People as me ALL THE TIME “how do you do it?”

I ALWAYS have to start off by telling them that the only way I CAN do it is Joe.  He is THE reason I jumped out and started this journey…him, faith and my boys (starting with the birth of Jake)…if it was not for Joe and his sacrifices of time and insane encouragement I have no idea where I would be.

But, because of my amazing husband, I thought I would let you peek into the life…if only for a day or two, and tell you what this crazy life is all about.

Are you ready??
Let’s see:
We get woken up by our boys every morning, at this stage of life, at 7ish.
I, oh so gracefully, get out of bed with a HUGE smile on my face and completely fresh breath.
LIE
I get up, barely open my eyes and barely make it into my kitchen where I ask the boys to watch a cartoon so that I can get the coffee pot brewing.
THANK GOD FOR COFFEE!
Then the whining begins
We make the minions breakfast, I DRINK my Carnation instant breakfast because I LITERALLY do not have time to sit down while refereeing fighting over toys and what to watch.
We make the boys clean up their plates (aka, put them in the sink) then we get Holt out of the highchair, change diapers and MAYBE get them dressed, if they have school (Tues/Thurs)
If there is no school, there is no telling how long the PJ’s stay on for that day…depends on how much sleep I got the night prior and how much whining I can take.

So we either RUSH off to school, or head to the gym, depending on the day.
If they are at school, I get about 3 hours of work done, sometimes I remember to eat lunch, a lot of times I don’t…I seriously cram soooo much into those hours I don’t even want to get up.
If they are not at school, we run errands, go the the park/playground, try to suck up time to keep them active until lunch.
We eat lunch and then hope to get them to go outside and play so that I can at least sit and eat at lunch in a little peace.
Holt still takes afternoon naps, so it is really hard to put him down and then keep the other two boys entertained at the house.  Things get pretty boring…AKA…mom gets pretty boring.
So we movie it up or ride bike on the driveway or Miss Claire’s gift of the monster truck. All while whining and fighting over many stupid things is screamed out across the neighbohood.
Then we wake Holt up play for a little and try to keep him out of everything.
Dinner is served…you thought every other meal was chaos…dinner doesn’t even compare.
No matter how well prepared we are there is NO way for me or Joe to sit down as a family.  There is always something that needs to be addressed, cleaned, made, refilled or whining to corral…you name it…chaos does not even work as a word to describe it.  WE LONG for the days of being able to talk over a meal, or not having to serve them literally every 10 seconds.
It will happen.  I have faith.
Then we clean the MESS, take them up for baths, where we ourselves often don’t stay dry.
All three bathe together.
All three still have to be helped in the bathing, drying and dressing arena…Jake is ALMOST there, but not 100% self-sufficient.
Then we try and calm them down by playing in their rooms.
Hug Holt…Holt to bed
Hug eachother. Pray
Boys to bed.
Joe and Kelly wait outside to see how many times we have to yell at them to hush or get back in their beds.  This can last anywhere from 20mins-1 hour.
THEY’RE ASLEEP.

If I’m lucky…Joe and I eat some dinner and gain the courage to head to our offices.

THEN we work.
Don’t ask how late we work until.  Just don’t.

sheesh…i’m just tied from writing it all out.

At the end of the day…I’m exhausted…but I would not trade any of it for all the money or anything in the world.
Our life is a perfect mess.  I totally understand that phrase now.
I do it all because I am passionate about what I do.
I am passionate about my family that is my #1 ministry so I would never give that up.
I am passionate about loving on my clients through not just their pictures, but by Christ’s love through me.
I simply adore what I get to do and who I get to work with.
Never have I worked so hard for anything in my life because never before have I been so passionate about the cause.

So, thank you for asking me “how do you do it?”
It makes me think and remember over and over how blessed I am to know what I love and to GET to do it every day.
Thank you for asking me to work with you.
Thank you for employing me so that I can employ others for the same great cause and love on them through what I consider my ministry.

Joe just read me this quote and it is sooooo true:
“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged people who kept on working.”

So, I keep working.  And we keep dreaming.  And I LOVE what we get to do.  Blessed beyond measure.
So, I’m sorry for another day without a business blog post…we have so many incredible weddings to blog…but all I could muster last night was this post of just mindless-ness.

Because the fact of the matter is that it all starts over again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and…. No such thing as weekends or different days of the week, for that matter. All so Groundhog day.  And frankly just thinking about that…

But just because it’s too fun…here is a crazy clip of the crazy life we love.
Happy Weekend y’all!