Riah's Kindergarten Breakfast

This morning I walked the boys to school, and instead of dropping them off at the door like I usually do, I walked in with them hand in hand.

The school hosted a kindergarten breakfast for parents to attend and have lunch with their kids. Little events like these are the things I used to dream about when I thought about being a parent. I live for them. PJ stayed back at home since Anna wasn’t awake yet.

I got to have breakfast with both our boys on their little tables in their little cafeteria surrounded by all their little friends. I spoke with all of their teachers (new and old!) and said hi to their classmates. The principal took our photo with our mouths full of waffles and muffins. It was a very sweet half hour with my boys.

After breakfast, I walked them to their classrooms and got to see their teeny tiny desks. I know I always loved it so much when my mom got to come to my classroom for whatever reason growing up, which didn’t happen very often because she worked (multiple jobs) and we lived 45 minutes from school, so I know they were so excited to show me around.

I am doing my best to soak up these little every day moments that, when put together, add up to what makes our life our life. It was a wonderful start to an otherwise rainy and dreary weekend.

Have a great weekend!

Back to School Photoshoot

Earlier this week we did a back to school shoot for an upcoming campaign and suddenly it hit me: Pretty soon, all three kids will be at school during the day, leaving us at home to wallow in our sadness. Just kidding. Leaving us at home to get more work done than we have in the past three years is what I meant to type.

It will be bittersweet. Anna won’t spend her entire day with us anymore, but she will be getting the social interaction she so desperately craves and needs. It’ll be the two of us at home again, like it was a few years back and like it was supposed to be last year before we realized Anna wasn’t ready to start school yet and kept her home for one more year.

That’s the thing that I’ve learned about parenthood: things change in the instant. One minute they’re in diapers and you’re teaching them how to talk, the next all three of them are in school and you have the whole day to yourself. And by “day to yourself”, I mean you have the whole day to work with fewer interruptions.

We’re excited to start this next season of life. That’s the other thing about parenthood: There is always something new and different happening, and it is never, ever boring.

In fact, I think it’s about to get even more interesting.

"Fatherhood is Love" An Interview with Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper

We recently spoke with The Sunday Paper, Maria Shriver’s feel-good online publication, about fatherhood and how we got here. I love that they shed a light on the need for foster care and shared the heartbreaking statistics (over 400,000 kids are currently in the foster care system in the U.S.) to hopefully inspire more people to consider becoming foster parents.

A huge thank you to Bentley Maddox who wrote the piece and who was so thoughtful with his words. You can click here to read the entire interview, if you want!