Nearly eight years ago, with a burgeoning belly and a heart filled with hopes, fears, and expectations for my induction to motherhood, I began to write out about my journey. I vividly remember countless people telling my husband and I how very hard parenting would be, advising us to "sleep while we can" and "spend all the quality time together now because it will NEVER BE THE SAME." We heard about all of the difficult aspects of parenting and we thought, at 6 months pregnant, oh my, what have we done?!

But then we remembered that people, millions of them, have more than one child, on purpose. So, I thought, there must be some pretty beautiful, amazing parts of parenthood that are just too difficult to put into words or perhaps feel overshadowed by the lack of sleep, right?

Now, as a veteran mom {note the sarcasm} with all of eight years experience under my belt, it's become clear to me that yes, there are all kinds of trials in motherhood, things I could definitely do without - and the sleep deprivation is no joke - but there are also a host of wonderful, mostly intangible, beautiful little elements, in motherhood that I wouldn't trade for anything.

I think the same goes for life in general, it's messy and it's hard. Sometimes it's really, really hard. But somewhere amidst the hard and the pain and the mess, lies something beautiful, like a hidden treasure, waiting to be discovered. My hope is to chronicle the journey - the real, the ugly, the messy parts - and to maintain an expectant heart along the way, ready to be surprised by the beauty in it all.