in and to not follow a crowd that may be leading her in the wrong direction.


When you're dreaming of your family, you do know that you will love your child. What you don't know is how hopelessly, heart-achingly much you will love her.  No one could ever prepare you for motherhood {or parenthood, for that matter}. No one could ever tell you how rewarding, how exciting, how stressful, how incredibly awesome it is. I am so glad God gave me this little girl.