ten plus smile tuesday!

just a little libber face that makes me smile! :)

here i am...back after disappearing for the past week! i promise, it was with good reason. we've been playing and giggling, reading and snuggling, spending time at the lake (for the girlies) and enjoying a weekend away (for mommy and daddy!). here are just a few of our many, many smiles....

1. filling up the van for $1.99 a gallon. i mean, for real, less than $2.00 a gallon; i was sure we'd never again see that, but i did, just this morning. and it did put a smile on my face. (interestingly enough, gas was 40 cents more a gallon just 10 minutes down the road....how crazy is that!?) ***update...i found gas for just $1.83 to fill up the car this evening!

2. the mail. this week i received two packages of fabric scraps for the tidbits swap....so now i just need to find the time to think about projects and get started. then, i arrived home from our weekend away to find a delightful little package from chelle in the mailbox...the starbucks giftcard i won during her birthday giveaway, and along with that some chocolate, music and stickers. she included a cd with the song "glory baby" by watermark. i found my box of tissues and simply listened over and over again...

3. kite flying fun...elizabeth and miranda made and decorated kites for "k" week, and, of course, we had to go outside to see if they would fly! :) fun times!

4. lib's loon lake leaves. because, of course, this week is "l" week...so what better project than creating and playing with the autumn leaves grandmommy and poppy helped her collect over the weekend!

(mom...check out the concentration...she has her tongue out...just like poppy!)

5. wagon rides...

6. sidewalk chalk....(and other outdoor fun!)

7. hanging with jill and brennan. the girls and i needed to kill some time between dropping daddy for a half-day at work and picking him up to head out of town, so what better than killing time with a couple of our favorite friends (especially when pumpkin spice lattes and freshly baked cookies are involved!). :)

8. a fabulous hubby who is able (and willing) to fix leaky toilets...even after a weekend out of town! :) (this necessitated a family trip to lowe's sunday evening, and that too is a smile...seriously, everyone in the fam loves lowe's...elizabeth and kate go crazy for the race-car cart (if you haven't seen these they are quite fun...they aren't a car cart like the grocery, but an actual race-car, and if its any indication of future driving habits, we'd better watch out...kate is quite the crazy driver! as for elizabeth her favorite lowe's feature these days are the big Christmas inflatables....especially the one of santa on the ark (such an odd combination). we aren't big on santa at our house though, and after seeing him on the ark, she simply assumed he must be "noah"...since that makes SO much more sense! now anytime she sees an inflatable with santa, she calls him noah..."mommy, there's noah and the reindeer. and there's noah and the chimney, and noah and the tractor....." someday i suppose we'll have to teach her distinction, but for now i think i'll just giggle and call it cute!

9. a weekend with grandmommy and poppy (for the girls...and mugho too!)...including pumpkin carving, kitty cat hunting, collecting leaves, lego playing, and just plain having a fabulous time. THANKS POPPY AND GRANDMOMMY!

10. smile #9 means that mike and i had an entire weekend to ourselves. we actually went to a "weekend to remember" with familylife. it was a fabulous time...a good reminder of "the basics" and plenty of time for communicating, evaluating, and spurring us on in marriage. and, of course, it was lovely to simply be away...to enjoy a few nights in a hotel, have a great date night saturday evening (and we just happened to be in my hometown for the conference...meaning we were able to go to one of my old favs for dinner...YUM!), and simply relax away from the "stuff" waiting for us at home. it was splendid! :)

11. one last smile...i almost forgot, but the lovely shanna awarded me the kreative blogger award...and i promise to follow the instructions that come with it in a later post (probably tomorrow) and pass it along! :)