My blessed life

Life is chaotic right now.  I feel like I say that a lot, but I don't want you to think it's a complaint.  More of a statement of fact.  Fact: Emma, Lola, and I were all sick today.  Fact: I packed 6 boxes today.  Fact: I worked from home today.  Fact: I emailed, scanned, signed, received, dropped off, initialed, etc., etc. lease documents, insurance documents, and purchase documents.  Fact: life is chaotic.  And to that point, I just panicked a little because I couldn't find any of my pictures to upload to the blog on this computer.  That's because I'm on my work computer...I can't even remember what computer I'm using.

Here's the proof:  a naked baby talking on the phone, dialing who knows what number...just as long as it's not 911.  I swore I would never be that mom who leaves her child on the floor wearing nothing but a diaper, ESPECIALLY when her fat rolls cover the sides and end up making her look like a little boy with a white wee-wee....she's going to kill me one day for publishing this picture.  But in my defense, I had to derobe her while I vacuumed up the rice cereal that she sprinkled across herself and the carpet...imagine Tinkerbell's fairy dust...well that's what Emma did with 6 tablespoons of rice cereal.  Oh, wait, how could I forget to tell you that Lola thoroughly enjoyed licking up the cereal, which turned into a thick paste in her newly washed and cut (as of yesterday) beard.  Agh, a couple more things: Emma's left eye is turned in because she's not wearing her glasses and absolutely refuses to do so...and the wisk and pot are on the floor because they entertained her while I cleaned up the aforementioned dog and carpet messes.

More proof: this living room is a visual representation of our lives at the moment.  Notice the guilty party on the right trying to escape the scene of the crime.

(PS - Russell, if you read my blog like you say you do, this is what I want for Christmas: a camera strap like Allison has that has a little pocket in which to put the lens cap because I've lost it approximately 37 times today.  I have found it each time, but not easily.  Allison got hers on Etsy.  Get in touch with her or Holly or Magee or someone like that to find a cute pattern.  Thus endeth the does-Russell-read-the-blog test.)

And I love every minute of this chaos.  Ok, well, I could do without cleaning up after a sick dog and child and not feeling 100% myself.  But besides the gory aspects of cleaning up after a sick dog and child, I am so blessed.  You can tell by looking at the enormous number of doctors' appointments for Emma next week that our daughter is not well.  You can tell just by looking at my +20 lbs post-baby weight that things are not perfect...and you can CERTAINLY tell by looking at the pictures above that our house is not perfect.  You can tell by looking at the giant stack of Emma's medical files that these past 2 years have been anything but easy.  But today we are happy.  God loves us, and we love Him.  Our friends and family love us, and we love them.

Ok, I will leave you with a video of Emma doing some of her favorite things: playing with a wipe, pulling the wipe apart, putting things into a pile, dismantling said pile, and answering Mommy's questions in her own language.  This video is also the perfect example of the strange little wave Emma has developed in an effort to unstick things from her hands.  WARNING: this video is 5 minutes long and could be conceived as boring...but not to me (or grandparents, either, probably), as I rejoice in the blessing of every moment of Emma showing us her personality.