the longest 16 days of the year are over!

i'm 16 days older than pat.
those are a LONG 16 days!!!

he loves to remind me how *old* i am for those 16 days :-)

we celebrated with his parents at 5 guys last weekend...

just in case you were wondering...if you're batman, sometimes you have to tilt your head back the WHOLE time you're watching a show because of your mask! {is that not the cutest thing ever?!?}

sawyer was into costumes this week. i was loving it!

oh. and just a couple things i don't want to forget:

**how sawyer says "softball" = "fossball"

**i ran the FASTEST 3 miles of my life last week. avg pace of 8:15!!! not sure it will happen again, but it was an AWESOME feeling!

**when lincoln and sawyer wear their hoodie jackets, they ALWAYS ALWAYS put their hoods on. even in stores. i love it. it makes their eyes stand out so much.

pat's birthday was yesterday.
rebekah had softball practice from 6-8 pm.
joshua had a baseball game from 6-8 pm (had to be there at 5:15. pat's the assistant coach and has all the equipment so has to be the first one there.)

i emailed pat mid-afternoon: "we will be eating your birthday cake in between when you get home to change and leave for joshua's game. there's no WAY i'm giving all these little kids chocolate cake at 8:30 at night! happy birthday! :-)"

so, he walked in, changed, and we had a *10 minute party* for him before he and joshua walked out!

i love how you can see all 6 kids in this picture! i didn't realize it when i took it!

it was a crazy day/evening. and i might have ruined the rest of his birthday by having a conniption (sp?) fit once we all got home and all the kids were FINALLY in bed at 9 pm (!!!) about how things are so crazy and our kids are all nuts and i can't figure out what's wrong with bailey and i might have sobbed on my bedroom floor once i got her in bed because i'm so NOT ok with where she is but can't figure her out and on and on.

as always, he listened. then said the perfect thing to lovingly put things in perspective for me. and then he dropped it. and let us move on! i have so much to learn from him.

i'm so so thankful for him and hope most of our days aren't as crazy as his 35th birthday :-)

we are still going strong in the mornings...these little boys and i.
just a handful of letters to learn!!!

they love this game where i tape up the letters all over the basement and they go find them and tell me what letter they found.

we have the craziest weekend ahead (starting in about 10 minutes). like, i think we have a 2 hour block on sat evening that is free. and that's it. and we're keeping it that way. and most of the hours we are split - one going in one direction and the other going in another direction. we've chosen everything we're doing. no one is MAKING us do it. and maybe it's too much. but we're in it now and i'm determined to make the best of it. i'm determined to be THANKFUL. you can't complain and be thankful at the same time...{maybe it will rain and cancel some of the stuff!}

ps. one year ago today we got caught in a rainstorm on our way home from walking to get ice cream. and made it FUN! how i remember that day! i also remember (and this isn't even on the blog!) taking pictures of sawyer's room "as it was" that day...because i knew it was all about to change...