beautiful chaos

I am pretty messy person.  My home, car, bills, laundry, kitchen cupboards are all kind of disheveled, but I know where everything is.  I like to think it's endearing, although my husband probably doesn't agree.  He always wonders how I can "destroy" a clean house in just a couple of hours.  If you come over to my house unannounced I'll probably be in yoga pants and an old t-shirt, but I'll invite you in and scoop all of the clean unfolded laundry off my couch so you can sit down.  We probably don't have any juice or pop to offer you (not organized enough to keep things in stock for visitors!), but I'll offer you some ice water. 

Some of that disheveled-ness rubs off onto my appearance and wardrobe.  I don't blow dry my hair except on special occasions, rarely wear makeup, etc.  So yesterday morning when I had to get everyone out the door and looking presentable to go take our family Christmas pictures, it was very chaotic in our home.  Because let's face it, my husband did nothing to help prepare.  The night before I had to drag Livia to the mall at 8 pm to find a red cardigan for me and some black tights for her because of course I waited until the last minute to get everything ready.


I also was very stressed about what to do to include Kayla in our pictures.  I don't have a special necklace or a stuffed animal.  At one point I really was considering taking her urn but realized that might not be 'appropriate' for Christmas cards.  And it's hard because of course I don't want to deny her and she is a part of our family, but I don't necessarily need anyTHING in the picture to remind me of her.  She is with us in spirit, always.  In the end I just wore her birthstone ring because it's something I wear often and has meaning for me.  If I had been more organized I might have bought a special ornament or actually ordered the birthstone necklace I've been wanting.  But again, I'm just not that organized! 


 I finally got all of our clothes laid out and all the props I wanted to take in one bag, and got some sleep.  Then Livia decided to wake up at 3:30 a.m. thinking it was already morning because she had gone to sleep earlier than usual.  I rarely get out of bed with her--if she wakes up we just nurse and go back to sleep, but that night she wanted to play!  So we spent some time on the couch and once we went back to sleep we didn't get up until 9 when we had to be out of the house by 10:15 to meet our photographer friend.  That didn't happen, we were about 40 minutes late! 

At one point I was pawing through our linen closet, stuff literally spilling out into the hallway (where I left it, because I didn't have time to clean it up right then...see how easy it is to make a mess?!) and at the same time my husband was rifling through rubbermaid tubs at the back of our closet, looking for his 'nice belt' that he hadn't worn since our wedding 2.5 years ago.  Neither one of us had coffee and Livia was still wearing her pajamas (I changed her at the photo shoot!), but we finally made it out the door.  It was stressful!  My husband and I both blamed each other for being so late.  We were wearing winter clothes but it was a crazy 70 degrees here, so we were all a little sweaty.  But it was great.  I love the chaos of our family, as long as I can tame it sometimes.  After all of that rushing, the rest of the day was beautiful.  Livia didn't cry through at least 4 outfit changes and 3 location changes.  We spent the day as a family and got some great pictures out of it.  And we looked good while doing it!  At least we can fake it sometimes, but then we came home and saw our disaster of a house and realized we are never going to be that family that has a spotless house or suddenly become more photogenic--we will always be a little disheveled.  But I like it that way. 

I'm so cute, and oblivious to the chaos of preparing for this moment!

no big deal, we just decided to all match today