My weekend

After a very long, overwhelming week it was nice to finally greet the weekend. My husband surprised me with staying home Friday! We had lunch and did some grocery shopping, the usual fun stuff we enjoy doing these days. Since I'm new to this blogging stuff I stayed up a bit late moving things around, and we had quite the struggle getting a few kids to calm down. I don't know what you like to do to unwind, but I love to do my nails! Let me tell you, I really needed to unwind. So, at midnight I poured a glass of wine and did a fresh gel manicure. It was glorious!! Check them out! Not bad for being exhausted and uptight, huh?

I was looking forward to waking up to the smell of homemade sausage gravy and biscuits, just like my mom always made me after a long week. Here's the issue, I'm a big girl now and Mommy lives an hour away. It's a good thing I actually like to cook because I whipped up breakfast for the family quickly so we could get outside. The weather here in Michigan is finally getting warmer! The kids and dogs needed to burn some energy, and I needed some down time to just look around. It's funny, all week long I wait for Kevin (my husband) to be home so I can fit in some time for myself and get some work done. Then a sunny saturday shows up and I can't seem to stop watching my family run around, laughing and enjoying each other. I sat there for a while and reflected on the week I just had, because after all, "I" had a long week. I realized that when I am having a bad week, chances are it's because somebody else here is having a hard time. I struggle to keep calm in a complicated situation, I'm easily overwhelmed. Life with a big family is very rarely underwhelming, especially when everybody has a very different personality. I'd like to think I have a good handle on our life 24/7, and I probably do more often than I give myself credit for. It's the weeks like this that really test my skills as a mom, a "special needs" to be more specific. Our oldest son is severely multiply impaired, which means quite often he is probably feeling the overwhelming challenge of life as a teenage boy. He too had a rough week, and we all reacted to it. As a family we tend to play off of what everyone is feeling in the moment. There were a lot of stressful moments over the week that carried into the weekend, but there were also a lot of great moments too. We got through it and we chose to enjoy our time together! Dinner here brings us together to remind us that we are a family, even if we don't like the chaos that took over. Cooking is something we all like to do, even the toddler gets in on the action! We made a great dinner together and ate outside. I didn't get any work done, but I got what I needed. Family time, fresh air and a chance to start a new week! Here's to hoping this week brings more smiles and less stress!

I'm looking forward to getting my work done for my Jamberry event next weekend! I'm also working on the last session of potty training for my little guy. You know, the part where you don't have to chase them around frantically asking if they need to go again... He's yelling for me now!! Have a great Monday!