Make sure you have a plan. That’s what yesterday’s ER visit taught me.

And I’m not too happy that we seem to go to the ER a couple times a year. Alas, it happens.

Kyle was cutting sweet potato and was distracted as well as hungry. Low blood sugar, distractions, slice. That’s pretty much how it went down.

Then the panic and the what the heck do we do.

Thankfully, we had someone who could pick-up Noah and take care of him. And our awesome babysitter called us back and was able to watch the other three for a couple of hours. It all worked it self out. And Kyle’s damage was fixable.

It does make me consider that we need to set up a network of emergency contacts for the future should this happen again. We should have conversations with some people close to us who would be available to help out should we have another emergency. It is tough not having family super close by.

Kyle was ready to drive himself to the ER. But I nixed that idea. It was easier to just wake sleeping babies up and load up the car.

Emergency plans are important! I will be researching this and planning.

In other news, I took a week off from everything computer and running. Just felt the need to be on a break. And it helped me sort myself out. And I’m distracted by a new racy trilogy that is definitely not family friendly, but a fun romance a la the Twilight series (sans vampires).

Hoping to get my Week In the Life photobook done soon, just waiting on a new Shutterfly discount to motivate me, as I seem to be missing out on the current one.

I have to say – it’s never boring around here.

Day 4: 156 pictures.

And that’s me in the corner, losing my momentum. I guess you probably couldn’t tell by the amount of pictures I took. But I didn’t look forward to documenting our day as on previous days. It’s also a personality trait of mine that I struggle with, seeing a project through to the end.

I’m incredibly excited by the beginnings and endings of things, but I struggle with the middle. Which is why I really wanted to do this project, because it helps to give me perspective on the middle. So much of life is about the middle. (And our Rabbi had this in her sermon this week – I wish I could remember who she was quoting.)

So today, I do not have patience for writing the words in my photobook. I’ll come back to Thursday and add the words to the book. Today it is just the pictures in the book.

Here are my Shutterfly pages (these need serious editing):

As for listening (something I wanted to work on from yesterday), I think I did better. Though, I didn’t write down what I heard. I did listen to be in the moment with things going on in our life. I consider that a success.

Looking forward to Friday, lots of fun things going on around here!

I won’t be posting until Sunday, most likely, because tomorrow is Shabbat and there will be that new Vampire Diaries episode calling my name.

Day 3: 104 pictures

Much better moods for everyone today. I managed to get the twin who needs more sleep (Rosalind) – more sleep. That really helps with her mood.

My Shutterfly pages for Wednesday:

Observations for today:
I am doing a great job looking at the world around me. I would like to improve my listening for tomorrow. I feel like I am missing out on what is being said.

I was more in the rhythm of things today, even though I had to rush off and get snacks for Eli’s class early this morning (due to my forgetting) and having to deal with AT&T cutting off our services because we got behind on paying them. I worked through these situations that could have put me in a bad mood. So much about each day is attitude. I need to determine how to redirect mine when it starts going to the negative side.

Hope your Wednesday was sweet!

Day 2: 97 Pictures

I thought surely I had taken less.

Today I was off, short tempered, cranky. I even got more sleep. Just one of those days.

Here’s my Shutterfly pages for Tuesday.

Observation about today:
I could easily name the annoying things our kids do, but not so easily the wonderful things they do.

I need to and want to change this.

Oh – and I need to take more pictures of Kyle.

Tips for my Shutterfly process:
Typing the journaling in a Word document then cutting and paste it into the text box helps speeds up the process. And I can see it better in the Word document.

Tomorrow’s another busy day.

Day 1: 60 Pictures

And here are my Monday Shutterfly pages:

My Rules for myself on this project:
1. Take as many pictures as I want, but know I have created boundaries for myself in the book and must truly pick the best of the bunch.

2. The writing can be short and to the point. I would like to consider this more as the days go on. I wrote a lot today which took quite a chunk of time in the evening. I want to capture a daily look from hour to hour. I also want to focus on the Observations, Gratitude, Overheard, and Favorite Moments from Ali Edwards Daily Sheets.

3. Work on getting the pages done in the evening with the plan to have a final edit once the whole week is complete. It’s okay if it’s not perfect. Breathe. It’s ok.

I’m sure I’ll create more guidelines for myself as the week goes on – those are good for a start.

Mondays are pretty hectic around here. I’m in and out of the car 7-8 times throughout the day.

Doh! And as I sit here I just remembered I forgot to consider my iPhone pictures.

Oh well.

Today is a new day.

On to Tuesday!

Good Information Ali mentioned:
Documenting a Week In the Life by Elise Blaha

Ali Edwards Week in The Life begins tomorrow, and I’m ready to participate!

I had fun doing Day in The Life back in February. I printed the pictures, but have not made an album yet. This did get me to thinking, I should stream line the process for Week in the Life. I need less pieces if I’m going to be able to create a finished product. It’s just the way life is right now. And I want a finished product!

My plan is to create a Shutterfly photobook.

I have the pages set up for every day, so that I can drop my pictures in and add my writing (hopefully) painlessly. I picked the Project Life Clementine Edition because I really like the color scheme and kinda wish I had picked that for my Project Life album.

I also found this post Ali mentioned - Capturing A Week in the Life by Lynette from NettioDesigns – to be incredibly helpful in how I will tackle next week.

I hope to break the day up into similar portions, morning, mid-day, afternoon, and night, with hopes of anticipating and knowing when the busy portions of my day occur.

