Every week I like to take a moment to showcase the moments that brought me the most joy. Sometimes they are awesome activities and other times it’s a sweet moment between the kids. There are always moments that can fill us with joy if we choose to see them with a thankful heart.
(Note: This post may contain affiliate links. Possibly several of them. I will earn a small commission if you use my links to purchase a product but your purchase price does not change. Check out the disclosure policy to find out more. Thank you for supporting My Joy in Chaos.)
Coming off a four day weekend made the transition back to normal life hard. I don’t even think the transition back from Christmas break was that hard! Everyone’s moods were on edge and lots of icky attitudes infiltrated our days. But by the end of the week we turned a corner.
We also finally got our Christmas decorations put away. Yup, we are that slow! We meant to do it last weekend when we had so much time off together but we ended up doing other family stuff instead. Sunday afternoon we packed it all away and deep cleaned the living room so we could move the couch back to it’s normal position. The house feels bare without the twinkly lights but I’m ready to get on with getting the whole house into better working order again.
But, on to the highlights of the week – even though it was a hard one!
1. Church donuts
Our church provides donuts and coffee before each service and it’s obviously, one of our kids’ favorite parts of going to church. The little boys have started skipping sitting at a regular table and instead choose the spots under the counter with the extra chairs. They think they are so sneaky and funny, even though they do it every single week. They also feed each other bites of donuts which is just about the cutest thing ever.
2. New specks
Parker had his eyes tested at school and it came back with a note to follow up with an optometrist. We finally got our butts to the doctor and sure enough, Parker has trouble with distance (just like his mom and dad) so glasses it is. His only request was that the glasses needed to be green. These glasses are green on the inside so he gave them the okay. We’ve never dealt with glasses on a kid – we both got ours as teens – so I reached out on Facebook and Instagram and y’all came through with some great tips! We decided we are going to buy a backup pair from Zenni Optical because the prices are phenomenal! Then if he isn’t careful he will be paying for new glasses from Zenni as well since he can easily come up with the funds from his allowance.
3. Patient sale shoppers
Sam’s Club is closing one of the locations in our area and are clearing out the warehouse by slashing prices. The first week everything was 25% off and while it would have been nice to get there right away and have our choice of the inventory the line when we drove by one day was RIDICULOUS – especially considering it was around -20*F. Um, I’m not waiting in line with the kids for that! The next week was significantly warmer, about 25*F, and the line was only about 10 people deep. Plus the discount was at 50% off the entire store! The inventory was pretty pathetic but we did manage to get 106oz cans of tomato sauce for $1.49/each, a large bottle of raw honey for just over $6, and two packs of salsa for less than $3. All great deals and items we go through quite quickly.
Anyway, the kids were SO patient while we waited to get into the store and behaved awesomely in the store as we wandered, browsed, and debated purchases. And they even behaved when we made a second and third trip around before checking out just to make sure we didn’t want anything else. Awesome kids <3
4. Mommy-daughter date
January and February are my months for going on dates with the kids and it’s Mercedes turn first! After hopping from choice, to choice, to choice she finally settled on Red Lobster. She ate popcorn shrimp and oranges and I had some incredible shrimp tacos with steamed broccoli. We chatted, practiced letters on the menu, and enjoyed our girl time. I love this tradition of one-on-one time with the kids!