Thoughts for Thursday...

We experienced the polar vortex last week, briefly returned to the dog days of summer early in the week, then jumped back to sweater weather this morning.

This picture makes my heart smile. 

Unbridled joy, playfulness and the magical excitement that jumping into a puddle brings to my little Catfish make me want to freeze her at this age forever. 

It reminds me that I will never tire of watching this girl LIVE IT UP.

It rained twice this week, so we partied it up in our rain boots!

In horrifying wildlife news, look at the craziness my husband found in OUR GARAGE after mowing the yard on Saturday.

 Yes, friends, THAT IS A SNAKESKIN. A TWO FOOT LONG SNAKESKIN. I have no words. One of the volunteers at the zoo said that it was probably a black rat snake which can grow up to 8 feet. I would die if I happened upon anything remotely close in my house.

In happier news, we had a lunch date with my husband at Chick-Fil-A on Wednesday.

I had a yummy Asian chicken salad and half of Sweet Thing's french fries, and the girls had a blast playing in the indoor playground. I love this restaurant (politics aside), but I am always totally weirded out when they offer to swap out your children's meal book for ice cream. To me that just sends a totally backwards message about the importance of reading. I am more than happy to shell out an extra $3 and let my kids keep the books!

Sadly, our big plans for five straight days at the pool were dashed as the temperature dropped towards the end of the week. It was an extra big bummer for Sweet Thing who finally earned the diving fish set she's been working so hard for these past few weeks (we told her that if she could work up to swimming a few feet underwater, she could earn these little fish to take to the pool...she's been doing an awesome job and met her goal on Monday! Not too shabby for a little girl who refused to even put her ears in the water in early June!).

We also welcomed some new neighbors this week. I hadn't realized they moved in several weeks ago (in my defense, they live like five houses down at the end of the cul-de-sac and we too just moved in last month!), so I was feeling pretty bad that I hadn't made it down to welcome them yet!

Thankfully, blueberry muffins make everything ok! They were well received, and I was really excited to find out that the couple who bought the house are our age and are super nice!

I also went on an onion bender this week. I pickled, diced, sliced and fried red and Vidalias...yum. 

Behold.

Happy Weekend to you!