Valentine's cookies

This extra day at work every week has really thrown off the balance in my life, and I'm frantically trying to get the balance back. I'm struggling to come up with meals that the sitters can throw in the oven for me; I'm struggling to keep on top of the housework; I'm struggling with getting exercise time in; I'm struggling to keep up with friends and their needs. By the time I get home from work and we get finished with dinner and baths, I find myself just snuggling up with the kids wishing time would slow down. There are several things that would be helpful (meal prep, help cleaning, etc.), but are expensive and would negate my reason for working the extra day. I'm trying to understand God's lessons in this, and know I'll come out on the other side a better mom and stronger person...but BOY it's an exhausting phase of life right now.

I know for sure that I'm missing blogging! Especially the GratiTuesday posts. I go back and read them occasionally and feel RICHLY fortunate.

The kids decorated Valentine cookies today! We rolled them out and baked them yesterday. Sophie was BESIDE herself with excitement--she kept running around telling everyone in the house. "Daddy! Mommy's making COOKIES!"..."Brothers! Mommy's making COOKIES!" Who knew sugar cookies could elicit such a response?! They each had a turn at rolling out the dough, too.

This is a video of them decorating their cookies. They used paintbrushes to apply the icing, then decided it was more amusing to rub the frosted cookies all over their faces. I wish the video did it justice...they were a MESS!

I'm looking forward to this week's GratiTuesday post! It's been too long!