A wonderful new friend & some family photos

Instagram has turned into something that I never imagined it would be. At the same time, Motherhood is everything wonderful I ever imagined to be and beyond amazing, but it too has surprised me. Along with the incredible joy, love and everything sprinkles and rainbows are made of, came along some unexpected insecurities, discouragement, doubt, fear, mom guilt and loneliness. Somewhere in between these feelings, busy schedules, 2am nursing sessions, toddler tantrums, 4am nursing sessions, sleep deprivation, trying to adult, 6am nursing sessions and snapping photos, I found myself in this wonderful community and surrounded by mothers who seemed to understand everything I was experiencing. While Instagram may just be a button on my phone, it also opened up this extra community where even in times when I might not be able to sit with my best friends for coffee, I could still drink coffee and visit with my best friends. These friends I have made through these little squares have reassured, in my moments where motherhood is rough, that I am not a total failure, I am not doing everything completely wrong and I am definitely not alone in feeling these things.

I was laughing with some friends I have made through instagram this week about how instagram used to just blue blue & orange filters over our poor quality photos of our food:D You guys remember that right?! If I could just give this piece of cheesecake a more grainy vintage look and a sweet vignette or border, it will be perfect! 🙂 However, out of those grainy photos has birthed, for me, a wonderful community full of awesome opportunities and genuine friendships! While I could talk much more about this, I bring it up to to share that I got to have my first insta meet up with a beautiful friend that came out of these little squares and it was wonderful!! I can think of at least 30 of you, you know who you are, who I am just certain we will meet up one day soon too!

Anyway, not only did I just meet my sweet friend Stephanie, but she also blessed us with her talents and photographed our family doing one of our favorite pastimes, visiting coffee shops! She brought along her sweet daughter and we were all smitten with her! For those of you who know her from instagram, she’s even prettier, more kind and more hip than she looks in her feed! I instantly wished we lived closer and in our conversation it just felt like I had known her forever! It was such a fun visit and I just feel so grateful that we had the opportunity to meet up in real life and to have these sweet memories of such a fun day. Thank you SO much Stephanie and Loyal Coffee!

Here are a few of my favorites! Well, they were basically all my favorites but here are a couple!