Power of a Family: Happy Fall!

I think I've slept more in the past four days than in the two previous weeks combined. Sometimes do you just feel exhausted? The Arizona retreat was amazing, and I came back wanting to be a great mom, but of course, that requires me to catch up on sleep.

Here are a few photos from the past week:

Spencer's preschool had a special Friendship Feast in honor of Thanksgiving. These are the kinds of photos I'm going to miss someday:

Grace and I went to the Power of Moms Retreat in Arizona, and I need to do a whole separate post about it, but here's a quick photo of the beautiful home where we got to hold the event (I love our new banner . . . it makes everything feel so official):

And here's a snapshot of one of our panel discussions, led by Saren, with Nichole, Myrna, and Shawni on the panel:

I always joke with our attendees about a common syndrome that many mothers get once they return home. It's called "Post Retreat Let-Down Syndrome." When you come back from a rejuvenating weekend, and your children seem to be arguing a lot, the house seems out-of-control, and you feel like you'll never be on top of things, you just take a deep breath, give yourself a week to recover, and realize that life will look better soon.

Alia wanted to do a photo shoot with all the children, and she got everyone dressed in matching outfits. I was feeling incredibly grumpy that morning, but in an attempt to be the spontaneous, fun mom I've always wanted to be, I took them on a walk down to the park and spent a few minutes enjoying our little patch of fall foliage (most of the trees around here are still green).

I love Spencer's green crocs. He wears them every day.

Ready, set . . .

THIS is how I imagined motherhood:

It's so funny because honestly, life only feels like this about one percent of the time for us. Of course we have beautiful, precious moments throughout each day, and of course we feel an intense amount of love for our children on a continual basis, but the sheer joy in the photo above is what I live for. That's why I'm grateful for cameras.