Pickle and Danger take a tubby.

Happy Birthday, boys!!

Our sweet boys are 1 today! How blessed we are to have two darling babies to love. It has been a long year full of so much joy and happiness. We sure love you, Max and Miles!

sliced tomatoes.

There are a lot of words you could use to describe being a stay-at-home mom. Rewarding. Joyful. Messy. Backbreaking. Spiritual. Tiresome. Fun. Hilarious. Tedious.

Yes, I think "tedious" covers it. There is joy in the tedium, but sheesh. It's the same thing every single day, no nights off, no weekends off, no holidays, no breaks. The children are such a sweet sigh of relief, coming up with weird ways to pass the time and entertaining me while I keep things running.

Luckily, I enjoy doing the same thing day in and day out. I'm a routine person, so staying home with the kids suits me pretty well. But like any person in a manual labor job, there are days where I feel like there is just no end to the SSDD Syndrome. Today was one of those days. They're infrequent, but DANG was I bored today!

At the end of each day, Andrew sits down at the table and starts the, "how was your day?" chatter. The kids just eat it up. By dinnertime I am just so wiped out that I just sort of sit there and listen. What am I going to say, anyway? "Oh, my day was just wildly interesting. I woke up, made breakfast, got Lucy out the door, gathered laundry, started the laundry, finished yesterday's laundry, swept the floors, mopped the floors, vacuumed the floors, did the dishes, wiped down the counters, ran errands, made lunch, swept the floor, gathered more laundry, picked up the family room, sorted out dinner, bathed the babies, swept the floor, drank some water, made dinner and here I am! Wait, I'm sorry. Did I say the same thing last night? And the night before that? And three nights ago? I'll probably say the same thing tomorrow!"

So I usually just listen. Tonight Andrew happened to be away for dinner so Molly started the talking. "Lucy, how was your day?"

And here's how it went:

Lucy: I had a hot dog for lunch!

Molly: You did? Wow. Hot dogs are so good!

Lucy: Yeah..and chocolate milk, because I always have chocolate milk if Mommy lets me buy lunch. (which is like twice a year)

Molly: So cool.

Lucy: And I had a tomato. I thought it might be pepper, so I licked it first but it was a tomato. It was so good. You know I love tomatoes.

Molly: I don't.

Lucy: I know. This one was actually two tomatoes. Sliced.

Molly. Wow. Claire's peeing.

::silence::

Claire: I am.


So maybe I'm wrong. They might actually get a lot of entertainment out of my day. At the very least, it's nearly on par with a tomato.

New glasses! They're "OMG" cute.

So, Lucy's prescription glasses arrived this week. The Cooke jury has voted. Cutest 6 y/o kid ever. Still waiting for that front tooth to fall out though!

Andrew

I used to think that having 5 kids under the age of 6 was the problem.

now I know that having five children of any age is probably the problem. that means I answer to 6 people and a dog. not just any dog. a Great Dane. Great Danes are the most dependent animals in the animal kingdom. so while I'm carrying 2 1 year old babies I have a great dane sitting on my lap. Or on my hand. Or on my feet.

this is not to complain about the dog. I'm really just checking in. grandpa and the girls are wrestling in their bedroom, the twins are napping in the nursery and I am enjoying the high of a day full of deep cleaning the house. dinner is in the crock pot so all I have to do is pull out some stale tortillas and a bunch of bags of shredded cheese. Sweeeeet. and I'm blogging just by talking to my phone as I lay on the couch, but it's kind of annoying because it doesn't capture the emotion in my voice. and at 425 on a Wednesday afternoon my voice is fraught with emotion. how awesome is it that my phone recognized the word "fraught?" it can't capitalize a freaking sentence but it knows the word "fraught."

I digress.

grandpa has been here for two weeks and we are really having a lot of fun with him. we are keeping it pretty low key and he has been getting a lot of stuff done around the house and outside and spending a lot of time napping in the Sunshiney texas breeze. Can I just tell you, this guy swears he just can't lie down for a nap, but every time I happen upon him, he's snoring. Hm.