Life

These pictures pretty much sum up my life right now.

It's spent...

constantly multitasking.

This day it was pinning towels and tasting the kids play dough creations. 

Trying to capture peaceful moments like this and being intentional to notice and soak up the beauty that is around me. Sometimes it's right in front of my face and sometimes I have to search hard for it.

This bunch. 

loud, crazy, silly, energetic, fun

And me. Exhausted at the end of each day.

Getting out of town. 

Going on adventures and being in nature

and breathing fresh air and escaping the busyness

puppy hood. 

It is no joke people.
I want to kill her about 5 million times a day. 

If I had emojis on here this one would just have lots of hearts. 

Here's a peek at some other moments from the past couple of weeks. 

 parks, hikes, birthday celebrations, early mornings, crazy boys, 60 valentines 

 Thai food, bike riding, Moms in Prayer brunch, date night, painting, baseball practice, mini mama

hooded towels, boutiques, beach shenanigans, 7 going on a teenager, date days

I'm just one big hot mess most days constantly amazed at how much I need Jesus and even more amazed at how much He delights in me in spite of it all. 

If you had to sum up your life right now in one word what would it be? 

Happy Monday

grocery shopping and laundry.

That's what our Mondays look like.

So exciting, right?

What do you do on Monday?

 This is how we do grocery shopping (Kenzie was at school and Hudson is on me in the Ergo).

I have a love/hate relationship with those kid carts! 

I usually start by letting Wesley use his own cart as long as he is showing me he can be self controlled (stay by me, be mindful of other people, don't put things in his cart without my permission, etc.).

Some days he does great and other days he loses privileges and has to ride in the back of the big cart with me. 

This is Maddie's favorite way to ride in the shopping cart. 

 laundry!! 

You are the main reason Mondays are my least favorite day of the week. 

I know everyone has their own way of doing laundry. 

I do ours once a week. 

The main reason is because I hate laundry so much I don't want to be doing it everyday. 

That just sounds like torture. 

And the second reason is when you only do 6 people's laundry once a week there is so much of it you are forced to put it away because it literally overtakes your whole house.

And the putting away part is the hardest.  

So it's good to have some incentive. 

Like if I want to sleep on my bed tonight I HAVE to put away the laundry. 

Some of my other laundry secrets-

I don't separate colors. 

I know. gasp.

And I hang all of the kids shirts. And the girls dresses. 

Everything else goes in drawers.

And Oxyclean is my BFF. 

And to spread a little joy this Monday we surprised a friend with a card and flowers. 

 And dark chocolate filled with Speculoos cookie spread.

Because we really love her.  

And when you love someone you give them that chocolate.

(please tell me you guys have tried it)

Hope you guys had a happy Monday!   

#realmomz

Taking care of a home and a husband and little ones is hard work. 

Good, hard work. 

Sometimes just keeping the house from burning down and the kids alive is a victory. 

There have been days I have fed my kids cereal for lunch (gasp). 

Or stayed in my pjs all day. 

Don't get me wrong...I strive the be the Proverbs 31 woman mentioned in the Bible.

And by God's grace and help I am becoming more and more like her each day. 

But some days are not glamorous. 

or pretty 

(whether it be a bad attitude, the condition of my house or fishing plastic Easter eggs out of a poop filled toilet).  

But from looking at my Instagram feed you may not know that. 

You may think that I have it all together all the time (ha!). 

  Sometimes I find myself looking at other peoples feeds thinking the same and feeling the weight of comparison. 

A couple weeks ago a few of us moms were chatting at the park (about this very issue) and we decided a hashtag had to be made. 

To keep things real. 

To give people a peek of the stuff that you shove out of the way when you go to take the perfect Instagram picture. 

But mainly to encourage other moms that we all struggle with the same things. 

We aren't proud of it and we are (hopefully) working to improve the areas that need improvement but we aren't perfect and that's ok.

Plus it's fun and funny. 

I've included a sampling of the #realmomz pics below. 

(In case you missed my original post about the reality behind the perfect Instagram pics read THIS)

I kicked off the feed with a mild picture of the inside of my car. 

This is what it really looks like people. 

On a good day. 

There were a lot of dirty dishes in the feed. 

I'm sure we all feel like we are drowning under dishes all the time. 

Moms rarely get to eat a hot meal. 

Or sometimes a meal at all. 

"So if you are coming over...it doesn't look like this. But the other 6 days a week it certainly does."