Other things I liked about Lynette’s post:
-she captured what she wore each day.
-she documented the highlights of different aspects of her life – i.e. pop culture, technology, TV shows.
-she emphasized simplicity – which I desperately seek!

I guess I am about as ready as I can be for next week. The book is ready to be made. The moments are ready to be captured. The stories from a week in our life are ready to be written.

Let’s see what this week has in store for us.

Tonight Noah lost his first tooth! It’s been wiggly for several weeks. We were eating dinner and reading Flat Stanley, when the robbers were just about to be caught and Noah shouts:

“My tooth fell out!”

And there it was, he pulled it out of his mouth and there was some blood, just a little. The blood seemed to distract him from the excitement of losing his tooth,which he has been VERY excited about these past few weeks. (It’s all the rave in Kinder.)

We got him cleaned up and then he wanted to make sure Kyle knew the news. We called and shared what had happened. The tooth was put a way in a safe place – a pink cup on the counter…naturally.

Change again! These kids are constantly changing! He keeps telling me to take a picture so I can remember his baby teeth (I guess his way of helping me through it and telling me to get over it!)

The tooth fairy appears to have visited tonight.

And there goes my oldest onward and growing up it to such an interesting kid. I will miss those baby teeth.

Eli, on the other hand, was there for the whole tooth falling out event. He promptly wanted to go and brush his teeth so that they wouldn’t fall out (we may tell him that his teeth will fall out as a method to get him to brush his teeth…it’s highly possible).

Ahhh, the difference in world view between a three year old and a six year old.

A year ago…

One year later…

It amazes me how they develop in a year, and from day to day there are so many changes.

I am coming to terms with them leaving babyhood behind. It’s bittersweet. These are our last babies. They are just so adorable and sweet. Time is wisking them along into big girls. Sometimes I look back at this past year, and I’m not quite sure what happened.

Ah life…

Happy Birthday baby girls!

and good bye 35. It was a busy year, and suddenly time is speeding past in a way I have not experienced.

I would like to have a 36 project. I like Elise Blaha’s 27 Materials Project to be completed before she turns 28. I also like Kelly Purkey’s “A List of 30″ to do in her 30th year.

For me, I’ve consider exploring making 36 breakfasts. I have learned so much about cooking dinner just from repeatedly doing, could I do the same with breakfast? Morning are tough, but surely I could do 36 days out of 365.

I also considered 36 skirts, 36 playtime ideas with my kids, and 36 coconut recipes.

In the end, I believe 36, we will not be too restraining this year. I want the option to be creative in any way possible. So, I’ll leave it generic and focus on creating 36 lovely objects to add to our home. Our walls are very bare. It could use some tender, loving creative care.

While 35 feels like a big beautiful smudge in my timeline, I hope to remedy this with year 36. Breathe life back into into the part of myself that seeks to play with paper, paint, thread, words…and really, the possibilities are endless.

(I got the Instagram photo idea from Finding Nana, who’s got some great ideas. And I borrowed my twins tiara from their birthday. Still can’t believe my baby girls are 1.)

I participated in Fat Mum Slim’s February Photo A Day Challenge. I loved it, and am now addicted to Instagram, it’s my new Facebook. Here is my February in Instagrams:

1. My view – A rainy day and our pool. Lots of indoor play time.
2. Words – Real Love, Every Day
3. Hands – Merlyn’s sweet chubby hand.
4. A stranger – Some Target patrons who were unwilling subjects, but what they don’t know can’t hurt them.
5. 10 AM – The clock that rules our house – from time out timer to dinner timer to get some food timer.
6. Dinner – A partial view of all the dinner the twin babies eat.
7. Button – Found on a baby’s fuzzy jammies used for cold days.
8. Sun – Starbucks coffee sun.
9. Front Door – The Weebels house is so colorful and more interesting than our front door.
10. Self-portrait – Kyle claims I was chillin’, I say I am artistically poised in the light.
11. Make me happy – Vampire Diaries – it’s painful to wait for new episodes now that I am all caught up.
12. Inside my closet.
13. Blue – Our glasses from Mexico, used infrequently, still pretty.
14. Heart – Babies’ Valentines bags – and I didn’t make Valentine’s for the other kids . They’ll get over it, right?
15. Phone – the old Steve-1 (my phones are named Steve – I love him! I’m on Steve 2. Kyle gets jealous, and then he won Steve 3-an iPad…I’m in Steve heaven!)
16. Something new – Eli and I added a new letter E to our coconut tree.
17. Time – This clock is ahead and drives me into a panic at school pick up time.
18. Drink – My running drink.
19. Something I hate to do – the dishes! And Noah has the nerve to ask me why would I want to do something so boring? Ah geez…
20. Handwriting – I love this by Freedman Dyson…”do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything.”
21. A Fave photo of you – Our engagement photo.
22. Where I work – On our big, round, awkward counter top.
23. Your shoes – Flip flops are my shoe of choice.
24. Inside your bathroom cabinet.
25. Green – a letter from Noah’s Happy Birthday banner.
26. Night – Uchi date night!
27. Something you ate – some corn tortillas in my Crockpot Monday meal.
28. Money – I kind of like that gelt clip.
29. Something you are listening to – Milkshake – who recently played for our preschool concert. The boys really like the CD we got.

That’s it for February! It flew by!

Check out Fat Mum Slim’s March challenge.

I’m up for it and hoping I can keep up with our various activities going on.

Lots of projects going on, hope to share some of them soon.

To check out more February Photo A Day in internet land checkout The House of Smiths.