November 19

It was a school day, a preschool day, a MOPS day, and my turn to bring food for MOPS today.

You can imagine how hectic my morning was. 

But Eli managed to stay up in the nursery for the whole MOPS meeting, so I got a nice chunk of time to unwind from the stresses of the morning. It was a good thing, too, because my afternoon was even more stressful.

I got the little three home from preschool and MOPS, fed them their lunch, and put them down for early naps. When I came out from Eli's room at 1:20, there was a truck in our driveway. It was a homebuilder Chris does business with, waiting for two of his guys to come install our new front door.

During naptime.

I foolishly hoped the kids would nap through it; they had noise machines and were at the other end of the house. How loud could it be?

Answer: very, very loud. 

Daisy and Lily didn't nap at all, and Eli probably napped for just over an hour. That was his only nap, all day.

Yes, Daisy, that is exactly how I felt.

Eli was fascinated by the work, though.

I agree, buddy. It's a big improvement!

One of the guys is coming back tomorrow to finish insulating and trimming the door out; then a painter will come to paint the door navy and the windows and trim white. Then the guys will come back to install a storm door. 

Then I will want to paint the hallway and the ceiling, patch a few holes, put in new baseboards, get a small hall table and some artwork, get new coach lights outside, put in a new doorbell, and while we're at it replace the garage doors with a new double garage door.

OK, all of that is nowhere near financially feasible. But I'll probably think about patching and painting the walls and ceiling. Maybe.

Also, would it be weird if the outside part of the door was navy and the inside part was white? Or should the whole thing be navy? I feel like the inside part should look like all of the other doors in our house, and they're white. Please brave the annoying Blogger comment process to weigh in on your opinion; I really need to know. If that's too complicated, please text me with your opinions.

After dinner, I tried out the new continuous lighting system I got the other day. The bulbs that came with it are supposed to be "daylight", but they're way too blue. Still; these pictures were taken in an otherwise dark room at night. I'm pretty impressed.

She has her nightgown on backwards. No idea why.

Caleb had a Boy Scouts meeting to go to.

I tried manually adjusting the white balance on my camera to get good skin tones; I didn't do a very good job.

Lily really liked the lights.

OH my goodness. That girl.

I know I mentioned that I had a migraine yesterday, but I don't think I told this story:

When it was time for Eli to go down for his morning nap, I turned PBS Kids on for the girls and they watched Daniel Tiger. I was done with Eli pretty quickly and they still had some TV time left at the point that I didn't care how much TV they watched because migraine, so when I was done with Eli I let them keep watching TV. I curled up at one end of the couch while the girls sat at the other end, watching their show. Lily looked up, saw me, and without saying a word, picked up her water bottle and walked over to me. She found a little spot, just her size, and squeezed in so that my body was curled around her. She didn't say anything at all; she just kept on watching her show.

So often I feel touched out and just want to be left alone, but at that moment, she was exactly what I  needed. She didn't need anything from me; she just wanted to be snuggled up with me. I nuzzled my face into her hair, and breathed in my big two and a half year old. It was perfect, and I was thankful.