Beauty in the Mess ~ Edition 2.13.14

It’s been a LONG 5-6 weeks since my last Beauty in the Mess post. January took a lot out of me and February has been no different!

There’s been a lot of cold weather, some bouts of snow. (As I write, we are currently snowed in and tomorrow will be our third day in a row stuck at home with nothing to do!) These weeks leading up to Ezra’s 3 1/2 year mark in March have been very very tumultuous for him. His behavior has been really difficult to manage (which you can read about in this post from my perspective and in this post from my husband’s perspective).

But there have been a lot of positive things going on.

My husband and I are actively pursuing starting back up professional counseling both as a couple and individuals through the local vet center. We’ve only gone through intake so far and haven’t gotten quite into the actual sessions but that will be happening soon!

We have enrolled Ezra in a three-day a week, full day preschool program to give us some much needed whitespace and to give him interaction with other children and the ability to form relationships. I’ll be talking about this in an upcoming post because this was a very emotional decision for me. (I’d like to share some of my thoughts about it, especially when I was very vocal in an earlier post about how he wasn’t in preschool.)

There have been some other positive changes going on that I’m not quite ready to share as of yet, but hopefully soon I can share some good news with you all. There’s a lot of things we are waiting on that will hopefully offer us a little better financial and every-day life situations in the near future, but for now we are in a holding pattern waiting for those things to take off! (Sorry for the crypticness here, and no, I’m not pregnant in case your brain was going there…)

I feel like our family is headed in a very good direction, coming out of a very complex and difficult year as we have transitioned out of the Army.

So yes, there is beauty in spite of the mess!

There is beauty in daddy-son selfies:

And there is beauty in a gluten-free chocolate cake, decorated and eaten “just because” (especially when it followed some other culinary disasters in the kitchen)!

There is beauty in seeing our first ever movie as a whole family!! And even though I have very conflicted thoughts about the movie Frozen, I’m so glad that we went! Great memory for me!

There is beauty in snow, even though right now I am really wishing that Ezra’s third day of preschool wasn’t already cancelled! These pictures were taken a few weeks ago when we had an inch or two to play in!

And these pictures will give you a peek into some of what we’ve been dealing with behavior wise with Ezra – it’s like he’s being ornery, on purpose!

Purposely ornery face, and piles of laundry. #storyofmylife

And there is beauty in friends who let us borrow their backyard and their sleds for some mommy-son sledding fun!

There is beauty in a boy who tries to be helpful and a daddy who encourages him in helpful endeavors (even if they put him in precarious positions!)

There is beauty in a family date night – complete with smooth jazz, candles, and gluten free pizza. The candles were a huge hit with Little Man!

There is even some beauty in bathroom selfies on good hair days. Because you need to remember those moments when you feel beautiful!

There is beauty in this little man who treats playtime at the mall like the next olympic sport!

There is beauty in date nights when the boy is at grandmas and we grownups do grownup romantic things like get Chinese food, Cheerwine, and watch totally romantic date night movies like Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2. Of course.

There is beauty in making myself Mommy Sanity Baskets with a Bible, journal, reading material, pens, nail polish, and chocolate. Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed I sneak into my room to have a visit to the Mommy Sanity Basket!

There is beauty in Ezra improving his prewriting skills and moving up to tracing letters! I love seeing him grown and get better at his skills!

There is beauty and a lot of humor in taking your three-year-old to the library and having the one book he takes off the shelf to read be the encyclopedia!

There is beauty in taking photos at the photo booth, for free, of course!

Grocery store trips with Ezra are never what I would consider to be fun, but I try to find beauty in them regardless and remember that he won’t be this little or this difficult forever!

There is beauty in putting in a few days of serious work into fine-motor skills at home! (Thank you Pinterest for the fabulous ideas!) He called this one a “tomato porcupine.”

There is beauty in finding new outfits…in your own closet. Thanks to cardigans and scarfs for some extra mix-and-match!

There is beauty in this little boy being a Macky-roni buggy!

There is beauty in this little boy asking “Can you take a picture of us?” right before bed!

There is beauty in Sunday mornings off. We stayed home because Russ and I had been fighting a bad cough and cold. I made bacon and orange juice, we had coffee and Craisins, and we watched a bit of Olympics online. Ezra liked the “sledding.”

There is beauty in so much pretending going on in the house these days. On this occasion, Ezra was being a pirate!

And then an elephant, in Mommy’s shoes. (Not sure what that says about my feet!)

And then, over the past 24 hours, there’s been beauty in this snow. The news says we’ve gotten about 6-10 inches and I believe it! I don’t own a pair of boots because my feet grew after Ezra was born and I never got around to buying more because, well, there was never need! (Note to self: buy boots.) So I ended up wearing Russell’s boots instead.

Then I bundled up in an infinity-scarf-turned-burka!

After our short walk last night, I think Ezra had had his full of snow and sleet in his face and did NOT want to go out in the snow today! So I brought the snow inside to HIM!

The world’s smallest indoor snowman!

And some snow cream. I made mine with half-n-half, honey, vanilla, and some sugar-coffee-chocolate shaker stuff from Trader Joes. I have also heard some great things about this recipe, if you want to use an actual recipe!

So there you have it. Our winter beauty in this mess of snow and cold and exhaustion and cabin fever!