Lately....

 I'm going to be honest here..lately my main objective has been to survive the day.  I've been exhausted when I get home and it goes without saying that after dealing with 22, 6 year olds all day I'm not at my 100 percent super mom self.  It's more like a stressed, trying to do laundry and make dinner, no patience momma.  It makes me sad for Sam and Charley that they don't get their mom at her best...does that make any sense??  It does in my head at least.  I've been trying to do little things here and there to make each special.  Yesterday we went to the dollar store and picked up 6 puzzles for Sam.  He has become a puzzle phenom here lately and can work some completely on his own.   Charley get a very ugly plastic mermaid but no complaints here because it made her heart happy that it came with a purse and a brush and momma spent her dollar picking up a McDonald's sweet tea!  (money VERY well spent!)  Two days ago I brought home "kid scissors" after Sam called me and left me a message on my phone during school in which he yelled...."mom, don't forget to bring home kid scissors"!  He LOVES to cut!  

 Chris still helps out with the golf team occasionally (i.e. he gets to play at RCC for free...ha!) and the VHSL made a rule that you can now practice out of season (which he already did speed training and weight lifting anyway but now he can actually coach soccer skills too) so Chris has been home late this week.  We decided one day to picnic outside for dinner and you would have thought I told them we were going to chuck-e-cheese because they were so excited!!

 Then we made birthday cards for Aunt Cam (who by the way turned the big cough 30 cough)   I was proud that Sam gave Cam eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth, a body, legs, arms and even a neck.  He also wrote his name unassisted.

 On the inside of the card I wrote quotes that the kids said while making the card.  Charley kept saying, "Cam like dis (this) one") while picking out stencils.

 We played in the sprinkler for probably the last time of the summer.

Did you notice a little two year old in undies!  Charley potty trained 3 weeks ago and she has been doing awesome.  She only wears a pull-up at night.  The first day and half of training were AWFUL (we also go cold turkey straight into undies, no pull ups except at night) then it just clicked and now we don't even have to ask her if "she is dry" she just tells us when she needs to potty!  We are proud of you Charley!  And we are SO excited about NOT.CHANGING.DIAPERS.FOR.THE.FIRST.TIME.IN.FOUR.AND.HALF.YEARS.!!!!!!!!!!!!  Can you tell we are excited???