Fave Fives

Here are the top five things that stood out to me after looking back on this week.

Five: The garage is finally clean! It took Steve most of Saturday morning to do it and we had a million people stop and ask if we were having a yard sale, but it is done. No. It won't last forever. We still have a "shelf" problem. We have had the "gorgeous garage" guys come over and do a bid, but Steve is still not convinced we need to bring in the big guns. Our great neighbor (and ultra handyman) Greg came over and is trying to talk Steve into installing the same type of system he bought for his garage. Only problem with that idea is I'm pretty sure they would fall right off the wall if we put them up ourselves. So, we're still in limbo, but at least the garage is clean, for now. . .

Four: Out with the old!!! Steve surprised me with a new living room rug this week. In our old town home, where we lived before this house, the carpet was pretty much plush white! Okay, it was barely cream, but it was crazy, insane trying to keep it clean, especially with babies!!! I had a rug made out of the kind of carpet I WISHED we had and set that in our living room area. I loved that rug and it matched our furniture perfectly. It was also the answer to keeping at least THAT section of the room free from white carpet wear and tear. Anyway, we brought it with us to this house and it has been sitting on our wood floor in the living room. For about the last year it has started to look pretty dingy even though I have sent it to be cleaned numerous times (I'm a clean carpet FREAKKKK). Last spring we finished our basement and had leftover carpet that was a great size for a rug. We shoved it into the garage (of course) and it has been sitting there for a year! I noticed it was out of the garage last week (figured Steve was just getting a head start on the cleaning) but really he had sent it out to be made into a rug so we could get rid of the other one. The guy delivered it on Monday and even took our old one away for us. It is a bit smaller than our first rug, but it is so soft and still smells slightly new! What a great surprise.

Three: A Thankful Thursday. Thursday is kind of a crazy day in our family. It is sometimes a day when Steve has to stay late for meetings and both boys have baseball practices. One good thing about this year is that both boys have the same coach, so their practices are back to back. Some days I can sit and watch Conner practice, and catch up on school work, while Lewis plays catch with the coach's son and waits for his practice. Anyway, lately I have had different errands that have needed to be run on Thursdays so I am stuck driving all over town trying to get kids dropped off and picked up and get errands run. It has been a lilttle taxing. I guess that is why this Thursday stood out to me as being so wonderful! Steve had no meetings, so we left together right after school and drove straight to the baseball fields. Steve said, "Why don't you run to the store and I'll stay here with both boys." Well, of course I jumped on that idea! How great was that? Unlimited time to go up and down each aisle and make sure I forgot NOTHING! I also decided to pick up some dinner. I am in LOVE with Harmons new set up and all the great choices of prepared food. I grabbed a couple salads and some chicken tenders and headed back to the fields. It was such a perfect day. When I got to the fields, Conner was off in the distance playing catch with his dad while Lewis was practicing with his team. Even though I see this scenerio a lot at our house, it still makes me all warm and fuzzy to see the boys playing catch with their dad. It is great to know that these boys have such an awesome dad who is willing to drop everything to spend time with them. I walked over to where they were and set out the food on the grass. We had a little "mini" picnic right there on the field. It was so pleasant and I am glad I am blogging it so I don't forget about it (why didn't I snap a picture???)!

Two: A picture is worth a thousand words. . . Speaking of pictures, I have this picture in my camera right now that I can't get out of my head! It is Steve holding the newborn baby of Lewis' teacher. She delivered him at 31 weeks! She was having contractions while at school and finally another teacher drove her to the hospital. There was no way to stop the labor and she delivered this 3 pound 12 ounce, beautiful baby boy that night. He is so precious and actually really perfect for being so early. He is doing great and we went over last Saturday to visit. We had the boys with us and they are not allowed in the NICU so we had to take turns going in to see the baby. I stayed in the hallway with the boys while Steve went in first to see the baby. I sent him with the camera to take pictures and he came back with this one. . .


It has been SOOO long since we have had a newborn baby around, I almost forgot how much Steve LOVES these bran new babies! He is so great with the newborn stage (I get a little freaked out personally. . .they're so fragile) but he is so calm and cool and could just hold those little ones all day! When Cynthia asked if he wanted to hold her baby, she probably wasn't expecting him to say yes (and so enthusiatically, she later told me)! But, this picture, I have looked at it oodles of times this week. It has given me the little push I have needed to do my last and final step with the adoption and to get going on some more medical interventions for me.

One: Time for Us.The highlight for me this week was spending some quality time with Steve on Saturday night. It has been awhile since we have made time to go to the temple, so that was such a relief to be there and feel of the peace within those walls. We had a fun, relaxing dinner afterwards and then headed home to hang with our boys and our neighbors. We are so blessed and I am so grateful for all the things that made my week so wonderful.