Pictures

Damon at his baseball team photo shoot.

Anne giving a tour of the flowers in our yard.

Anne demonstrating how she helped me dig the sand box.

Now, if I spent half as much time cleaning every day as I spent digging the sandbox, I'd have a tidy house--for an hour. Which is why I don't. The sandbox will stay done forever. No matter how hard I work, the house will not stay picked up. "Cleaning the house while the kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk while it is still snowing," you know. "Just train the kids to clean," Jake says. Just pull out all my hair while I crack a whip, he means. Okay, I'm done ranting. On a less frustrated note: Jake finished the sandbox for us on Saturday! As soon as I find the camera cable, I'll show you.

Milestones

On Monday Anne started putting two words together: she said, "Bye, daddy" when Jake went to work, and she said, "Mommy hair" while she pulled my hair.

Last Monday was also the second Monday in a row in which I washed, dried, FOLDED AND PUT AWAY 4 loads of laundry. I can't tell you proud I am of myself. I hate laundry, but it has to be done, so I'm going to do it, by golly.

If I had been able to look into the future 6 years ago and see this day when getting laundry done made me proud, I would have been very depressed at what the future held for me.

Perspective is everything.