Thankful Friday - 274

 I way overdid it yesterday and forgot to do the blog... so Thankful Friday it is! This week I am thankful for... 

1. My sisters-in-law. We all have these little babies and have all had the craziest year of our lives. I have received nothing but support and love from them, and I couldn't be more grateful! (My brothers are alright too ;)).

2. House staying clean for more than 30 seconds. On Tuesday, I managed to clean the main floor, and because the kids were at preschool, it stayed clean until they got home! Hallelujah! It made my attempts at tidiness not feel so futile!

3. A cute shot of the 3 kids. We went to my parents' for dinner on Monday, and we were there before she got home. Dom & Emilia were reading on the couch and I plopped Eva down and got this cute shot! 

Also this because she's cute drinking her hot chocolate in Dom's old flannel shirt <3

4. Best Neighbours. Kirsten has been walking our dog most of the days the last week and a bit. She's going out anyway, and says she wants to take Sherlock, so yes. Yes please! It takes a lot of pressure off the rest of our day and we can go for a short family walk in the evening if we want, and bring him without having to worry about him not getting enough exercise that day for example. After dinner it's not a rush of "You walk the dog, and I'll do the dishes, bathe the kids, and get everyone ready for bed." Anyway, it's been an incredible help lately! :)

5. Organizing. At Costco these clear pantry containers were on sale so I finally picked some up! I'm pretty good about keeping expired things out of the pantry, so I didn't have to do a huge purge, but I did do a huge reorganization and got rid of a ton of bags and boxes! Things are visible, labelled, and it just looks much cleaner!

6. Being brave. On Tuesday the big kids had preschool, and I had a great day with lots of me time. This makes me a much better mom, and I actually wanted to take Dom & Emilia to the library, and take all 3 kids and the dog for a little walk/neighbourhood adventure before bed. We didn't go far, but our goal was to collected leaves in as many different colours as we could. It was a really nice walk. 

Better than our last (attempted) trip to the library!

I was feeling brave last week and wanted to take all 3 kids to the library. I got us all loaded up and got on the road. I left the house at 3pm, and then realized it was the worst time ever to be on the road because all the schools get out. It took us 11 minutes to do what is normally a 3 minute drive and made it to the church. I turned into some more traffic, to realize that I forgot the books at home. The books we had to return in order to take out more. Crap. Turned around through the grocery store parking lot and headed back home. Got our books and back out on the road again! The traffic wasn't AS bad, but still wasn't great. We FINALLY get to the library, and pull into the parking lot and Dom goes, "Mommy, I'm not wearing shoes." WHAT?! Somehow both the kids got in the car with no shoes on. I couldn't believe it. I hunted the van for shoes for them, but got harrassed by a wasp. I finally got back to my seat and Dom just said, "It's okay Mommy. We can just go home." Well... it was an adventure. An unsuccessful adventure, but the kids thought it was funny anyway. 

Going for the green ones

Another brave moment that didn't go quite as well was when I went to Costco and took D&E. I told Dom he wouldn't be able to go in the buggy, so he insisted he'd walk. Of course 15 steps into the store his "legs are tired" and he "needs to go in the buggy" and he'll "make room for all the groceries". Ugh... We're shopping and zooming around the busy place, and I go to grab a jug of milk and just as I'm getting back to the buggy it slips out of my hands and flies to the floor, bursting. It sprayed all over me, the buggy, and the floor. I panicked and grabbed it and brought it back into the fridge area. I sat there for a minute not sure what to do as people walked around me and stepped over the mess. *Gee... thanks for the help everyone...*. Finally a Costco employee comes up and says, "Is this your milk?" I said, "Yes, I'm so sorry! I wasn't sure what to do so I just moved it back! I'm sorry!" He just glared, grabbed the jug, carried it to the garbage and glared again as he walked past. Thanks for understanding, sir... NOT! Finally, as we get to the cashier, I strategically load lots of the stuff into a bin I was buying and put it on the belt to save time. I got reamed out by the cashier because, "I have a bad shoulder and I can't pull all that stuff out. It's gotta come out." Fair enough. I start trying to unload the bin onto the belt, but she won't stop the belt! I'm trying to unload it as it's being pulled down the belt and it was just a disaster. Thank goodness the kids were relatively well behaved or I may have had a meltdown. It was still a pretty embarrassing trip overall though. Yeesh.

Sorry, Costco people...

And just a little dump of life photos...

Found this photo of Jeff and I. Does Dom not look so much like Uncle Jeff?!

Our carbon monoxide detector died the other day, so we got a new one and Dom took the old one apart with Dave. Making memories!

And just some sleepy babies!

Not sleeping, but apparently moving? I left her on her back on the mat, and came back downstairs from changing the laundry over to find this... Eva... Stop it!

Ah life... Remember how I said I overdid it yesterday? At one point I was sitting on the couch feeding Eva and this was my view. What. the. heck. How does this amount of mess even happen?! Even Emilia looks like she's given up. Thankfully Dave came up and dealt with my grumpies and helped me tidy up a bit.