Oh laundry. 

I think you will forever be my nemesis.

And this has got to be one of my favorites. 

"I am cooking dinner and saw some awesome pics. I'm proud to add my own. Behind the pile of clean laundry, those pics are of the people that came IN the frames. I don't have time to hang up my own family pics! My kids don't care-why should I?"

Today I added this one. 

"The kids chore is to unload the dishwasher everyday. We are still working on the putting everything away part."

So if I ever say "My kids do chores everyday" you know that this is what it looks like (when one child in particular is doing it).

So please feel free to play along and hashtag your own #realmomz pics.

And tell your friends to keep things real and play along too. 

Real life (in between the perfect Instagram pictures)

Instagram can be so deceiving. 

Don't get me wrong I love Instagram. 

I love editing and posting pics from our life and getting a peek into others 

but that's just what it is

a peek.

A tiny glimpse into one second of their day.

Sometimes these glimpses inspire or leave you in awe (like when you see a picture of a beautiful sunset or a tiny snowflake).

sometimes they make you laugh (I'm totally a fan of the new video addition)

sometimes they encourage and build you up

but sometimes (maybe a lot of the time) they leave you discouraged and disheartened. 

Feeling like you are falling short. 

Like you are not as good of a mom/friend/crafter/decorator/baker/stylist/photographer/shopper/adventurer (fill in the blank) as the person whose awesome picture you are looking at. 

That was taken for one second of their day.  

 Here's a little example.

Yesterday I took this pic of me and Wesley. 

I could have posted it with the caption

"Playing with my boy"

and you might have thought a million different things.

Maybe you would scroll right past it

or maybe you would think "that's a cute pic".

Or "that's sweet...spending time with your kids is good".

Or maybe you thought...

"She has 4 kids and still has time to spend with each of her kids. She's such a good mom. I rarely do that."

What you can't tell from this picture is the conversation that happened before it.  

 As we were in the car driving home from dropping Kenzie off from school Wesley asked if I could play with him when we got home.

My first thought was, "I don't have time to play...the house is a disaster and I have so much sewing to get done" but I told him, "Sure, baby. What do you want to play?"

He said, "No I want you to PLAY with me".

I repeated myself..."Well what do you want to play. Do you want to paint? We could do some watercolors?" Or I was thinking to myself...we (I mean you) could watch a movie. Movies are so much fun.

Wesley: "No mom. I want you to play with me. You are always doing grown up stuff."

Knife to the heart! Ok Ok I get it. I'll PLAY with you. Whatever you want. 

{Don't worry I didn't say that just thought it}

So after some discussion he decided he wanted to play stuffed animals with me. 

So we pretended his stuffed animals were in school. 

I was the teacher and he was the adult helper "Mr. Sellars". 

It was 45 minutes of work. 

Good work.

Playing (I mean really getting down on the ground and pretending and playing WITH my kids) can be hard. 

And 10 minutes of pretend play can sometimes feel like an hour.

I'm not going to lie there were a couple of times I tried to make school be over with but he clearly wasn't done (but Mom...they haven't had snack, or they haven't done their memory verse yet, etc.)

but it was a sweet time with my boy.

 A time that I need to make happen more often. 

Especially in the busy seasons where I feel like there just isn't time to do it. 

The other day I was scrolling through my Instagram profile page (where you can see all of your recent pics) and I laughed. 

Because from the outside in it looks like I have it all together (ha!).

It totally seems like I'm always taking my kids out on fun adventures, doing crafts, planning Christmas traditions, taking perfect pics with my family, and sewing for my kids. 

What you don't see are all the meltdowns in between, the dirty dishes in the sink, the 50 pictures it took to get the one of all of us smiling at the same time, the loss of patience, the sibling rivalry, the poopy diapers and everything else that goes on in daily life.

Life is hard. 

Parenting is hard.

Good but hard and messy and rarely picture perfect. 

Yesterday my friend posted this on Facebook. 

to which I replied

"Peppermint Jojo's. everyday."

This is real life people. 

We all sneak Oreos in the kitchen.

And we all need grace. 

everyday. 

On ourselves and on others. 

And thankfully Jesus gives it out freely and generously.

To me and to you. 

All we need to do is to come to Him to get it. Frequently.

So next time you see a picture on Instagram that leads you to compare or be discouraged

just remember it's only one second of time and there is always a story behind the picture.