4 years? Whoops.

Let's not even pretend that I'm going to do a good job keeping up. I'll probably never do a good job keeping up. This blog is just another item on a long list of things that I'd like to do regularly but just don't seem to have the time or motivation for (like exercising daily, taking pictures, catching up with old friends, etc.). So much has changed since 2012 that it almost makes my head spin. We bought our first house (and we LOVE it!). I completed four egg donations. We celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary, and Big C turned 30. I started a new job in 2012 and changed career paths altogether in 2015. The boys started preschool in 2015 and will be starting kindergarten this fall. Oh, and I'm 23 weeks pregnant with another bouncing baby boy due June 17!

It makes me tired just thinking about how far behind I am on chronicling our lives. I initially intended for this to be a great way to "journal" everything that happens to us, but with my job change in 2012 also came greatly decreased access to uninterrupted time at a computer (more about that later).

I'll do my best to hit the high points, and I'm sure I'll fall behind again in about 16 weeks (if not before then), but at least I'm making the effort. This is what my real life looks like - the constant trying, succeeding, failing, and trying again. I've never painted a too-good-to-be-true picture of our lives in what I write or what I present in general. I have a lot of reasons for this, but mostly it's because if my kids ever want to look back and read anything I've written, I want them to have a realistic glimpse of what our life looked like. Sometimes it was wonderful, and sometimes it sucked. I've always had some irritation toward people who only show the best side of life because let's be honest here - nobody on this planet has a life that is all glitter and roses. It just doesn't exist, but you can skim any social media site and quickly find several people who make it seem like their existence is nothing but joy and wonder. I feel like trying to pretend that everything is sunshine and rainbows just leads to unrealistic expectations and frustration. I'm not interested in presenting a ridiculous façade of having a perfect life. For starters, I'm too tired to pretend or sugar coat the reality, and even if I had the energy or the time, I still wouldn't want to.

I am, however, interested in being honest and up front about what our life looks like. Is it amazing? Yes. Is it wonderful? Yes. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. I yell at my kids. I constantly question my ability to be a good mother and wonder just how badly I'm screwing them up on a regular basis. I get irritated and sometimes pick fights with my husband. We have student loans, cars, and a credit card that we are working to pay off. My family deals with a lot of personal issues that, while they aren't mine to share, definitely have an impact on my stress level and often cause rifts in some of my personal relationships. Just last night, after a week of little things that typically wouldn't phase me, but because I'm pregnant, tired, and emotional, I broke down crying in the car over something ridiculous and stupid. I fight battles of wills with the tiny humans every. single. day. and it wears on my patience and my nerves. 

But we also laugh a lot every single day. We paint trains and go to the trampoline park. We talk. We snuggle, watch movies, and read books. We take vacations as a family and as a couple. We hug and kiss, and we love so fiercely that sometimes it's overwhelming. Is it a perfect life? Not by societal standards. Is it so much more than I ever earned, deserved, or believed I would have? 1,000 times YES.