Everyday photo challenge!

Agh. I really dropped the ball on this one.

I got thrown for a loop on Day Two, when the challenge was "a photo of yourself in your favorite spot in the house or yard." I was like "Uh... it's dark out by the time Frank gets home... I don't want to do a selfie... This picture is gonna be terrible!"

So I didn't take a picture that day. But a few days later my friend came over, and she obligingly took the photo for me:

This was my "nursing chair" back when Frankie was tiny and nursed all day (and night!) long. I probably spent 40 hours a week in this chair for the first three months of his life. I read a bunch of books in that time (including Lark Rise to Candleford! Now I need to get around to seeing the mini-series), and you can see the vestiges of that in the gigantic pile of library books stacked behind me. I should really get those back to the library today. 

Also of note—my two favorite throw pillows (on the left)! Frank gave me the one on top ("Pray for me... I'm married to an Irishman"), which always gives guests a good laugh, and the bottom one (with the cute Vespa) was a thoughtful Christmas gift from my sweet sister-in-law, who said it reminded her of our Roman honeymoon.

The third day, I was challenged to take a photo of "meal time." Of course that would be a week when Frank and I didn't eat dinner together most nights. So I decided to take a photo on Sunday night when we went out to dinner with my family at our favorite Cuban restaurant for my dad's birthday:

That was a great day and an amazing meal, as always.

Day Four was photos with friends, and conveniently Frank and I went out for fancy cocktails with friends on Friday night, so I asked him to get a photo of me with my dear friends Giedre and Theresa:

Frankie stayed home with a friend from the babysitting co-op I'm in with five other Catholic moms, and can I just make a quick PSA? If you know a few other moms who are close to your geographical vicinity, please do yourself a favor and start a babysitting co-op! It's seriously the best. Free, on-demand babysitting. All you have to do is babysit for the other moms too, on occasion. We have loved our experience being in a co-op and have nothing but good things to say about the experience!

The prompt also encouraged me to take photos of my kid with his friends. I was happy to oblige, especially since his little friends are so cute!

This little guy and Frankie are almost exactly the same age:

They have a great time together, and we are sad that he and his parents will be moving away from Chicago in a little over a year! (They're living here for grad school.) We love having them here and will miss them a lot when they go.

This little lady, on the other hand, is doing the opposite of moving away. She and her parents are moving into our building—into the apartment right in front of us—this weekend!

Words cannot express our excitement about that. We're already plotting daily walks to the park and playground, weekly potluck dinners on our patio, and lots of other fun shenanigans.

But after that, the challenge took a turn for the not-relevant-to-my-life. The prompts asked for stuff like "a picture with a teacher or coach," "a picture of your child reading," "photos of school." We aren't quite in that stage of life yet! So I skipped over those days, and I'm planning to pick up the challenge again once the prompts are more relevant for us.

Ok, so there's the first week of the photo challenge done!