Inevitably Keely

This last week has been hard on me. We're coming up on a year since our car accident and I'm struggling with how much it is still a part of my life and my nightmares. I wrote a long piece reflecting all of that, but decided to only share it with my facebook friends. Honestly, I am embarrassed that I am still so affected and I didn't want to air too much of that here. But I am affected, and there was a lot of stress and panic attacks punctuated by a whole lot of tears and frustration this week. Sometimes, that wreck seems like it all just happened a month ago. I've also been struggling with who I want to be, what I want my focus to be. Free time comes rarely with two young kids. I adore being their mama and they make my world a better place, but there are certainly those days where I feel like I need more. Like there is more I need to be striving for and accomplishing. Tuesday night I told Daniel that I felt like I was having a breakdown. That if I didn't have some t...

The cookie pictured is old, but I still considered eating it. Because it's a cookie. I love cookies! What I did instead was look in my fridge and pantry. I decided I was going to choose at least one vegetable and make it yummy without adding too much. I chose mushrooms and sauteed them up. I scrambled up an egg. I mixed them together, added a little bit of cheese and some salsa and added it all to a whole grain tortilla. It was delicious and it took me five minutes. Take THAT, fast food. And then there was the cookie. I decided instead of eating that damn cookie, (because I was full... and it's a cookie. I've broken up with cookies.) that I was going to play with it a bit. I know, I know: Don't play with your food! And I know, "Throw it all awayyyyyyy. bad bad" ;) But it was a little bit therapeutic to take that cookie and do something creative with it. It made me laugh. And I need to keep a sense of humor about all this. And I sort of like testing myself - es...

It's been a while. I've been busy. Having two kids isn't easy... I am grateful I have such an amazing partner - in parenthood and life. I laugh every single day. I also teach, learn, and grow as my children do before my eyes. Speaking of... I wish I had a camera built into my eyes so I could capture every single moment. These are the days I want to remember always. This is hard work, but so worth it.

My girl has music in her heart. Have a great weekend.

She is my light, my inspiration, my joy, and my amazingly beautiful little girl. I simply cannot believe how quickly she has become a little girl since we brought her home almost two years ago. See the individual pics HERE .

See all the Finn pics HERE . Watch me and the kids here: Zoe is saying hello to Torrie's daughter, Willa after seeing her on flickr this morning. She says "Hi, Willa." and then again - but I thought she was just pointing at the baby. Sometimes it's not so easy to understand "toddler speak" right away.

This last Saturday we got the family up and ready so we could have a family/maternity photo shoot. You know, to sort of document this pregnancy even further and have some nice family photos of us when we were a family of three. One of our theatre friends (Danielle Radon) who in addition to be completely lovely, and a great actress and writer , is also a very talented photographer. What I realized from our shoot is that I'm no longer quite as comfortable in front of the camera now that I spend so much behind it. I got over that quickly though between Danielle making me feel at ease with me just being natural and Daniel making me laugh. What is very, very clear from the photos (I think) is that there is a lot of love and laughter in our family and I fully expect this to grow exponentially with the arrival of our son.* Anyway - let me quit with my words and show you some pictures! You can see all the pics HERE : *We're still set for 12/31... I've made absolutely no progress in...

I thought I'd share my view: I am HUGE! But I love it. And I am so looking forward to meeting Finnegan. Such a wild ride this has been!

As I was scanning photos in, I would show them to Zoe. "Look at mama, Zoe!" She'd stare very closely at the photo and then look at me for a moment. "Nooooooo!" giggle,giggle. Like I had just told her a silly, silly lie and I wasn't fooling her. I know, kiddo. I barely recognize me either. It sure was fun going down memory lane though! 1. High School Me's , 2. High School Me's , 3. High School Me's , 4. High School Me's , 5. High School Me's , 6. The gang - Senior Prom , 7. Me w/ my Sharon. , 8. 15? With Ramsey... , 9. At a school show , 10. BFF from high school and me , 11. Silly Girls , 12. With one of my good pals Created with fd's Flickr Toys .

3076. That's how many photos I have taken of my daughter since she was born nearly eighteen months ago. Let's do the math: My little one has been on the planet for 548 days, so that works out to being about 5 pics a day. Except, I didn't take 5 pics every day - which somehow seems more reasonable. Instead, I would go days and days without taking a picture and then all of a sudden I was uploading 100 pics of her in the same outfit , each photo nearly the same except she might have changed expression/position a little. And while we're being completely honest here, I've deleted tons of pictures of her. There were the ones that just weren't flattering at all - why save those? And then there were the ones where the lighting was bad and nothing could be done to salvage them. What has become evident though is this: 1. I am clearly obsessed with my child. 2. There is no way I'm going to be able to keep this up. Finn, I'm sorry. There just will not be as many pho...

1. What is your first name? Keely 2. What is your favorite food? Sushi 3. What high school did you go to? Palm Desert High School 4. What is your favorite color? Red 5. Who is your celebrity crush? Jack Black. And just so you know, this was the hardest question for me to answer. I almost went with this guy . 6. What is your favorite drink? Shiner 7. What is your dream vacation? New York . 8. What is your favorite dessert? Today, Red Velvet Cupcakes. (Tomorrow it will be different.) 9. What do you want to do when you grow up? Travel. 10. Who/ what do you love most in life? My family. 11. Choose one word that describes you? Thoughtful. 12. What is your Flickr name? KeelyE. I saw this on Sarcomical and Jayesel , and just had to join in the fun. I know, I know - I JUST did one of these. Give a pregnant lady a break people. I've got actual posts floating around in my head, but I seem to lack the motivation to sit down and write them. Anyway, the rules are the same as the last time :...

Click image to view larger and see those teeth even better. See more Wordless Wednesday's HERE .

More Here .

It's been one of those days. Not in a horrible way or anything, but in the "I need to just post a photo of the monkey and spend the rest of my time relaxing". I'm sure you know what that's like.

Find more HERE .

Inspired by my fellow bloggers , I decided to join in the fun with the Self-Portrait Truthiness Group started by Sweetney . I was kind of apprehensive about the whole thing because who wants to see me first thing in the morning besides my husband and Zoe? But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to give it a go. You see, I lasted like, ten days with the 365 portrait thing. I just couldn't get enthused about taking a pic of myself every darn day and I felt this need to try to look good and impress, and well... it just wasn't me. I found myself being very self conscious and just dreading trying to do it. Plus, I've already committed to blogging every darn day, much more than that and I start to feel like this is homework. I have enough homework, people! SO! Here's my truthiness: No make-up. No shower (for two days - I took one after this). No brush. And truth be told - it was kind of freeing. And I started to really have fun and just allowed myself to be s...

Find other participants HERE .

Find other participants here .

See others here .

See others here .