If you don't like seeing pictures of my boys, you should probably just move on.

I feel it's only fair to warn you that you are in for a major photo bomb!

The best is yet to come.

As I wrote yesterday, it was our 6th wedding anniversary.  

We didn't have any fancy plans, but we both knew that we wanted to do 2 things - celebrate with our kids and then celebrate without them.  

The zoo seemed like a perfect place to celebrate with them, so after breakfast we started to get ready to head out the door.  In the midst of my preparations, I walked past a box on the counter that was covered up by a towel.  

"What's this?" I asked as I whipped the towel off of it.

6 years.

6 years ago I put on a white dress.

I walked down the aisle of the church I'd walked down for my first communion.  

I smiled, arm in arm with my parents, looking at all of the people who were looking back at me.

And then I caught a glimpse of the man that I was going to spend the rest of my life with. 

My eyes met his and I saw his tears and mine began to fall.

We spoke words of love and commitment to one another and exchanged rings and kisses.  

We celebrated with our family and friends til the wee hours of the morning.

And we've never looked back.  

6 years later, I can honestly say that I love him more than I ever have.  

Turns out, I actually do like living in Florida.

"It's the most wonderful tiiiiiiiiime of the yeeeeeeeear!"

I've been singing that song a lot lately.  

I know, it's about a month past Christmas, but seriously, this is the weather I LIVE for here in Satan's butthole.  

60s, maybe even low 70s during the day, dropping to the 50s, or even 40s, at night.  Puuuuuur-fec-tion.

We take full advantage of that perfection and spend as much time outside as possible.  The boys love racing around the backyard, climbing, and playing in their gravel pit.  And of course Mommy loves that they burn off as much energy as possible.  

December 2012.

Oh, December.  I have a love/hate relationship with that month.

I love the holidays, hate the chaos that comes with it.  Love the cooler temps it brings to FL, hate when the temp spikes and I get back sweat while putting up my outside decorations.  Love the decorations, hate the fact that Floridians put up icicle lights and snowmen (My husband is totally included in this category.  He put icicle lights on our house last year.  I mean really, let’s not pretend that it’s ever going to snow here.  Frosty the Snowman would be a puddle.  Snoopy in a snowglobe?  I’m fine with it.)

 I saw this while at HobLob one day.  Of course I wanted to buy it immediately so that I could measure how much snow we get this year.  

Beach babies.

The weather has been a bit cooler lately.  Cooler, meaning I can go outside and not immediately break out into a sweat.  The AC is off and the windows are wide open and we can enjoy the nice breeze blowing through the house.  I live for this time of year in FL.  

Today we decided to head to the beach, just for a little walk.  At first, Brian pulled the brothers in the wagon while I made sure Brennan didn't try to go swim with the fishes.  

November 2012.

I’m so behind with monthly family updates, it’s not even funny. They take awhile to write, and they probably aren't all that interesting for other people to read, but it’s something that I really, truly enjoy looking back at (and it helps me fill in the blanks for the boys’ memory books).  So, here we go with November …

We started out the month with a photo shoot.  I know I've mentioned my friend Lisa before.   She takes beautiful pictures and I couldn't wait to squeeze in a shoot after the boys’ birthdays and before the holidays.  Every time we have a family photo shoot I walk away thinking that we’ll have 4 good shots because Brennan won’t look at the camera for more than a nanosecond and Kiernan won’t.stop.moving.  But of course Lisa pulled it off and our photos are GORGEOUS.  There are an abundance of cute pictures of Mr Beckett because he was hamming it up all over the place.  And she took some very sweet ones of Brian & I.  I love taking a few of just us because it’s where this whole circus began (and I hate my wedding photos, so it’s nice to have a few cute pictures of us together).

Apparently something about January 17 just STINKS.

Yesterday I awoke to a little foot full of poop stuck in my face.

"Moooooom!  Wake up!  It's a 'mergency!  There's poop on my foot!"

Uggggggghhhhhhh.

While I scrubbed the crap from between his toes, Brennan informed me that his doggies had pooped in the family room.  So while he enjoyed some milk and TV in my warm snuggly bed, I scrubbed dog diarrhea out of the family room rug and followed some little poopy footprints around the rest of the house armed with my spray bottle and paper towels.  Thank God for tile floors.

Then the brothers woke up with giant diapers full of reminders of everything they had eaten the previous day.   Once we were all cleaned up, we headed outside to play.  I started picking up dog poop while the boys played in the gravel pit.  3 large dogs + a small backyard = lots of poop to pick up in order to avoid messes.  But of course, Kiernan managed to find a pile that I hadn't gotten to yet.  A fresh pile, I might add; one that must have felt nice and squishy between his toes.

"Moooooom!  It's a 'mergency!  Brother is stepping in pooooooop!  And he's laughing!"

Uggggggghhhhhhh.

2 trips to the bathroom to scrub shit from between little toes ... all before noon.  All I could smell for the rest of the day was poop, no matter how much I scrubbed or lit candles or shoved kleenex up my nose.  Whether I was wiping bottoms or not, I couldn't get the smell out of my nose.  So I called the hubby and demanded that he rent a carpet cleaner on the way home and what little carpet and few rugs that we do have in our house were cleaned before the boys went to bed.

After the boys were in bed and the dishes were washed and the house was clean, I still smelled it.  I headed to the shower to wash away the stank from the day and when it entertained the idea of shoving soap up my nose to wash it clean, it occurred to me that I'd written something about that before.

I searched my archives to find this post, written exactly one year to the day earlier than yesterday.

Apparently something about January 17 just STINKS.

I swear I've never let my kid watch Austin Powers.

"Hey!  Mommy!  I heard a sound in the kitchen!"

 Brennan flew into the playroom and wrapped himself around my legs.

"Oh yeah, buddy?"  I asked, as I continued my attempt to clear the floor in preparation for the monthly carpet vacuuming.  "What kind of sound?"

"Um, it was a noise."  He replied.  "You better come 'vestigate with me.  It might be a 'mergency."

I gave up my quest for a clear floor and decided that the vacuuming would have to wait til February.  Maybe that's when I would get around to mopping the floors too.  Maybe.

We wandered into the kitchen and he pointed to the pantry.

"Noise, HO!"

These legs were made for climbing.

My boys are climbers.  

 

They are ALWAYS climbing on something.  Toys, furniture, people ... 

... the sand table, kitchen chairs ...

 

Hello.....

::knock knock::

Anyone still there?

Honest to God, life is simply insane lately.  We got a ton of stuff accomplished yesterday and yet the list still remains 12 miles long.  And in 2 days I get on a plane to head back to the mitten (yes, again) to start another semester of classes.  ::gag::

My therapist tells me that I'm dealing with it "quite well".  I feel like I'm not dealing with it at all.  Who knows who's right.  Maybe a little of both?

Truthfully, I'm just in a funk.  I'm crawling out of it and I think that my solo trip to Michigan will allow me the time to clear my head and come back refreshed.  I'm going to consider it my vacation from my vacation.  And hopefully get caught up on a crap ton of writing.  Because that's something else my therapist tells me to do.