this week {from my phone}

How horrible of a mom does it make me that I have taken almost ZERO pictures on my big camera in 2012? While I already regret not having pictures from the last six weeks, there hasn’t really been anything to capture {with the exception of the wedding-related events, which I was too busy partaking in to pick up my camera!}…

So, as I always say, thank goodness for Instagram so that my kids will have something to look back at one day!

As you can see on the couch, my kids have nothing to wear since all of our laundry is waiting to be folded and/or put away. But Boland prefers to be naked anyway. And his chubby little nakedness cracks me up, so it’s a win-win.We’re heading to the Zac Brown concert next month, so I figured I’d better learn some songs. Turns out I know most of the songs, just had no clue who sang them. I’m thinking they need to stop by Lizards Thicket while they’re in town. They sure do seem to like fried chicken, or at least singing about it. With Daddy out of town, it’s been a zoo trying to keep up with the kids and get ready for the wedding shower. Luckily things usually fall into place so long as you have flowers, prosecco and strawberries. Entertaining staples!Luckily everything got done in time for the party, daddy returned home safely and we resumed our normal schedule. Then it occurred to me that I signed up for the teachers appreciation luncheon at Emory’s school {which I had totally forgotten about} and I was needing to show up first thing in the morning with a big crockpot of soup. Whoops. An easy tomato basil soup recipe is an awesome thing to have, and I had a double batch whipped up in no time. Crisis averted.We’ve been counting down the days until Valentine’s Day since Christmas, and now it’s arrived! The kids woke up to a few little treats with their breakfast. ‘Lady and the Tramp’ and some dress up jewelry for Emory. A few wheelies for Boland. And Caterpillar vehicles for Watson. As he would tell you, ‘das my dump twuck and das my twactor.’. Both make hideous noises and he couldn’t have been happier.We {I} had the kids’ school valentines ready a couple of weeks ago {early is totally not my style, so this was kinda weird} and after having them sitting all cute in a basket on the bookshelf, I was sorta sad to see them go! And I’m gonna miss Emory showing people the car valentines and then laughing hysterically as if replacing ‘really’ with ‘wheelie’ was the funniest thing ever.Being that she’s in a uniform five days a week, I try to give Emory the option of dressing herself for dance or on the weekends. Usually she sorta knows what goes together and what doesn’t, but her theory while getting dressed for dance this week was ‘it’s all different colors of pink- so it matches, Mommy!’. Um. Okay. I hate to crush her sense of style, but this outfit makes me cringe. And I prefaced every conversation with anyone I saw by saying, ‘Don’t judge me. She dressed herself.’ I guess I could’ve made it a little better by doing her hair, but hopefully everyone with assume she took charge of that too. After school on Thursday we hunkered down to watch our new ‘Lady and the Tramp’ movie since we didn’t have school on Friday.  {I forgot how cute it is!} After withholding tv the entire week, the kids are glued to the screen  when the time comes, which gives me a nice bit of peace and quiet. Sadly, Daddy doesn’t enjoy movie day as much since it’s the only day none of the kids run to greet him at the back door when he gets home from work!This morning started out rough with some oddly energetic kids and by the end of breakfast I was sure I was gonna go bonkers by the end of the day……but instead we jumped in the car and met some friends at the park. We played for a couple of hours and enjoyed the warm{er} weather. Watson is now fearless at the playground…The girls continue to pose every time I go to take their picture…And Boland is always excited to just be able to run and play with the big kids.We got home in time for lunch, but decided to throw out a blanket and have a picnic! Nothing gourmet. String cheese, turkey pepperoni, watermelon. They were allowed to have juice boxes and they though that was great!

So that’s our week and as we head into a long weekend we hope to relax a little. Hope to get back into the blogging rhythm and actually take some pictures with my camera. Until then, InstaFriday rocks.