our week.

brenner came home this week!  woohoo!! 

and now its the weekend too!  we were ready for it!

that was the good news.  the not so good news was that the rest of the week was pretty hard.  the girls are teething which means they have runny noses, are not sleeping well, aren't eating their food and are chewing on pool noodles.  lovely.  add to that a certain three year old who is struggling to use his mouth and limbs appropriately and this week has worn us out.  we were still able to do some fun things with some friends and find new things to do at home which turned out to be a lot of fun.  but seriously, we are tired.  how can parenting be so incredibly rewarding one minute and the next you feel like you are making no progress with your child as you tell him for the 15th time in the last 2 minutes to stop pushing his sisters????  and by that time the patient, polite mom voice may or may not have been left at the curb.  anyone else having this issue?  anyway, by trying to fill our day with fun stuff i was hoping to keep everyone occupied and somewhat happy.

playing dress up in daddy's gear.  every boy needs a bullet proof vest.  we also made banana oat muffins, played with water guns, water balloons and water rockets, we went on walks and used our fun spray fans to keep us cool, we played in the dirt in the garden sensory bin i threw together (credit to pinterest for the idea!), and we colored a lot to name a few of our activities.

i am always so grateful to be the mom to these three kids and i try to embrace the challenging days with determination to practice the fruit of the spirit no matter what comes my way, but lets be honest.  i often fail at this and i am thankful for the lord's grace.  i am trying to find that same balance of grace versus discipline/consequence with my own kids daily but that is another subject for another day.  here's to the start of a new week.  may the teeth come in, the crying be reduced and my attitude of it all stay in check.  the good moments far outweigh the hard ones and even if everyone is crying, i will look back on these days with fondness.