weary and blessed

that is what i am.

weary and blessed.

any moment i might be overcome with one or the other. crazy days, these are!

as i mentioned when we had most of our house painted a couple weeks ago, we are, step by step, making the main floor of our house "ours". which mostly means that we are making it able to function for our {large!} family better. so, if painting it was step 1. then what i did this past friday was step 2.1. 

step 2 is going to be a multi-step process. i'm getting ahead of myself.

get this. i took these 2 little boys to an antique store that was having it's BIGGEST sale of the year! we drove out to the country to get there. and it was snowing and muddy and fREEZING! and windy. but these 2 boys trudged all around, inside barns, up and down stairs, for an hour and did AMAZING. i was AMAZED by them. for REAL! they behaved better than some of the grown women i came across there ;-) it ended up being such a fun morning. it was a HUGE risk...taking them and "wasting" my morning by doing that. but i took the chance and it worked out great!

i rewarded them with a {homemade, piping hot!} donut while we waited for our purchase to be brought out.

here you have step 2.1.
this WAS our foyer...

 now it looks like this...

 ok. ok. it might not do that much for you. but we are getting rid of all of THIS:

and that coffee table holds all of the hot wheels and hot wheel tracks. they needed somewhere to go! so, i needed a foyer table that could hold them all!
the table that i got is PERFECT and i love it! i was assuming i'd have to paint whatever i got, but i LOVE it just the way it is! double score!
{see the entertainment center in that picture? that holds all our games. remember that...}

ok. that evening (friday) pat's parents took joshua out for dinner to celebrate his birthday (coming up later this week!!!)

he sure is a fun kid to celebrate. just one little thing about him. he writes himself these little reminders and leaves them on the clothes that he's laid out for the next morning. the other day was his first day to get breakfast ready and he didn't want to forget :-)

 bailey went to a birthday party that night, and the rest of us went to a worship service at church. it was AMAZING!

saturday morning the basketball games were spread out in a weird way. so i stayed home with 5 of the kids, while pat took bailey to her game. it was so NICE to be home for a couple hours! pat's parents had given joshua 2 lego sets the night before. he finished them that morning :-)

 then we all went and cheered for joshua!

 then i got to stay while pat brought the crew home for lunch and naps.
rebekah's games are right in the middle of naptime, so pat and i take turns going.

after a day full of basketball, pat took rebekah and joshua to a Georgetown college basketball game. i had the 4 younger ones for the afternoon/evening. that is a hard combo!

pat and i ended up having a LATE night with lincoln. i am so very thankful for a husband that is willing to walk through these hard days (and nights) together...hand in hand.

superbowl sunday!!!
LOTS of yummy food! (there IS a cucumber salsa on the bottom left...it was super yummy and healthy ;-))

we did that thing where you fill out squares with your initials and someone wins at the end of each quarter, depending on what the score is. sawyer won the first 3 quarters..and pat won the last! ha!

 we all (except the one that went to bed early because he was up til 1 am) fit on the couch! i really couldn't care that much about the actual game, but it ended up being one of those moments where i was overcome with BEING BLESSED.

weekends are NOT restful or refreshing. which is fine. they just aren't at this stage of life. i love them and all the fun that comes with them!


but i also love the week starting and my mornings with these 2 :-)
{i know. not the wisest idea. but their giggles were priceless!!!}