Finding Joy

First of all I want to send you to this blog, because her post expresses the sentiment that I am reading over and over again about relishing childhood, being a humble and prayerful mother, and trying to say "YES" more than we say "no" to our children each day.  Resolved2Worship is one of my favorite blogs by this Christian mother of 8 and amazing photographer.  Her pictures and words show such a beautiful heart focused on Christ and bringing her children to Him. 

So here are some little moments of joy in the midst of our everyday chaos...

Someone is very attached to the spatula and wants to help with everything!  Here he's trying to flip the tortillas.

And then eating his corn with the spatula!

Mary Clare is always doing some kind of project...whether it's pictures, planning a ballet performance during our book club, making things out of clay, having preschool with Thomas, or taking care of her baby dolls like a real mom.  I have a hard time keeping up with her!

She's been wanting to take pictures of the baby birds every day.

And she had a photo shoot with Thomas holding these twin baby dolls, "Audrey" and "Andrew."  Thomas calls them something like "Haw-zhey" and "Ha-zhew."  He really does like to play with them for short periods of time!

I have several funny videos of Ellie walking around and giving a house tour.  She really enjoys performing.

Our "date night!"  It was an NFP night at a restaurant where a priest and a couple gave a talk.  Thomas started fussing with the babysitters upstairs about halfway through, so it wasn't as much of a date as we would've liked, but we'll take it!  At least we got to eat dinner in peace, visiting with other adults!

One thing I love about our new church community is the way they can come together and put on a laid-back party at the last minute.  After Sunday mass they decided to have this birthday party the next night, and I think there were like 50 people there for a fun potluck birthday party!

 Here are a bunch of the girls playing outside.

So after a full day yesterday of hosting the book club and then this party, today I tried to take it easy today.  But I started going through schoolbooks and bookshelves and have quite a mess to get through.  It's great to start making progress, though!

 Thomas played in the sink for about an hour this afternoon.

My goal for tomorrow is to do some photography research so I can take some good pics at the beach!  I'm going to try to get the kids to model for me tomorrow and use my good camera again!