Despite the fact that it’s a Saturday night and the summer sun is still very much shining, the boys had an early bedtime tonight. I was scrolling through some of the photos from the weekend so far, and caught myself thinking how blissful it is to be this kind of tired at the end of a couple of wonderful days. The kind of tired that carries you sleepily from a well-earned shower directly to your bed and the soft drape of your top-sheet. The kind of tired that makes you actively aware of how good it is to (literally) put your feet up. The kind of tired that renders your mental ticker tape all but silent, and allows you to appreciate just how good it feels to close your heavy eyelids.

Yes, looking at the photos from the first portion of the weekend already tell a pretty compelling story. I picked J up from the bus stop with my bathing suit already on, pool bag packed, noodles in hand. Make no mistake: we were starting the weekend in the 87* heat at exactly 3:36 and not looking back. We headed over to our neighborhood pool, took a few silly selfies while waiting for our sunscreen to soak in, and then spent an hour+ swimming. Eventually Dave joined with O, A, and a host of new pool toys that provided another couple hours of entertainment. Because I was very much in on the pool action, my phone stayed stashed until we came out for potty and snack breaks, but we do have a few shots of the boys huddled on pool chairs in their beach towels, which is quintessential summer to me.

This morning, Dave took A out to run some errands and get some 1:1 quality time (read: walking around a nearby downtown at whatever pace A set + pizza lunch + ice cream). I took J and O strawberry picking for the first time (for all of us). We rode the wagon behind the tractor, picked 6# of fresh strawberries, impulse bought all kinds of strawberry-related jams and sweets from the shop, and then hustled back to blow through nap and quiet time in favor of attending a friend’s backyard birthday party. Said party included an inflatable water slide, a kiddie pool, a slip-&-slide, and 3 types of dessert. By the time we got home, it was after 4, and the boys plopped their soggy, bathing-suited bottoms down on the couch (oops) to watch A’s favorite rendition of Wheels on the Bus on repeat while Dave prepped baths and I prepped dinner.

Net-net, I have something like 50 pictures from the past 36 hours, featuring my beautiful sons having beautiful childhood experiences during a beautiful time of year in Michigan.

Until I thought about it, in fact, I almost forgot that part of the reason I was so determined to kick off the weekend with fun and pool time was because I had a miserable meeting at work that had deflated me on Thursday. Or that I got so frustrated with the boys’ behavior getting ready for bed on Friday night, that Dave checked in with me later to ask if I was “really that mad, or just putting on a performance for effect” (unfortunately it was the former). Or that we were over an hour late to the birthday party today because I grossly underestimated how unhelpful the boys would be at actually contributing to our strawberry collection, and therefore how much more time it would take me (who, at 31 weeks pregnant, is not particularly well-suited to bending over or squatting down for extended periods) to complete the activity almost entirely by myself.

Clearly, not every day is idyllic. In fact, I’m willing to bet that there were bona fide snafus in every. single. one. of our days for the past several years – with the odds exponentially increasing with each additional child and the myriad variables they introduce. These are almost never documented in photo form, despite their frequency.

But by the end of the day, when I scroll through the day’s pictures – frozen moments of our family memories being formed – all I can see are the smiles, the love, and the joy. And while I openly acknowledge that those are only part of the story, they sure do match my holistic feeling of hours well-spent.

So take the pictures of your favorite people doing their favorite things. Take the pictures of experiences in action. Take the pictures of bright moments that can provide you with a self-indulgent mental destination to visit later in your day (or month, or years from now). Let the internal narrative grow. If seeing is believing, if a picture is worth a thousand words, if perception is reality, then I am definitely in favor of creating a paper trail of all kinds of evidence that your life is that happy.

Or, if not strictly “happy,” then at least full of so much action and fun that you are as spent as J after our Friday evening at the neighborhood pool, captured in photo form below: