10 years ago, driving around looking at Christmas Decor Me: “Oh, honey, look at all these tacky inflatables! We’re NEVER getting those at Christmas. Only white lights forever, ok? No flashing lights, no giant Santas, definitely no Disney characters in our yard. They’re so weird?! People who put those in their yard are just weird.” Christmas 2025 Charlie: “The flamingo inflatable is on sale on Amazon! Should we get it?” Me: “Absolutely!” Judah: “That means we’ll have 6 inflatables in our yard now–the most on the street! We’ve got Santa, a Christmas dragon, baby Jesus in the Nativity, the small Christmas tree, the minion and now a flamingo! This is perfect.” Shep: (in a war cry) “Yessssss!!!!!” *** 10 years ago, Charlie and I driving to the mountains on SuperBowl Sunday to snowboard Me: “I just don’t love football that much. What even is a first down?? These guys get paid a stupid amount of money to play a game, I’m just so surprised people are that into it and our culture is obsessed with it. Let’s never encourage our kids to play football.” 2 weeks ago, Spring 2026 Me: “Honey, what do you think about Judah playing flag football in a super low-key rec league this spring? Just 7 weeks, 1 night of practice and 1 game a week. He’s gotten so into football lately! Do you think it’ll be good for him?” Me: Signs son up the next day. Buying cleats and a mouthguard on Amazon for him. *** 10 years ago, watching our friends buy puppies and leave parties to let the dogs out Me: “Why would you even get a dog before having kids? It’s like living with a toddler before you have to!” Eye rolling at friends showing me pictures of their newest fur baby (ick). 10 days ago Charlie: “Look at this frenchie puppy. Should we get him?!” Me: “What?! Are you seriously thinking about this?!” Charlie: “I mean, yeah! We’ve always talked about getting a dog when the boys were older so they’d remember it. Shep’s almost in kindergarten, Judah’s in 2nd grade, it’s a perfect time. Look at this lil’ guy. It’s a good deal. I’ll just drive out to pick him up. What do you think?” Me: “Gosh he’s SO cute! Let’s think about it.” 12 hours later Me: “Sending the deposit! We’re getting a puppy.” *** You just can’t make this stuff up. Life is full of the unexpected and I keep surprising myself, which I guess is kind of fun! Who knows what’s next? Letting the boys have a pet snake like they've asked for?? (J/K - someone stop me if that becomes an actual conversation).
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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Unscripted."





Nani is laughing and excited to have a grand puppy! Love your musings on life Winnie, and Dad would or is smiling about all this in heaven. I know it!
Looool loved these