ERIN! FRUIT! FAMILY PHOTOSHOOTS!

My goal is to be in bed at 9:30 tonight.   That gives me 15 minutes to write this thing.  Please forgive any errors that are likely to appear.   I’m not usually too worried about grammar or spelling (much to Dave’s dismay)... but my brain is extra foggy tonight, so this could be particularly painful to those English lovers out there!  Anyways, there were just three great things I wanted to mention about today! For the sake of time, Point form will have to do!

1.      ERIN SCOTT!

She is Janna’s former daycare provider, and she sent me an email a week ago asking what day this week she could whisk my kids away for a morning of fun.    Today was the day we arranged and I dropped Jesse and Janna off at 9 AM and had a few hours to myself before picking them up at 1.  Bliss!  I took sleeping Robyn out for some groceries, Christmas shopping, post office run, and then had time to go home and eat lunch in peace and grab a nap before picking up Jesse and Janna.  Four hours Roby slept!  Erin told me she was going to try and tire the kids out for me while I was gone, and when I picked them up I discovered they had a fun filled packed morning full of outdoor play, indoor play, and even some baking we got to take home.  Now, Janna had a good afternoon nap after this, and even though Jesse doesn’t nap anymore he told me on the way home that he was “ too tired to talk.”  I kept asking him questions like,  What did you have for lunch?  What was your favorite toy to play with?  Were you nice to Janna?  And he would just let out this deep sigh and say ,” But mom.. I’m just too tired for talking.”  Now that is something I NEVER thought I would hear Jesse say.  Thank you ERIN SCOTT! You are amazing.

I have found with baby 3, there have been 2 things that have been super helpful in adjusting to life and keeping my sanity.  The first has been people dropping off meals.  It saves SO much time not to have to prep, cook and clean up from supper each day.  It also saves on money – which  with a newborn burning through the diapers And being on mat leave- is super appreciated at this point!  The other thing that has been absolutely amazing, has been people taking the two older kids out of the house for a bit.  Jesse and Janna love it!  And it gives me some much needed rest and bonding time with Robyn.  Or today, I got some much needed errands done that would have taken me three times as long hauling all the kids around.....and frankly, would have been totally exhausting and frustrating instead of enjoyable...

2.      FRUIT BASKETS!

Today, Dave got his annual Christmas fruit basket from work.  I always forget that the board at his school does this, and it’s such a welcome surprise each year.  It’s this massive basket of not only HUGE delicious amounts of fruit, but cheese and chocolates and jam and cookies and there are always sesame snaps in there... which I adore! 

3.      FAMILY PHOTOS!

Ok, so I have not been very good at taking pictures the past month, and so today I was convinced that I needed to get a shot of all of us near the tree.   Dinner was cooking, we were all tired and a bit cranky, but Katie was here and so we asked her to try and capture one.  I told her I didn’t care what we looked like.  I just wanted everyone looking at the camera with their eyes open (Robyn was exempt from this rule!)   Well, of the dozen we took, there was only ONE that fit this criteria and here it is!

Here are a few other.  I look quite chipper in all of these, but between shots I kept growling at Jesse who was being silly to “SMILE and LOOK Happy or mommy is going to Freak out!”  Janna is actually the hardest one to get to look at the camera, and Robyn was making some uncontrollable newborn movements and faces that also made things hard.   Anyways, I laughed at these and thought you might enjoy some of the bad ones, too.  Thanks for reading everyone! I’m out.