For The Love of Friday....

Let's face it...life can get pretty chaotic at times, especially with two vivacious toddlers running around just being themselves. I am slowly realizing that I can either get upset by all the chaos, causing myself way more stress and worry than is worth it, or simply look at the madness from a different perspective and take something good from it. My life simply wouldn't be what it is without the chaos....as frustrating as it may be to deal with at times, the chaos is inter-related with the things [and people] who bring me my greatest joy and happiness. So, here is a glimpse into the past week, ranging from the good, to the bad, to those moments when you can't help but cry "Oh, for the love of..."

1. The Up-Chucks: Roo caught some kind of bug at the beginning of the week, which resulted in an unfortunate case of the up-chucks. Throughout Monday and Tuesday, she would randomly throw up - no new foods or anything, just something that was bugging her stomach. AK then dealt with the up-chucks on Wednesday....fortunately her stomach settled back down a little sooner than her sisters. As much fun as it is [not] to clean up puke for 3 days, it did give me the opportunity to milk some GOOD skuggles from the girls.

2. New Art-work: Roo loves crayons. Roo loves markers. Roo loves to sneak said crayons and markers out of their box when mama's not looking, resulting in new and surprising works of art found throughout the apartment. This week, these new art pieces showed up [literally] on the coffee table, the dining room chair, the fridge door, the vinyl flooring and on Roo, herself. Luckily, I have learned to keep wet wipes, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, and nail polish remover on hand at ALL times. Another reason why it's pointless to invest in expensive furniture while you still have young children at home....thank you IKEA and craigslist for your affordable furnishing solutions.

3. Cooking. I would be lying if I told you I enjoy cooking. I have done it since I was a child, but it has never been something I enjoyed. I will never measure up to the standards of Gordon Ramsey, Betty Crocker, or even my own mother, but recently I have been putting forth an effort to cook and prepare balanced meals for the girls rather than opt for the all-too-easy-way-out by indulging in any variety of convenient and affordable fast-food dollar menus. A surprising reward of this is that my always-picky AK is now finally starting to branch out and eat different foods. It's been a battle with her for as long as I can remember, and while she is still skeptical about many foods, she has expanded her pallet from the previous "chicken-french fries-milk" demands. Although it resulted previously in a lot of good food being put down the disposal or thrown into the garbage can, our persistence has finally paid off.

4. Potty-training: Speaking of persistence, we are still tackling the whole potty-training thing. As much as I would love to have the girls completely out of pull-ups and into big girls panties, I have learned to accept that it will happen in their own due time. They know what the potty is, and they use it when they see fit. Sometimes they just get too busy playing and being toddlers, so until they decide to completely forgo the security of their pull-ups for undies, I will [patiently] wait. Every child is different, and the girls will become potty-trained when they finally decide it's worth it.

5. Scrapping: Digi-scrapping, that is. I've been a busy bee this week scrapping with some new products from Pixie Perfect Designs. I was accepted onto PPD's creative team this week, which means I will be creating lots of cute pages with her adorable products in the future (more on this later in a separate post, but here are the pages I completed this week):