three under five.

whew.  it has been one heck of a week over here.  a big reminder this week that we currently have three kids under five years old.

three under five.

like everyone (ev.ery.one.) that sees us out says, we "have our hands full."  indeed, my friend.  indeed we do.

the kids are reeling with post-holiday mania.
it's just been so many parties.  so many presents.  so many cookies.  so many late bedtimes.
it seems like this week has just been a full collapse of normalcy.

fighting, mess making, not listening, attitude, talking back.  it's been a hard few days in mummahood.

jumping from the top of the stairs to the landing...in the swimsuits.

I'm also trying to look at the massive amounts of what feels like clutter and too much stuff that happens every year after the holidays.  So much recycling, so many more toys, just so much stuff.  Am I the only one that has this January panic of how much crap it feels like is in their house?

a mess they made in the laundry room with recycling.  why do we even have any toys?

Monday was awful, just so much fighting, and difficulty resting, and crazy happening all day long with my three under five.  And then we had a tragic situation between one of our dogs and our sweet Jinxy cat that night. Jinxy is no longer with us which has us all heartbroken and now we are currently in the process of finding possible solutions for Bullet's behavior including seeing a professional dog behavior specialist on Monday and visiting the vet on Tuesday to see if his aggression is pain related.  We are operating with heavy hearts right now.

Greyson tried to make me feel better by telling me, "At least one happy thing Mom.  Jinxy is in heaven now having fun with cat Jesus."

cat Jesus.
gah, out of the mouths of babes, honestly.

we celebrated the last bit of our holiday season with Orthodox Christmas and we completed one of my 100 small things tasks - sleeping out under the Christmas tree.

it is always so refreshing to get the holiday decor down though - honestly, even though it was such a hassle to get the tree and decorations down myself on Wednesday, if I didn't get it down that day I felt like I was becoming unhinged.

We muscled through the week though - attending the kids' classes, Daddy's basketball game, and regular household chores.

B and I finally went grocery shopping (we were nearly bare cupboards) and stayed up until 1p putting groceries away, cleaning out the fridge and building a fire in the wood stove downstairs because of the super freezing temps this week.

Speaking of staying up late, that was another weird thing about this week - Gem kept passing out around 5p everyday and then waking up at like 7:30p - so then none of us went to bed until almost 11pm every night!?  Last night the four of us fell asleep downstairs on the couches watching Full House at midnight.  so weird.

TGIF today though, somehow we all seem to have a little more grace and patience with each other.  We had an exciting and fun day with home preschool and even had an ice cream snack for our Letter I week.  I'm hoping to get my new planner for 2015 today (HAH, 9 days into the year already, goodness) and I'm oddly excited about trying a new dinner tonight.  I'm hopeful that we are getting back into the groove of things after a very long, albeit joyous and blessed, holiday season.

so, yes, we have our hands full.
but as someone very sweet once reminded me.
"you think my hands are full?
you should see my heart."