A Thorn Among Roses

where have i been?  well, you asked. it's been one of those "seasons" in life here lately.  i'm bogged down with so many "to do's" and kiddos and softball and photography and working out and friends getting sick and life's struggles...you must know what i'm talking about.  surely i'm not the only one. i look back at the end of the day and i see a flurry of activity...i see my kids fed, my smiling husband, my messy house, the unwashed laundry and the dishes stacked to the ceiling in the sink and i think, "what did i accomplish?".  i mean, i did something today, right?! i have this thing that constantly gets in the way...it's called ME.  and sometimes i even refer to it as MY LIFE.  it plain gets in the way of what's real.  what's important.  what's good. i get overwhelmed with the always low balance of the checking account.  i get ticked off that my friend out of nowhere has a 8 1/2 hour surgery for cancer and she ...

sofia is in this giggle bunny phase...where she loves to be tickled and that leads to contagious giggles and grins. location of the tickle-fest is never an issue...i mean, tickling is for everywhere. even on the driveway... {{and wow, do i look good or what?}} but the result is always the same... uber cuteness all around! hanging at 5 minutes for mom .

being a kid is awesome bc even when the parade in your home town for homecoming is totally lame, you think it's perfect... why?  bc you are with your friends... they throw candy...free candy!!! and when else do you get to scream and run around begging for people to give you a hat? why not?  and in the end...it's still fun bc it's YOUR hometown and that's what makes it fun.

a few things me and the fam DID NOT do this week... hubs DID NOT get a special little souvenir from our france trip...it was NOT a 50euro speeding ticket for 117 in a 100! sofia DID NOT decide to help mop...she DID NOT make it into the hallway before i DID NOT figure out that the water on the mop was from the toilet.  our floors have NOT ever been mopped faster! i DID NOT workout in the rain outside for my saturday boot camp for over an hour.  i DO NOT loathe being soaked in the rain.  and it was NOT only 50 some odd degrees either. brooke was NOT telling me and brit {her bmom} a story on friday whilst in the middle she DID NOT scream "squirrel" and point and then continue right on.  it DID NOT prove to us that in fact she is NOT the dog from UP! in real life! jada was NOT so tired from us playing before preschool that she DID NOT fall asleep on the 5 minute ride in the car TO preschool. i DID NOT have an epic alarm failure on wednesday morn for my fav thing......

the non-high school kiddos got wednesday off this week for teacher conferences...no school means kiddos whining around about not having anything to do and fighting over the tv and who can go where. enter my friend, stacy!!  she's awesome at little kid stuff...and the kids love it too. so we all headed over to a park close-by where they have an active archeological dig and tons of trails.   everywhere we walked, we were asking the girls if they could find stuff from the indians...and boy, did the creativity fly!!! limbs became canoe paddles, shells became food dishes, and the kiddos started really getting into it! i'm not much of a history buff, but there is a ton of indian artifacts and they have uncovered saber tooth tiger teeth and wooly mammoth horns, which is pretty cool. proving that kids are like their parents, jada's one question of the day after looking at the archeological finds.... "why would these indians break all their pretty stuff up and bury it in...