My youngest is napping. My oldest two kids are happily playing together in the toy room. As I’m sweeping the kitchen floor (for what seems like the 5^th time today), I realize these are the days I didn’t dare to dream of.

I’ve always wanted to be a mom but I also knew at a young age that biological kids would not really be an option for me. It wasn’t a big deal to me. I just wanted to be mom and I didn’t care how I would become mom. Adoption was an easy choice for me and my now husband to make. Except that just because we wanted to adopt didn’t actually mean we’d be chosen to adopt. So while I always wanted to be mom, I never really dared to dream what that would actually look like. Way too many unknowns and no guarantees.

But these days? This life? It’s far better than I could have dreamed if I had tried. It’s summer and we are doing our best to enjoy it. When the school year ended in early June we loaded up our three kids (7, 4 and 2) and drove south. We stopped and visited cousins along the way and our final destination was Disney World. We had the most magical time! Seriously. It was amazing and everything went so smoothly. My oldest was still very into everything and his excitement was contagious. My 4-year-old enjoyed so much of it (especially the princesses!) and if she got a little nervous about something she just asked to hold my hand and kept on smiling. My youngest started off a little reserved, but she soon too loved it all!

I was afraid that the rest of summer would be a bit of a disappointment. It’s hard to beat Disney! But yet, we are still loving it and finding fun things to do. We are all loving the laid back feel of summer. We do pool days, park days, quiet time spent reading (got to fill up those library reading logs!), evenings at the baseball fields and just time with each other. While it’s not quite as magical as Disney World was, these days are just as good and we’re still making so many memories.

The days are still filled with lots of laundry, dirty dishes and the occasional disagreement, but I’m doing my best to take it all in and truly just enjoy my kids. All of a sudden it’ll be August and two of my kids will be off to school. But let’s not think about that yet, there’s still so many more memories to be made and more fun to be had! Cheers to summer days, making memories and dreams coming true!