the child is God's gift to the family.
- Mother Teresa

today began as such a frustrating day for me. it started by spending 2 1/2 hours in UPS and USPS, trying to ship prints (yes, i finally did get them shipped :-) later, i spent 30 minutes chasing our dog down the street, while i'm sure all my neighbors thought i was nuts because i was not only chasing and yelling at the dog, but also trying to keep my kids from following me down and into the street. needless to say, i was pretty tense today.

later i took all three kids to get their hair cut. one might think that this would add to my frustration (taking three kids at once to get their hair cut) but man, the joy on kiele's face...that alone made my day all better. she's so grateful for the little things. kiele couldn't stop smiling when she saw her new hairdo...and in turn, i couldn't stop smiling. my day magically got a better! she's such a joyful little girl and I have so much to learn from her goodness and kindness. after steve got home from work, we decided to go to Uno's for dinner (yay...no cooking for me). steve was sitting across from sky and winked at her. sky in turn, winked back at him (with the secret assistance of her hand helping her one eye close). it was the cutest thing and we couldn't help but giggle. as we were all laughing about it, sky piped up and said, "let's see who can wink both eyes" and so she began...expertly and proudly winking both eyes. it's times like this that make the most frustrating days so joyful.

my kids...
the greatest gift in my life!
i couldn't imagine my life without them!!

the photo:
after getting home, i asked sky if i could take a picture of her winking. and so she let me. and in one of the shots, charley ran up like a bullet, gave sky a quick kiss and off he went...like a bullet. when I look at the photo, I can hear sky's laugh...I can feel her joy.