Crazy, Beautiful Days

As you may have noticed, I have been making some design changes around here lately, and I have been thinking about the title of my blog and how much it applies to life right now. 

When I titled this blog, shortly before my girls were born, I guess I had some idea that life was going to change.  I mean, I am certain that I must have realized it, but I can safely say that I did not at all realize the extent to which it would change. 

I knew there would be some crazy times, though explaining the exact chaos of adding two tiny infants into a formerly childless household is difficult to do.  It's something you have to experience to truly understand, and in retrospect, it is probably a good thing we didn't have a better grasp on what to expect for the first few weeks!

The level of crazy has fluctuated as the months have gone by, with some stages bringing a little more crazy than others.  I still say that nothing, nothing, can be as crazy or as out-of-control as those first few weeks, but there are still some moments when I sit back and can't believe this is my life. 

As the level of crazy has changed, the beautiful moments have only increased.  At first, yes, those tiny babies were beautiful and becoming a mother was an amazing thing, but I didn't understand the depth of my love for them yet.  As my attachment to and my relationship with my girls has deepened, the sweet times have just become that much sweeter.

Along with our best friends Kelly and Justin, we went on our first outing as a group of eight (four adults and four children under 2, including a tiny newborn!) last weekend.  We ate dinner and went to the botanical gardens walking tour of light displays.  The night was just amazing, if only for its simplicity.  As I watched our three one-year-olds run around the (blessedly) empty room at the restaurant, I realized I was looking at just one of the many crazy, beautiful moments that make our up our life.  Adults talking over whining children, digging crayon bits out of tiny mouths, finishing almost every meal with one child or another sitting in my lap and digging around on my plate, and watching our children begin what will hopefully be their own lifelong friendships...sometimes I am just overwhelmed with the simple sweetness of it all.  How did I wind up here?  How did I get so lucky?

Sometimes the crazy outweighs the beautiful, but often it's the other way around.  Put it all together and it becomes a life.  This life we are building...it's a lovely blend of a lot of crazy and even more beautiful, and I wouldn't trade a minute of it.