ten smile tuesday

ten smile tuesday again...and once again, i find myself with very little photographic proof of our smiles....but still, plenty of smiles, nonetheless. i suppose i cheated a little sharing two smiles last week on tuesday evening...smiles that i could have carried over until this week. but you will just have to go here to check out that post (including pictures of smiley kate) if you haven't already. and without further ado....

1. a surprise party...my dearest husband managed to take me completely by surprise. arranging for a group of friends to meet us at a restaurant downtown on friday evening. afterwards the group of us that didn't need to head right home to baby-sitters (which included mike and i because of smile #2) played some skee-ball, air hockey, and other games on the second floor of the restaurant...and that too, proved quite fun! ironically when our original baby-sitting plan for friday fell through i made a few back-up calls and ended up snagging one of the "would-be party-goers" for baby-sitting job...so thanks for making my attendance at the surprise party possible, will and jamie! :)

2. an overnight stay at a gorgeous hotel downtown, the conrad, after previous mentioned surprise party. how nice to simply have some time to relax and kick back without thinking about the myriad of things that i could/should be doing around the house! this was a joint celebration of my birthday, hubby's birthday (which is coming up this week), our anniversary (less than a month away), and i suppose you could even tack mother's day on as well, since it was right in the same time frame. we capped our time off with a tasty breakfast at le peep in the morning...it was SO refreshing.

3. pretzel bread...oh my goodness...this is definitely in my top 10 favorite recipes now. YUM! it is even good enough to keep 5 kiddos under the age of 4 seated in a row for a picture...now that is most definitely a measure of success in my book!

4. and how cute are those 5 kiddos munching away on their pretzel bread. we had a great evening thursday...it was our turn to watch all the kids for our date-swap group....and can i just say that this particular group of seven kids under the age of four (the youngest two...a two month old and 11 month old didn't make the couch photo) could almost make me want 7 of my own in this age range. seriously...no tears, no arguments...just lots of playing, giggling, and otherwise enjoying themselves.

5. antibiotics...elizabeth decided to pick up some nasty germs somewhere and came down with strep...leading to a laying low kind of tuesday and wednesday...i'm so thankful the antibiotics helped to quickly restore her to her normal self. secretly, i'm also a bit thankful that the sickies took her back to actually napping in the afternoon...a trend that seems to be sticking even after she's regained her health!

6. a lovely morning at MOPS...a nice break after a few long days with a sick libbers and cooped up kate. i've so enjoyed the gals at my table this year...and in our group in general...and will be sad to see the MOPS year end after our meeting next week. in the meantime i am looking forward to our last steering meeting of the year tonight...a celebration of sorts...appetizers and dessert...for dinner...because, really, who needs the entree! :) i just finished whipping up my contribution, a double mocha brownie trifle....

7. peanut butter and jelly....we love PB&J around our house...especially if its closed inside two pieces of fresh home-baked wheat bread. i just had to share these pictures of kate. after scarfing down her own sandwich, she frantically "pleased" and "more"-d her way into snagging half of daddy's sandwich while he was away on the phone for a minute. no fear, we made another half for daddy. she typically likes her sandwich cubed into bite-sized pieces without crust, but she was pretty darn proud of herself for eating daddy's half like a big girl....and coating her arms and legs and mouth in peanut butter and jelly as well! :)

8. moving bedrooms...we moved elizabeth into kate's room saturday evening, and with three nights in the books, its going well so far. though we have four bedrooms, meaning everyone could have their own room, we ideally would like to keep one room as a guest/playroom...so we've been contemplating this move for awhile. i had my reservation, as lately elizabeth's sleep has been a bit unpredictable...but we figured we would at least give it a whirl, especially after they did a great job in the same room friday night when they stayed with friends. though it definitely takes them longer to fall asleep and i'm hearing kate's voice a bit earlier in the morning (but really, she was probably up this early all along...she is just content to lay in her crib silently until i come get her), it is well worth all the giggles, chattering, and love we are hearing between the two of them. and even though i hear them up earlier in the morning, they are content to simply chatter and play in their beds until their turtle comes on (which is elizabeth's sign she can come out of her bed).

9. some good restful sleep. i am feeling good pregnancy-wise, but sleeping has been my biggest issue this time around. i have no trouble falling asleep but am often waking up as many as 6 times a night...meaning, not much restful sleep and one exhausted mama. in the past week, though, i've had two or three nights where i've only been up once...and that has been FABULOUS! on top of that, after seeing a bit of an increase in my blood pressure my doctor ordered me to put my feet up and try to nap in the afternoon...and that is what i've been doing for the past week...and oh my, a nice solid nap is a great thing. but my goodness, i have such a hard time putting my feet up and taking a break...especially when it feels like it would be such a great time to actually accomplish something cleaning-wise!

10. though it doesn't seem to mesh with #9's comments about putting my feet up...i have been productive in little ways. is it stooping to a new low when you post a smile regarding something as little as getting the laundry folded...and then admit that it was actually both this week and last weeks laundry...and then you go so far as to post a picture of the accomplishment!? that was this morning's accomplishment! but with moving the girls to the same room i've also made some good headway in getting elizabeth's old room organized and a bit more ready to become the nursery...and mike and i together did some major purging in the guest/playroom/currently should be called the junkroom! as long as it doesn't rain we'll be trying to get rid of some stuff at a garage sale saturday...and i can't wait!

11. ...and finally, i am smiling in anticipation of having mike home the rest of the week. after a couple of LONG weeks with LONG hours all that time will pay off in three full days at home with us...well, actually five days when you count the weekend! bring it on! :)