A few things this week: 

• It was a really rough week. We just started school midweek last week, so things are still new. It's still a new experience homeschooling THREE of my kids. But it was SUPER BUSY. It took pretty much all day to get school done for all the kids. It was made worse by the fact that it was my turn to do preschool this week. So Monday and Wednesday, I had 5 little 3 year olds over to my house to learn some things, have a snack and play. Which was totally fine! They are adorable, and I really actually like having little kids at my house at this point in my life. We have fun together! But it put us behind with schoolwork so much that it ended up being really frustrating. Same thing Tuesday and Thursday: Tuesday the girls have some of their activities, and Thursday morning we had doctors appointments for all the kids but Sawyer. Anyway. It was such a busy week keeping up with all this,  plus feeding everyone, plus doing some chores and keeping some semblance of house. Suffice to say, I was quite frustrated many days this week. And stressed. 
• Because of 👆🏽 the above, my children took note of my fatigue and frustration, and Camille made a plan to help me feel better. She made a spa for me. She had it all ready Thursday night. But by the time we were done with dinner and chores and all the things at the end of the day, it was way too late to do spa. She was really disappointed, but I was like, "please don't make me feel guilty for this. I can't have both of us staying up even later tonight to do spa. But Friday, late afternoon, when we FINALLY finished with all of our school stuff for the week, I asked if she wanted to go do spa. She took me to the kids bathroom upstairs, sat me in a chair, and asked what activities I wanted to do. First, she brushed and braided my hair (which felt like absolute heaven). Then she painted my nails, and I painted hers. And I didn't even know that that was exactly what I needed: just a few moments in a silent, peaceful place, with just Camille, relaxing and being pampered by her. It really felt so nice. 

• I'm still trying to get all my one-on-one mom dates in before the summer feels truly over. So today I took Brooke on her date while Daniel was with the other kids. She wanted to go to the pet store to see if there were any dogs and cats and to get Sammy a rope toy. As we were heading in that direction, first, I missed our exit, so I got off on the next exit. Since I'd taken the wrong path, I decided to cut through the shopping center to get there, instead of going around on the main streets. As we were passing target, I looked and there on the side of the road was a little kernel cage filled with puppies and a sign that said, "For sale". I pulled into the parking lot and we got out a cuddled the most adorable little cockapoo puppies. Brooke was in heaven! We stayed and cuddled and played with the puppies for at least 10 minutes. They were SO cute. Then, once we left and started heading in the direction we needed to, closer to Walmart, we AGAIN saw people selling puppies! This time, border collies. They were also so adorable; black and white and so sweet. We finally made it to the pet store and got to see some of the cats up for adoption. Brooke fell in love with a little orange tabby kitten named Cheddar. He was pretty cute. (And, incidentally, we were so preoccupied with puppies that we forgot to get the toy for Sammy) But then, what would you think? A little way off from the pet store was ANOTHER man selling puppies!! We walked over and cuddled and petted and played with golden doodles this time. Brooke could not get enough. It was SO fun! What are the chances that THREE puppy sellers were around the same area we were today, and that we happened to be passing by them! I kind of think it was a little tender mercy from Heavenly Father. Maybe He wanted to make Brooke happy today by seeing all those cute puppies. It just seems like more than coincidence that I missed the exit, and then decided to cut through the shopping center, and then that we saw 3 different sets of puppies. It made my heart so happy.