This post is sponsored by Børn Shoes. 

It is no secret that the fate of our little family was almost ruined by a pair of shoes–sandals, to be exact–closed-toe fisherman sandals that looked like something Jesus would wear, except Brett was wearing them on a date in 2004 when everything was still being analyzed as possible red flags to boot him from the “guys I could be with” status.

“He’s super nice,” I told Heidi after one of our first dates, “and so good with his kids. But there is this one thing,” I admitted, “…I hate his shoes.”

“Oooooh, that’s a tough one,” she replied. “What, were they, like, double velcro old man tennis shoes?”

“God, no–not that bad,” I answered. “They’re just–I don’t know–really Jesus-y. Like woven lattice sandal things that had a buckle and covered his toes.”

“Totally overlookable,” she assured, “Go on another date. We can fix the sandals situation.”

Curtain fades.

Act 2, thirteen years later. Let’s talk about “overlookable” for a moment.

Scene: Our bathroom. Crusty old toothpaste is glued to Brett’s sink where my straightener and hair dryer are resting, despite the fact he continually reminds me that I have my own sink. Tangled cords dangle from the counter top, makeup is strewn everywhere, and an empty bottle of hairspray sits next to the soap dispenser. I’m wearing my favorite granny nightgown, and my hair is pulled back in a headband so that my charcoal mask doesn’t get in my bangs. “CAN SOMEONE GET ME A ROLL OF TOILET PAPER?!” I yell, except I’m wearing my retainer so it sounds more like, “SHAN SHUM ONE SHKET ME A ROLL OF CHOILET PAPER?!” There’s nothing but shreds left on the cardboard roll…again.

Brett walks in wearing the t-shirt the neighbors got him for a joke–the one that says “My Favorite People Call Me GRANDPA”–and a pair of boxers he’s had for four years. He throws me a roll of toilet paper but reminds me that I might want to clean the seat first because Dash used it last. He flosses his teeth before he exits…stage right.

And I was worried about a pair of bad sandals once.

This is our life. And we love it. Here’s the thing though. Shoes are still important. In fact, when we’re buried in scattered toys and spending Friday nights singing along to the Moana soundtrack in the car while we schlep kids to friends’ houses for sleepovers, it’s little things like good shoes and hip sunglasses and occasionally switching the station to 80’s rock that keep us from feeling entirely overlooked. We’ve evolved as a family over the years as have our priorities, and while that may mean I’m not so shallow as to throw a date with a great guy out the window over his shoes, it doesn’t mean I have to completely abandon style and my love of good footwear.

We find what makes us feel good, both in and out of our roles as “Mom” and “Dad,” and our friends at Born Shoes always have something that fits us both, in style and comfort.

(Brett’s wearing Born Allan loafers; I’m wearing their Tegal sandals.)

As always, Born doesn’t make you pay a comfort price for style. They know parents spend enough time sacrificing comfort getting kicked in the face from kids in the family bed, bending over to pick up stray Shopkins and lugging tricycles home on walks where their kids abandoned what they promised they’d ride the whole way…they’ll at least keep your feet comfortable while you’re in the trenches.

The Jesus sandals might be gone, but miracles of biblical proportions happen in our home every day–like this morning, when I turned around an almost ruined day from a ponytail that was supposed to be “HIGH high” and only ended up “kinda high.” Hallelujah, glory be. As for the mess in between the miracles? Totally overlookable.

I’m so happy I overlooked his sandals thirteen years ago.

Thank you to Born Shoes for adding style and comfort to our beautiful mess.

Remember last week when I wrote about my ride-or-die approach to traditions? Let me tell you how the new Easter traditions I tried to squeeze in this year went down.

A) Cascarones: Hit three stores to try and find them already made, and they were gone. Didn’t feel like cramming confetti through a small hole of an egg to make my own, so that one’s out.
B)  Eppers: The dog got into our hard boiled egg stash (don’t ask me how) which resulted in a pile of rotten egg vomit on my new floors, so that one’s out.
C) Glitter-turned-into-swirly-lollipops: I had this one. I mean, never mind the fact that World Market ran out of their big swirly lollipops so I had to get the corkscrew swirly lollipops instead, or the fact that I realized when we went to sprinkle the glitter that we didn’t have any glitter. But the kids were so excited about this new discovery–that the Easter Bunny will actually turn glitter into lollipops–I couldn’t let them down.

So I scrambled, somehow convincing the kids that the piece of glittery scrapbook paper I found in my desk was the same thing as glitter and that of course the bunny would transform it into lollipops. So we threw the piece of pink glitter paper on the lawn with a large wilted carrot I found hidden in the back of my produce drawer, and after the kids went to bed, I snuck back out to remove the carrot and the makeshift glitter and replaced them with three corkscrew lollipops I shoved into the ground. “This is going to be so awesome,” I told myself. “They’re going to remember this forever.” What I didn’t realize was that the lawn would get very wet in the night, and that animals would be interested in the lollipops, and that ants like sugar.

No sooner had the sun cast its first ray, and my kids were peering out the window, breathlessly excited, trying to make out if there were lollipops where the glitter paper had been left.

“Go see!” I said, preparing for a proud motherhood moment of “Nailed it.” This is it, man. Living the dream. I followed them out to the magic spot…

…and there, poking out of the grass, were three sorry lollipops, their plastic wrappers chewed through, bits of wet grass stuck to the melted goop that was seeping out the holes in the wrapper–brownish from all the colors bleeding together, ants crawling up the sticks. Nella’s stick had gotten so wet, it sort of bent in half, unable to keep the weight of the lollipop up anymore.

“Ew! It’s all goopy!” Lainey yelled.

And then Dash started crying. “Bugs! Bugs! Mine has bugs!”

