This week

I just ate some insanely good Latin food in Charlottesville with my mom and sister.  And last night Kate gave me the most adorable handmade wallet for my birthday. Then, when we got home, the kids ran to us and about tackled us to the ground in all of their excitement. Seriously, I was gone for two hours.  I guess when you spend the better part of 24 hours a day within feet of each other, two measley hours can actually seem like an eternity.  For me, it's just the refresher that I needed.
So in the spirit of things I love, people I love, moments I love....
Here are some little things I'm loving big time:

One evening last week, we were all out in the backyard. I asked Isabella to hold my camera for a second, and she took it, turned it on, snapped some pictures and played them back for me to see.  I have never shown her how to do any of these things, and my camera doesn't display the photo on the screen until after you take the picture, so she had to use the eye-piece.  This is just one of the photos I loved.  She impressed me though.  Not only with her tech-abilities, but with her eye.  Now she wants her very own camera.  And not a Fisher-Price pink one....

I love teaching pre-school to these eager souls, on Mondays and Tuesdays.  A girl can dream that they will always be so excited to learn....
They love it though. They love the interactions, the learning, the crafts, the playing, the exploring.  Quinn hangs out with my mom on those mornings, so it's all about the 'big kids' and what they want to explore and learn.  Good stuff.

I loved the irony of this experience with my oldest girl.  I'm not gonna lie, when it began, I was pretty irritated.  I had just gotten all three kids down for a nap, walked into the kitchen to get dinner ready *in peace and without extra mess from little helpers* and in walks Isabella, "I'm finished with my nap, mommy. Can I help you now?"  Once Isabella's up, she's up, so she pulled up a chair and I told her, in my annoyance, that she could only watch.  And as the minutes passed, she got closer, her hands became more involved and ten minutes later I was standing there while she egged, breaded, and tapped eggplant slices, stirred and tasted the sauce I was making, and shredded cheese while stealing hunks of parmesan to gnaw on.  Then as we were assembling the eggplant parmesan, she said "Look mommy, it's a pattern like we learned about. Eggplant, sauce, cheese, eggplant, sauce, cheese." And in her excitement, my issues found their place far from the kitchen, I cleaned up the mess times two as Isabella willingly washed the dishes and I loved that time with her.

Look at that sad face. This little dude woke up from his nap, came running out of my room "Mommy! What you making? What you cooking?"  He could smell it and he didn't get to help.  Not what he's used to, and definitly not happy about the experience that he missed.

We reconciled and Isabella took a picture of us. She told me that I should pretend to be sleeping. I'm always up for that. 

And that's what I've been loving this week.