if you're happy and you know it ...

Not that I'm ever not around here but I'm going to be honest and admit that I'm a terrible (terrible!!) last minuter when it comes to birthdays and holidays - including Father's Day. Terrible. I can hide behind the, "oh, the kids!"

excuse but pre-kids I was only slightly better and came across a myriad of tangible proof while we were packing up: an album to celebrate our engagement anniversary! another album for Valentine's Day! And yet another to mark our time together in Kansas City before we got married. You'd think photo albums were my sole love language but I can count on one finger the number of photo albums I've made since we've been married on one finger: our honeymoon.

{not our honeymoon but ... I did wear my hair similar to Phoebe's on the daily back then ;)}

SO when Walgreens {post sponsor!} asked if I'd like to make a little something something {spoiler alert: photo album!} for Simon for Father's Day I freaked a bit and checked to make sure I wasn't cutting it crazy close yet again (nope! June 21st! you're good!) and then saw all the fun gift options the Walgreens Photo Center offers since I've last printed photos (yearS ago) and was in.

Phoebe was thrilled, like usual.

I rarely take the time to print out our nicer digital photos so it was fun to sit down with Julia to sift through the thousands (!!!) of photos on the computer from the past 4 1/2 years of parenthoood and pick out some our favorites of Simon and the kids for a nicely bound 8 in. x 8 in. {think book!} album.

I think throughout residency it's been easy (especially for me) to dwell on the interminable call weekends and rougher rotations but we've had a lot of really great times and made some great memories that may have slipped through the old aging memory banks had I not been such a snap happy fiend which only fuels my near and distant future photography fire in an effort to preserve and share life's happy ...

We are in such a state of flux at the current moment being in between houses, Simon finishing up his last rotation of residency, and on the (semi!) brink of meeting baby #5 so it was fun to sit down and go through all the happy times of the past few years. I get a little too wrapped up in the omnipresent mindset that we should always be on some frantic pursuit of happiness but the album illustrated that we've had some pretty happy times in our marriage and throughout our brief tenure as parents and maybe the pursuit hasn't been in vain at all ...

Happy Father's Day Simon! And to all the amazing fathers out there ... I hope your day is enjoyable and that your family got their act together in the tangible (and more importantly!) intangible gift department.

And as a fun way to celebrate Walgreens' Pursuit of Happiness campaign and a fraction of the incredible fathers out there (I'm sure the blog has a high volume of dad readers - ahem) Walgreens is giving away a $25 promo code (perfect for ordering the exact album I did! hint, hint!) to FIVE separate readers today.

All you have to do is share a happy life moment in a comment below or share something on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) with the hashtag: #sharelifeshappy and leave a link to your post in a comment below. Winners will be announced 6/19/15. 

GOOD LUCK.