I think I just might survive

3 children 3 years old and under is probably THE hardest thing I have ever done. But... I think I just might survive it after all. Besides feeling like the worst mom of all time some days, feeling like thee laziest person alive other days, and finding a new found hatred dislike for shopping, things are starting to take the up and up! :) I think I hit the end of the road yesterday when I was at Walmart (the ONLY place I'll shop alone with my 3 kiddos because they have those cart extenders with TWO extra buckled seats that I can put my boys in and still have a place for the carseat and food. And no matter how much they hate it, or scream, or try to escape, they can't. I can just tune them out and do my shopping and go home.) and I looked up at the picture hanging on the cooking isle of a mom and her daughter baking. I lost it. I wished I'd had sunglasses that covered my cheeks as well as my eyes so no one could see my tears. (Oh boy does this sound like a pathetic sad story. I really wasn't crying that much.) Anyway, the reason it bothered me so much was because what I thought when I saw it was, "Oh look, one more thing I'm NOT doing with my kids, but probably should be." I'm probably a little hard on myself, but still. It's been kind of hard to say the least.

So... today was different. I woke up and told my boys we were going to make cookies and take them to dad at work. 15 min later that was the last thing I wanted to do. Then it was one of those, do-it-now-or-don't-do-it-at-all moments and we dropped everything and started making cookies. It was more fun than I thought it would be (sometimes all I can think about is all the clean up that is going to come afterward, and that is enough to deter me from doing a lot of things lately) but it was good. :) I pushed the table against the wall and put the mixer on the table so everyone could be involved. Jacks would stand up on the table and dance for us as it was mixing, doing the "mixing dance". :) He's a cutie. They didn't put their fingers into too many of the ingredients and I think they only had a small taste of the butter and sugar mixture (yuck). I had to bat them away while pouring in the chocolate chips though! Watch out choco chips here come my boys!!! (They'll never survive. the chocolate chips that is.)

I used this recipe from Dana at MADE. I have to give it to her, they are g.o.o.d. And I REALLY love her tip of splitting up the dough and freezing in small sizes so you can have fresh cookies ALL the time. It's one of those things where you think to yourself, "why didn't I think of that?!" I usually make a batch of cookies and we can't eat them all fast enough that the last of them get stale and thrown away. So yes, I have 5 more ready to bake batches of cookies in the freezer! Now I'm just waiting for the boys to go to bed. ;)

Then the boys played at grandma's while I picked up some more choco chips, we had lunch, and even though it was WAY past nap time, we all jumped in the car and went to Dad's work... Jacks fell asleep within 5 min.

 

When we got home I put him in his crib, brought Mabel in and went to go chase after Hunter to get him inside and down for a nap. But instead....

I laid down on the grass next to him and saw this:

it was so beautiful I just HAD to take some pictures. Which turned into some of this

and a bit of this

along with some of this

 

then Hunter wanted a turn and took some like this

and I saw this,

which then he did this

notice all the leaves missing???

and that was the end of that.

He didn't take a nap, which I wasn't too happy about, and besides a cranky 3 year old, the days been rather nice. I decided to make it a goal to have at least one totally random joyous moment every day. :) Like a "365 Moments of Joy" marathon thing... hum. (wheels turning). I really liked all the 365-Days-of-Whatever that popped up all over the place after the movie Julie & Julia came out, but I could never decide what to pick.  Well, now I have an idea on something. :) Every day I could document at least one thing that brings me joy. (And now we'll see how completely random I really am.) :) And hopefully it will help remind me to stop. take a deep breath. and just enjoy life as it happens. :)

Happy Day to all of you! :)