Trying to save the moment, Brett piped up with some bullshit about “Oh, the lollipops aren’t to eat; they’re just to show you magic!” because the Easter Bunny is a dick. And then we watched three disappointed kids toss their magic lollipops into the garbage, and I heard Dash say “Disgusting.”

So, Happy Easter. It was quite possibly our finest moment of parenthood yet.

Redemption comes in egg hunts and Easter baskets, little bunny tracks throughout the house and a big family breakfast.

There was a great discussion on Instagram yesterday after a friend asked me if Lainey still believes–moms talking about how they handle that bridge age and so many good ideas for embracing both the wonder of childhood and their maturing imagination. I think every kid is different as is every parent, and each family finds their own approach to make believe and making holidays special. But I sense that she loves all this magic, even if it’s with a wink and an unspoken understanding of what it means. I look forward to inviting her to help create the magic for her siblings because she’ll love that, but right now, we’re still playing along…like we probably always will, even when all three are winking with the knowledge of the secret.

The day before Easter, we hit our local U-pick farm to gather flowers for our brunch table.

I’ll be so sad when this field is picked over for the season. The sunflowers are already gone, but there were still plenty of snap dragons.

I hope you all had a great Easter, failed traditions or not.

We’re still enjoying a day off today. I was in Target this weekend when Heidi called to inform me of some very important news. “What I’m about to tell you is going to blow your mind,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Tell me,” I said, bracing myself.

“The school starts the alphabet countdown next week for the end of the year. We only have an alphabet to get through before summer. That means we can officially give up next week.”

Shoddy lunches and half-ass effort from here on out, folks. Summer’s coming.

In the course of one week, poor Lainey broke her arm (fell off a scooter), and I came down with a cold that has rendered my voice this weird cross between David Sedaris and Joyce Meyer. Needless to say, we are looking forward to the long weekend  and Easter festivities. We have plans to do our normal egg hunt and Easter bunny baskets, but we are adding a few new fun traditions this year borrowed from some readers who shared some of their own traditions on Instagram, and now I’m stealing them because I’m a tradition hoarder. Someday, you will find me buried in a house with my traditions and 20 cats, and my children will worry about me and sign me up for “Tradition Intervention” which I’m predicting will be a highly popular reality show in 2030.

“She hasn’t showered in weeks,” they’ll say. “She just keeps hanging stockings and setting leprechaun traps, and the house reeks of rotten Easter eggs,” which are buried under family photo boxes soaked with cat pee, of course.

And then I’ll chase them, my eyes all glazed over, yelling, “LET’S GO FOR A MOONWALK!” And they will run, scared, tripping over shoe box Valentine houses from their kindergarten days and broken twinkle light strands from the reindeer runway I leave up all year.

“Please, somebody help her!”

Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.

Okay, this is what we’re adding this year: 1) We’re sprinkling glitter for the Easter bunny the night before Easter with hopes that he will turn it into swirly lollipops, 2) We’re playing Eppers with our dyed eggs, and 3) We’re going to crack cascarones over each other’s heads and make up blessings. Might I suggest approaching new traditions simply for fun and not a live-or-die standard for holidays. Don’t stress yourself out. Example: our Halloween fail of 2014 where traditions didn’t work out, and it still was perfectly memorable and special.

We got a head start this past weekend with our egg dying. This is the first year I didn’t line everything with butcher paper but rather just padded the dye jars with paper towel, and everyone was old enough to go about the process pretty carefully. I’m happy to report nothing got stained except my pants which were white–which was stupid.

We used a natural egg dye this year which took a lot longer to get a good saturated color, but it was all fruit and plant extracts and included a cute grass-growing kit.

We got our prize in the end–a rainbow.

Speaking of rainbows, earlier last week, we made a rainbow of homemade dough. We altered a recipe from here that ended up working just fine. For enough to make all these colors: 3 cups of very warm water, 3 tbsp. vegetable oil, 1.5 c. salt, 3 tbsp. cream of tarter, lavender oil (or whatever you want your dough to smell like–we use peppermint oil in the winter), pastel food coloring,  3 c. flour. We just mixed everything together, adding flour last, and then stored it in big Ziplock bags. It’s super soft and smooshy–perfect for little ones.

And since we were on a pastel kick, we went ahead and made some Easter sugar cookies that were so delicious, I had to hide them from myself.

Also lately enjoying:

My sister visited…
…and it was wonderful.  A few friends came over for cocktails the night before she left, and Brett took this picture which is now a favorite.

The gulf is warming up.
We’re nowhere near the bath water warmth of August, but the gulf is prepping for summer, still refreshing enough to cool you down and yet warm enough to slip underwater comfortably. Having out-of-towners always pushes us to be there, watching sunsets, collecting shells, reminding Dash to pull his bathing suit up.

I think I have this exact same picture of him somewhere, crawling toward the water when he was about 8 months old. Little sea turtle making his way.

Casts can’t stop us.
This was her ER precast, but we got her regular cast this week and were thrilled to find out they can make them waterproof for swimming. While injuries can be scary and are always inconvenient, this first little broken bone (and hopefully the last) for my kids made a sweet memory with Lainey late Friday night, cozied up in a very comfortable and quiet ER room where we watched a movie, held hands and huddled under warm blankets.

Old toy reunions.
One of the best parenting tips–keep some toys put away and rotate them out with toys that are frequently played with to keep your kids from getting bored with the same old stuff. We pulled out some forgotten toys last weekend which made for a nice Sunday morning with kids quietly entertained.

Ballet Fridays.
Always a favorite. She’s come such a long way, now slipping right into class, even when there aren’t kids she knows, following directions and intently dancing as the teacher instructs. I’m so proud of the huge social leaps she’s made this year.

Happy Humpday, Friends!