Hello friends.  Sunday night confession time.  I am SO exhausted.  Can I just say that being a mom is such hard work.  How are you all doing it!?  :)  I feel like I am hanging on by a very thin thread lately.  Last week just about did me in.  Kenny was in San Francisco most of the week and I had too much going on.  House meetings and regular therapy and additional assessments for Kole and El had a big project due for school and then Kole got sick and then Addie got sick again (which put me on ultra high alert since our weekend at the hospital).  Kole was up in the night and not napping well so I felt a bit like I was in newborn land again getting little sleep.  Up at 5:30 to get me ready and then everyone dressed and fed and lunches made and to school on time.  Going going going until 8:00 when they are all in bed and then so much stuff to do before I can sit down.  Clean the kitchen, do some laundry, answer e-mails, plan my schedule for the next day wondering how in the world I’m going to be in three places at once with sick kids.  I had to drag Addie in her pjs to a speech assessment for Kole and it was raining and I forgot an umbrella.  I felt like mom of the year.  By Friday afternoon I was so burned out.  I put Kole down for a nap, turned on a movie for Addison, walked over to my closet under the stairs and just started pulling everything out of it.

 Ha!  I don’t know what I was thinking!?  I don’t think I was thinking!  I didn’t really even need to organize this space and I knew I wouldn’t have time to put everything back the way I wanted it anyway!  I just had to clean and organize something to feel some sort of control.

Ahhhhh!  I’m home.  In the Martha Stewart office supply section of Staples.  I had a particularly lousy day last week so I decided to cheer myself up with a quick trip to one of my favorite hang outs.  And I bought a new planner!  With accessories!  Squeal!  And I haven’t had two seconds to organize it and it’s killing me!  Hopefully this weekend.  Gives me something to look forward to.  :)

El made “food” for her pandas.  They’ve been eating with us at the table for every meal.  Tonight we had homework and food and stuffed animals and art projects all over the place at dinner time and I felt like I was losing my mind!  So starting tomorrow there is now a “no stuffed animals on the table” rule.  I’m assuming the pandas will still join us.  Just most likely nearby on the couch or floor.

These two make me smile.  When I’m not tripping over their toys and crafts.  I just took my Christmas cards down.  I was hoping to keep them up until Valentines Day but as you can see in this picture a few of them slowly started to fall so I took it as a sign.  But I loved having them up for a while greeting me each day when I walked down the stairs.

And speaking of trees Kenny and I started picking out the trees to go in our yard for the new house this week.  It was so much fun tromping around the nursery!  I’m going to have trees with leaves that change colors in the fall!  I’m so excited about that!  Not a big deal to many of you, but not so common around here.  I tried to pick out a good mix of San Diego flowering trees/vines with a few trees/plants that remind me of Utah and Virginia.  Next year when I decorate my mantel for fall I will have real leaves baby!  :)

And a few pictures from the Cove during our last visit.  It was a cloudy day but still fun to check out the seals and the scenery…

Well!  We had quite the weekend.  My sweet Addison woke up not feeling well Saturday morning.  By noon she was having a hard time breathing and by mid afternoon she was having a severe asthma attack (despite the breathing treatments we had been doing all day).  Her little chest was heaving up and down so hard and she just couldn’t get enough oxygen.  (Ad has childhood asthma and every time she gets even the littlest cold it goes straight to her lungs.)  Kenny rushed her to Instacare and as soon as they saw how low her oxygen levels were they put her in an ambulance and rushed her to Children’s Hospital.

Sharing a few pics from El’s 9th birthday party today!  I need to get them posted before I blink and it’s time to throw her another party.  Ellie loves ice skating so we thought it would be fun to have an ice skating party.  I was all for it because #1 – the people at the ice skating rink have the whole thing organized so there is little work for mom and #2 – her birthday is in January.  This would make it feel like a real winter birthday!  Something we don’t experience much around here.  It all sounded great until we woke up the morning of the party.  Kenny and I were like “what were we thinking!?  Are we seriously taking 15 3rd graders ice skating!?”  “Do you even know how to ice skate?”  “No.”  “Do you?”  “No.” “What were we thinking!?”  We had visions of party guests leaving with broken arms and legs for party favors.  Minor moment of panic.  :)  But I’m happy to say that aside from a few trips and falls, everyone left in one piece and had a great time.  Especially my 9 year old ice princess.

The rink was a little crowded since it was a Saturday.  It was 75 degrees and beautiful outside so it seemed funny that so many people were bundling up and going indoors for ice skating.  I guess we weren’t the only ones who wanted to “feel” winter.  El had a great time skating with her friends.  They are a darling group of kids and I loved seeing them having so much fun together.

 Everyone cleared the ice and she got to play some games with the crowd cheering her on.

Then our party guy (who was darling with El) picked her up and skated her around the rink several times while everyone cheered.  It was so dang cute.  She had her arms outstretched and was grinning ear to ear and later said that was her favorite part of the day.  That and when they played Lose My Breath by Beyonce – requested by the birthday girl of course.

Remember my Christmas mantel?  With my new bff – silver reindeer sporting the bling?  I was sad to take him down.  Really I was sad to take the whole mantel down.  So I didn’t.