We're not going to tell you we're perfect. We're just going to be honest.
Matt loses his keys daily. Mookie comes home covered in blue chalk. We are, however, extremely good at showing up.
Matt
The one who sings in the carSteady, goofy, and happiest outside. He's the dad who says yes to the fort staying up one more week, learns the names of every dinosaur so he can keep up with Ollie, and quietly handles the boring grown-up stuff so the fun stuff can happen.
Mookie
The one covered in chalkWarm, creative, and always making something — usually enormous and usually on the driveway. She's the one who turns an ordinary Saturday into an adventure and remembers exactly how everyone likes their pancakes (even the burnt first one).
The welcoming committee.
Ollie is seven and an expert on dinosaurs, monster trucks, and which rock is the best rock. He has asked for a sibling every single day since he learned the word — and he already has plans to show them his fort.
The dog is a dachshund who is fairly sure she's a person.
A warm home with a fort permanently built into the stairwell and a yard that runs toward the mountains.
Grandparents twenty minutes away. Cousins by the dozen. Nobody in this family is short on aunts.
Canyon Saturdays, chalk on the driveway, one fish a year, and dinner with all of us at the table.
Want to know more? Just ask.
It goes to both of us and nobody else.