one of those nights...

you know those moments in life,
when you stop, look around and think, 

"i want to remember this" ?

sometimes they're big, defining moments:

proposals, job offers, births

aaaaand sometimes they're not-so-"big", but equally special moments

friday night was a bunch of the latter strung together for me

after a particularly challenging day with the kiddos

daniel came home and suggested we try out the girlies' new wagon

(that our awesome neighbor gifted to us the night before - thanks, neighbor!)

let me just stop and say, this man knows my heart well

he knows that getting me outside and moving is a sure-fire way to lift my spirits

even when i'm being a big grump-face

and i'm standing there with my hair all up in a crazy, frizzy bun (the size of my HEAD), 

still in my jams from the night before, 

drowning in piles of laundry that i've sworn to conquer before the day's end

and so we laced up our runners 

loaded the kids into their wagon

and headed out in search of adventure

we let the kids pick which direction we should head

and wound our way through neighborhoods we've never seen before
until we eventually found ourselves at a grocery store

where we picked up dinner and began the journey home

but then we thought:

why not sit down right where we were,

on a random grassy patch on the side of the road

and have an impromptu picnic?

the girlies were thrilled about the idea

so we handed out food, sat back and enjoyed the dinner in the great outdoors

(i realize roadside meals are hardly "the great outdoors" compared to say, camping,
but  you gotta take what you can get, right?  right.)

the sun began to set and cast a stunning glow on everything in sight

the girlies showed off to any and all passerbys

and we filled the air with laughter and conversation 

we continued chatting away on our way home after we ate
the wind picked up
we threw our outer layers on the kids to keep 'em warm
and settled for t-shirts and goosebumps on our own arms

the girlies got into the chocolate bar I had picked up for dessert,

we laughed about it and didn't bother wiping off their newly acquired chocolate beards

i looked over to daniel and said,

"thank you. this was such a great idea. 

and i love the light at this time of day, 

it makes everything that much more beautiful, even the traffic!"

p.s. all of these photos were snapped on my phone - how awesome is technology sometimes?!