Sometimes people accuse bloggers of airbrushing real life out off their posts, focusing only on the beautiful, sparkly, aspirational parts of their day to day.

I think this is true. A lot of bloggers want their spaces to be about beauty, to represent the happiest moments, to share only the best memories with the world. Lovely things get lovely compliments. It’s nice to hear approval and admiration from other people, even if it doesn’t actually mean anything. Who doesn’t want to hear “You have a beautiful home” “Your children are adorable” or “Wow, that looks delicious”. Blogs are today’s magazines, and no one subscribes to an ugly magazine.

The problem is when everything looks TOO effortless and TOO perfect. When I read Martha Stewart Living, I know those homes and recipes and children have been styled and arranged and glossed within an inch of their life. When I read blogs I assume I’m getting a real, un-glossed story – or at least one one that is more true than false. Maybe you really do look like a model, have an all white living room and eat every meal in restaurants by candlelight. In that case I am very jealous of your life and won’t say a word about the authenticity of your blog. Congrats on being awesome.

But for the rest of you? Go ahead and show me your messy house or your yoga pants or your dirty children sometimes. Tell me the story of how you planned an idyllic picnic in a meadow but a dog ran off with your roasted chicken and your kids fell in a creek. By all means be beautiful, but be honest too. I’ve never shared a moment of weakness or truth and had someone walk away disgusted. Whether it’s through photos, words, or funny misspelled kitten pictures, let’s be real friends.

Because real friends tell you they let their kids watch 11 episodes of The Backyardigans yesterday AND eat cookies for dinner. They admit that they prepped all the cookie ingredients  like a sous chef on a cooking show so she could take fifty pictures without worrying about a pound of sugar ending up on the floor. A real friend will admit that she chooses and edits her photos because she wants to show off her kids being adorable but also because she enjoys taking and choosing and editing photos. A real friend will admit she ate five six seven cookies while doing all that editing.

A real friend would also share her cookies with you, but you better hurry over since these are going to be gone really soon.

Besides the prep and a little help spooning out the dough, these cookies were totally ginger-made. I couldn’t be more proud of my tiny bakers.

I think Caroline slept more this week than she has since she was a newborn. Poor lamb has never been so sick – the doctor called us Saturday morning just to check in since he was so worried about her. Luckily after we got her fever under control and started the antibiotics she improved VERY quickly and is right now playing hide and seek with her brother. Badly.

Sunday:

Sunday morning pancake face

This bedroll was a birthday gift and is has been right there on the floor since she opened it. She LOVES it.

Sure, a 6 pm nap seems like a great idea.

Monday:

Dinosaur Evan waits for Aunt Sara to get off the train

Do I have something on my face?

More naps

Tuesday:

This is how we keep company warm, since the thermostat is set to 63

Counting “monies”. It makes her very happy. I sense accounting in her future.

Caroline and Franz are ready to blast off

Wednesday:

Happy Birthday?

Rosy

Wiping his nose and scratching his butt. Oh boys.

Thursday:

Asleep at 8:45 am

Finally awake!!

Asleep again. Poor baby.

Friday:

This is my OB’s waiting room. I kind of want to live there.

Waiting at the pediatrician. Asleep again.

I doubt your commitment to my bath time tea party

Saturday:

E won a door prize at his work Christmas party. Maybe I’ll finally get my iPad back from the kids!

Snack in a fairy house

Now that the Neiman Marcus stuff is 50% off I thought about buying this again. But it is STILL $50 and I am STILL not that crazy.

Tomorrow my in-laws come to visit, the next day is Christmas Eve, on the 25th we’re going to make cookies and watch Christmas movies and then have our “Christmas” with presents and stockings on the 26th. Even with extra-early Thanksgiving the month has flown past and I can’t believe it’s almost over. I’m just so happy both kids look like they’re going to be healthy (KNOCK ON WOOD) by the time we celebrate Christmas.

Did you take iPhone photos of your week? Link up with one or several below! Please consider joining, even if you haven’t done it before – it’s really fun!

Here is a timeline of our weekend.

3 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he might not be able to come with us to Sesame Place for the weekend.

6 pm Friday: E calls to tell me he can PROBABLY come with us but not until 11 am on Saturday.

7 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he probably isn’t going to make it.

9 am Saturday: E calls to tell me he definitely isn’t going to make it so I should just take the kids and go. I make vague “Oh I don’t know…maybe we should just cancel…” noises but decide to go because I already paid for the hotel.

10 am Saturday: We hit the road!

10:10 am Saturday: We come home, because I forgot our season passes!

10:15 am Saturday: We re-hit the road!

10:30 am – 1:00 pm Saturday: The kids sleep almost the whole way, there’s no traffic, I only get a tiny bit lost and we make it to the park right as they open for the afternoon.

1:15 pm – 8:00 pm Saturday – Super good fun time at Sesame Place!

8:10 pm Saturday – Drive across the street to super nice hotel.

