I had planned to show a “one year later” picture from the pregnancy announcement I made a year ago this week. You know, a sappy collage showing “what a difference a year makes.” That’s when I saw Jill’s Slice Of Perfect In Our Messy Reality challenge. That’s a perfect excuse to dress up my kids and take the pictures I wanted to take anyway! Jill is fun. I love her blog and I enjoyed talking with her when I met her at BlogHer a couple of years ago.

Then my messy reality hit and I couldn’t find the originals of the photos I took of Charlotte when we announced that she would be a big sister.  This is likely due to my progesterone fueled brain in April 2013. So, for last year click here. I think it turned out pretty cute, but I’m all kinds of biased.

On with the challenge! It’s April, 2014.

Here are these beautiful slices of perfect I captured of Charlotte and Henry the other day. Ya’ll, I can’t even stand it when I see these shots of my babes. Gah!

Now for the messy reality. Sorry to break it to you, but they are not always this darling. I had to coax Charlotte into taking these pictures. Bribery in the form of Easter candy was involved. I did have to do a little editing with these. I cropped out some extra space, boosted the highlights and removed the wall socket. Now I will back up and show you the whole room. Charlotte is blocking the pesky socket in this shot.

We’ve lived in this house for a year now and this room remains pretty much empty. It will one day be a formal living room or dining room, I guess. Watch for the rogue coffee table we took out of the den because our kid kept banging into it. Beware the modem and WiFi extender on the floor. We still have mediocre WiFi at best. On the left is my nephew’s car seat since my sister and her family are in town for Easter.

I appreciate Jill doing this challenge. I have a bad habit of comparing myself to other’s perfectly edited DSLR photographs. Ya’ll, so many of us are duped into believing we aren’t good enough when we see other people’s lives through Instagram filters. Remember, no one shares shots of the messy reality on their Facebook wall.

This morning Greyson was quizzing Charlotte on her Sesame Street stuffed animals.  He would ask, “Which Sesame Street friend is orange?” She would reply, “Ernie!”  He would ask, “Who has a beak?” “Who lives in a trashcan?” and so on.

He asked “Who has a friend named Blogg?” For the uninformed, Abby Cadabby has a segment called Abby’s Flying Fairy School with a character named Blogg.

Charlotte said, “Mama! Mama has a friend named blog!” We stared at her in amazement. Somehow my 2 1/2 year-old is aware of my little online diary of our lives.

Sadly, it has been neglected in recent weeks and I’ve been posting less. This is mostly because I’ve just been insanely busy working. When I’m not working I’m enjoying myself  and not writing as much. Granted, my Twitter  and Instagram are extensions of this space and always hopping! You can find me there or on my Facebook page. I promise to be a better friend to my friend blog. We’ll be in touch soon! Promise.

Image from muppet.wikia.com and copyright of Sesame Workshop. (Blogg is the purple guy in the center.)

I didn’t know that I needed today.

I didn’t know that I needed to see my daughter’s excitement when she woke up in the bed next to me, surprised that I was there. We are spending the night with my sister and brother-in-law. When I put her down, she thought that was just her bed for the night, not knowing we were sharing. I didn’t know that when I woke up I needed her wide eyes smiling at me and I needed to hear her whisper, “Mama!”

I didn’t know that I needed to catch my husband on the phone for a last goodbye early in the morning before he flew to the other side of the world. I needed to miss him and needed to tell him I loved him.

I needed the last minute rush of printing blog business cards at the FedEx Kinkos at 8:00am this morning because I can’t for the life of me find all the damn cards I had printed for BlogHer ’12 and I had to have new ones for SITS Bloggy Boot Camp today. I needed the fast work and kindness of Chris at FedEx Kinkos. Hey, FedEx execs! Give that guy a raise!

I needed the bustling room of other bloggers and chats about SEO and utilizing Pinterest. I needed to hear the ideas of speakers and reminders of new Facebook rules for fan pages.

I needed to come home to my happy child who is finally feeling better after almost a full week of nasty funk. I needed to see that she had been spoiled rotten that day as only aunts and uncles can spoil a child.

I needed to eat greasy pizza and lick the parmesan off my fingers while listening to my sister’s infectious laugh. I needed to sniffle through the final episode of “The Office” and recall our favorite of Steve Carrell’s “That’s what she said” lines.

Mostly I needed this break.

I needed to restore myself a little and today did it. I’ve been a little worried about me lately. I wasn’t really myself through the first trimester and then the move. I’ve been more stressed than necessary at work. Frankly, I need to relax about it all. The pregnancy, work, the move, all of it. I need to give myself a break.

So I did, because I needed it.

Hey there!  I was a little quiet on the blog this week, but believe me when I say I had blogging on the brain.  I had been wanting a makeover for awhile.  Thanks to Sarah at One Starry Night, things are freshened up quite a bit.  She came up with this fabulous design that I hope all you darling readers like.

I’m working to stretch my writing and make my site even better.  I can’t do it without the help of people like Sarah.  Poor Kelly has the arduous task of being my blog host.  She is with the amazing Twenty 70 Hosting  and has to hear my Widget whines and HTML blunders.  Both Kelly and Sarah are so kind and patient with me and my Internet ineptitude.

Thank you with all my heart for reading my blog.  Please comment and email.  I always want to know what you’re thinking, good and bad.  It blows my mind sometimes that people read the words I write.  This blog has been an outlet, a community, a recorder and a soapbox.  Above all, it’s been a happy blessing.

If you don’t already read my friend Erin’s blog, you totally should.  She came up with a fun idea for a link up and I’m all about it.  Why?  Because it has to do with sparkly stickers.  Let’s face it, I love sparkly stickers about as much as my two-year-old loves them.

Her idea?  Parents should get gold stars for being awesome, or simply for doing things that aren’t terrible.  Agreed.

• My little potty-trainer said she needed to drop a deuce.  Yes!  We’ve been working on that.  I hurried her to the commode.  I helped her pull down her pants and a turd fell out and rolled on to the bathroom floor.  I did not groan and grimace.  Nope.  I plastered a shit eating grin on my face and said, “Uh oh!  That’s okay!  You got really close to the potty!”  I helped her do her business and cleaned up.  My little one then reminded me “You no eat poo poo, Mama!  Is yucky!”  I had my shit eating grin on for nothing.