Happiness Week 10

What a relief it is. No party. No musical. No special project. But. The thing about life is it's always changing. Now we are heading into baseball season. Again. And Evie wants to play volleyball. We'll see. And Ainsley has a bunch of medical stuff coming up. And I have to catch up on laundry, yard work, cleaning (you don't want to know how many months it's been since I mopped my floors) and March is my month to focus on photography, and the month is nearly half over. Last week I bought a new photo management software AcdSeePro 5 (I was super happy that instead of $239 it was on sale for $99!). My old software had some sort of problem and stopped working. The new software makes fast(er) work of viewing/editing/organizing. I like fast!  I've got the party photos edited and will be working on a new blog, maybe later this week.

It's a good thing my new philosophy is to try to take what happiness I can among the craziness because if I was waiting for things to calm down that day would never come.

What Made Me Happy - Week 10

03/05 Family Dinner

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It was so great to have nothing going on tonight but family dinner. I love that my kids love spaghetti and meatballs because it's so easy that dad can make it. And I love the nights when they are happy about "what's for dinner".

03/06 A Stash of Kids Shoes

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Ainsley got her new AFOs today. She has a hate, hate relationship with them. Let's hope they start helping so she'll be willing to wear them. If you are lucky enough not to have a child that needs AFOs then you should know that they are very bulky and it's hard to find a good pair of shoes that they'll fit into and the insoles need to be removable.  Boy was I happy when I pulled out my stash of outgrown kids shoes from BB&BS and found the perfect pair of Keens no shopping required!

03/07 Paperless EOBs

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I get a LOT of EOBs (Explanation of Benefits) from our insurance company. I was so excited that I finally signed up for paperless EOBs! But alas a couple days later my first e-mail came and instead of the actual EOB it included a link to where I could go to log in and download the electronic EOB. Dummies! That's a bunch of extra steps that I don't have time for. So back to paper EOBs it is. Though if you don't want to see your EOBs then it might work for you.

03/08 Bottle Project Finished/Glasses Found

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It's a tie so I kind of cheated with today's picture.  I was SO happy to be done with the party that I was very UNhappy when I learned that Evie had a special project, a bottle doll inspired by a biography, that was due Friday. These type of school projects require a lot of parental help. Thankfully a friend called and we commiserated about the project. She sent us some supplies so I didn't have to make a special trip to buy "hair" and her wooden arms were handy(no pun intended). In the end it turned out very cute.  Guess who her famous figure is. I'll tell you at the end.  The same day Evie had her at school performance of Seussical and while I was there I checked in with the office. They HAD Evie's glasses that she'd lost weeks prior. She insisted that they were at home not school (she'd even checked the lost and found) and I was just about to order a new pair. Woohoo!

 03/09 Seussical Finished

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Now I'm feeling kind of bad for feeling this way (I guess the fact that I'm happiest when stuff is over means I need to cut back) but the truth is I was really happy that the musical is over. It was a big production and took a lot of time. At the end Evie had rehearsal almost every night and it made the homework crunch that much harder. Plus you can only listen to so much Dr. Seuss music. But I really am really grateful that Evie had this opportunity. So many parents worked really hard to make it possible. A huge thanks to my neighbors for giving Evie a ride home many nights!  

03/10 Popcorn

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For some odd reason we haven't had popcorn with our Friday night movie in ages (well I had two weeks when the dentist didn't allow me to eat popcorn so that's partly it.). I LOVE popcorn. It's probably my favorite food. Today I made a big double batch of popcorn in our movie theater style popper and it made me SO happy to sit down as a family and watch a movie together. Puss N Boots. It was pretty good. But really it's all about the popcorn for me.  

03/11 Pancakes

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We were working on communication at "breakfast." I pushed the buttons for "I want" "to eat" "breakfast" and before I even asked her she saw she had pancakes and pushed the button for pancakes. I was so impressed! She is really improving with her AAC device. Some days it feels like the inchstones are so small we'll never make it to milestones but an inch is an inch.

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The bottle doll is Anne Frank. Did you guess right? Have a great week! To view a slideshow of the entire Happiness Photo Project click here. For more about what this is all about click here.