9:00 pm Saturday – Everyone is in jammies and in bed, but my migraine is horrible.

9:01 pm – 10:30 pm Saturday – Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, I cough, Caroline coughs, etc etc etc. Eventually we both coughed ourselves to sleep.

Midnight – Evan starts coughing so hard he throws up. I clean him up and get him a glass of water. He throws up into the glass of water. I get a new towel to clean him up again. He throws up again and I manage to catch it all on the towel. “Wow, nice catch Mommy!” says Evan.

12:30 am Sunday – Evan falls back asleep.

4:00 am Sunday – I wake up with my migraine pounding.

6:00 am Sunday – Caroline wakes up ready to party.

7:30 am Sunday – I decide I need a shower to relax and help my head. Caroline decides she needs to stand right outside the shower and scream.

7:40 am Sunday – I let Caroline join me in the shower so she’ll stop crying. She screams some more, rubs soap in her eyes, then tries to climb out of the tub and falls RIGHT on her chin.

7:41 – 7:42 am Sunday – Caroline bleeds on every surface in the hotel room while I frantically try to get dressed, stop the bleeding, and text my friend Kim to see if she can help me throw stuff in the car to find an emergency room.

7:45 am Sunday – Kim insists on taking Evan, I head to the nearest ER which amazingly shares a parking lot with our hotel.

8:30 am Sunday – Caroline attempts to give herself a stroke screaming her head off while the doctor gives her 3 stitches in her chin.

8:31 am Sunday – All the blood drains from my head, I start to feel hot and I ask the nurse helping me hold Caroline down if I can sit for a minute. She looks at me and says “OH MY GOD, SIT DOWN.”

8:32 am Sunday – I slump into a chair right as I lose consciousness. I wake up to a cup of water for me, apple juice for Caroline and some concerned looked medical staff.

8:40 am – 9:00 am Sunday – Caroline and I snuggle on the hospital bed until we both feel better, then head back to the hotel.

9:30 am Sunday – Caroline and I get some breakfast while Evan swims in the pool with Kim and her boys.

10:00 am Sunday – I decide we won’t be sticking around to do more Sesame Place and we head home.

2:00 pm Sunday – Home. Mickey Mouse on TV. I take 3 Excedrin and lie on the couch.

3:30 pm Sunday – E gets home and orders pizza. I basically give up on parenting and let the kids run wild.

7:00 pm Sunday – BED.

Basically, it was like a nightmare wrapped in a puke-covered towel, covered in screaming.

Except that really…it wasn’t that bad. The drive to Sesame was nice and easy. We were all dressed warmly and no one was whiny. The park wasn’t very busy and the kids got to ride lots of rides and see plenty of characters. We got to hang out with Kim and her mom and her wonderful boys. Even though we were all cough-y, Evan slept through my coughing and Caroline slept through Evan’s puking. Evan went right back to sleep after he got sick. No one complained to the hotel about our noise levels. Caroline handled her injury really well and didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. The ER was so close, almost empty and everyone was super nice. The doctor took one look at Caroline, said “Yep, stitches” and immediately got the nurse in to get stuff started. She’ll be better by Friday and have her stitches out before her birthday party. She won’t have a big ugly scar.  I didn’t hurt myself fainting. Thanks to my awesome friend Kim, Evan got to swim and have fun with his friends instead of spend the morning in the ER with me. Our drive home was pleasant and easy and traffic-free. I got pizza for dinner.

So in the end, despite the various…disasters, we had a nice weekend. The kids had fun. Caroline has totally forgotten her chin. I didn’t freak out. It didn’t scare me into never leaving the house again. On Monday, I packed up the kids and drove 45 minutes to a super-awesome kids museum. Then we ate lunch in a sit-down restaurant with friends. We had a lovely day and I already think the whole thing is funny.

It sort of feels like a win, which is something pre-kid Suzanne would NEVER call a weekend that involved cleaning up so many other people’s bodily fluids. Motherhood is crazy.

There isn’t exactly a shortage of scenic, fall-like locations in Connecticut, but sometimes you gotta escape to the Island. Rhode Island, that is. (Sidebar: trying explaining to a 3 year old why a place is called Rhode Island when a) it’s not an island and b) you don’t actually know WHY it’s called Rhode Island is hard). The Ocean State is pretty scenic too, especially if you’re a toddler who likes giant slides and goats. Then I highly recommend Clark Farms.

I’m taking a break-out session through Clickin Moms called Photographing Your Everyday and it’s sort of amazing. I was secretly hoping that just by READING really good advice on the internet my photography would somehow improve instantly. Oddly enough, it didn’t quite work like that and it’s going to take a lot of hands-on practice before I get better. But going into the day the intention of telling a story and a plan for how to do it definitely made a difference in my shooting.

Since we spent three full hours at the farm, it was kind of a long story.

Thanks to our friend Merin & her girls for inviting us and playing so nicely, even if the goats didn’t. I hope your kids crashed as hard as mine did last night, and you finally get to enjoy 9 hours of sleep.