Balance = Found (Sort of)

Coming off Mondays crazy post, this has been a pretty good week. INSANE, but good. The alarm has gone off at Oh-Dark-Hundred on a daily basis, and I, who love my sleep, have been up before Brad every day but one this week. 4am wake up = not fun, but being able to focus on the kids without freaking out about the obscene amount of work on my desk was worth it. I also planned for child care two days this week, just to make my life a little less insane. My friend Shelah's daughter, Rainee, came and hung out with the kids on Monday, and then Summer went to play with Ava on Wednesday while Garrett was at school (leaving me a little time to be productive when I wasn't dealing with the usual produce craziness).
Summer sure does love her "Ray-ray".

Not only did I get work done, but I didn't feel like I was losing my mind a single time all week. Added bonus, we had time for family time at the pool, I managed some quality time with Brad, and I've gotten in some decent enough workouts. So, all in all, not a bad week.

I also made some headway on the school dilemma for next year. I'm 90% sure that homeschool is the back-up plan of choice. Once I realized I could eliminate a lot of the planning stress by getting a curriculum, the stress of that choice seemed to wash away. I would still prefer he get in to one of the schools we applied for. But whatever happens will be exactly the direction we should go in.

Fun things we did this week:
Summer colored a lot, one of her favorite ways to pass the time:


And we broke out the paints Grandma Becky gave Summer for her birthday last year, along with some of our left over stocking stuffers from Christmas:


Friday was a MUCH anticipated movie night . . . we did Pita Pizzas for dinner, which the kids loved because they could each make their own.
And really, does it get any better than this?
The only time they were truly quiet though was when the popcorn was being consumed. You can see how long 7 children between the ages of 7 and 2.5 lasted :-)

I find the pairings in this picture hilarious--Garrett is hanging out with Angela, our neighbor who is 7. He's always wanting her to come play and hang out, she's one of his favorite people these days. Summer is with Xander, of course. She's ALL about Xander. And Logan is chilling with Brady and Gracie. We're pretty sure Logan and Gracie will get married some day, lol :-) I'm so thankful to have such great friends right in the neighborhood, which makes fun events like this a cinch to plan.