:thoughts on motherhood // family dates like whoa:

as a mother i often have candy-coated dreams. i think to myself, lets make a memory today and proceed to dream out the entire activity in my mind. in my dream, the children are laughing and smiling and completely joyful regarding the experience. we have great conversations with absolutely no bickering. they show respect to mommy and one another at all times. they squeal with delight when they realize this is a special adventure. they hug and kiss me endlessly as a show of their gratitude. then we all walk off hand in hand into the sunset. amen.

the above is a beautiful picture of a day well spent. unfortunately, it's totally unrealistic. will i think, lets make a memory today? yes. will memories be made? yes. will it be exactly as i described above? no. 

jacob took off for the day. hooray! family day! we did a few things around the house that needed our attention such as school, collecting the last of the bounty from our garden and a little tidying. then i promptly announced we were going on a family date! everyone was super excited. the plan was to make a quick stop for a bite to eat (which is a rare treat), then go to the park and lastly, go pick out pumpkins. easy-peasy, right?

we stop for a bite and the children are not happy with said bite. they whine and complain but push through because they can't have the sweet stuff until they eat the good stuff. so they pretty much had donuts for lunch. win-win! then one of them wanted more and would not be happy until that one had more. we did not give that one more so you complete that equation. 

we left the first stop of our memory making excursion and moved on to stop number two. they ran with delight to the jungle gym. they laughed and played while jacob and i followed the little darling around. it was all fun and games until it was time to go. one more miiiiiinuuuuuute they begged. we said yes, after all, we are making memories here. once their minute, give or take five, had passed we requested again that they go to the car. two gladly went, one did not. 

i walked hand in hand with my big girl, reminding her that i wasn't holding her hand because she needed me to but because we were best friends. she pulled close and said she would always hold my hand even in front of her friends and when she was older. we just read a book about a boy who didn't want his mom to kiss him in front of his friends. 

we finally wrangled all three little ones into the van and headed out for our pumpkins. we went to a little church in town that just brings a bunch of pumpkins to their front lawn for people to use as photo props and buy. the money supports the church so that's cool. 

the children were delighted at the sight of so many pumpkins. well, except rohen, she was quite skeptical of the whole event. they took turns trying to pick up the biggest one. they posed for pictures cheerfully and had fun picking out their tiny pumpkin to take home. 

family date complete. 

was it perfect? no.

was it easy? no.

was it wonderful? yes.