The joys of my life...

I am certain I have mentioned on more than one occasion what a blessed life I lead. As I look forward to two weeks off, I am also taking a minute to reflect on the blessings of my life...

I am a person that stops to smell the roses, despite a super busy schedule. I love to see the beauty in the world around me. This week I went to Naperville for 3 days of training. Even though I don't appreciate the drive, I love that the school I go to is smack dab in the middle of the historic district...this was just a taste of the beautiful architecture and gardens that are typical of this neighborhood...

Family is definitely at the top of my list...this weekend Stephanie 'shook the can' (begged for money like a homeless person) at Logli's for her dance team on Saturday morning...
When she was done, we headed to Algonquin to spend some time at a fabulous mall. Due to the state of the economy at the Ruchus household...we mostly window shopped. I was able to finally find a paring knife to replace the 20 year old one that is now losing chunks of metal. Ummmm...definitely time to be replaced...and although it is the 3rd one I've purchased, I think this one is the charm...

Saturday afternoon the honey and I were wandering around the grocery store when my sil called to invite us over to my niece and nephew's for dinner...The day before my brother had given my sonshine his birthday present...leading to this... (It was a buy one get one sale you know!) So...on with the mosquito spray...and outside we went!
Those little cars top 40 mph and my nephew painfully realized that my son's driving skills leave a bit to be desired....OWWWWWW~ (Sorry Ry...hopefully he learns how to stop the crazy thing)

Another blessing I have in my life is the abundance of babies...right now I am blessed to have 8 great nephews and nieces under 4 years old! 8!!! Can you believe it? (Not to leave anyone out I also have a great niece that is 10 :)) If you've been a reader a long time, you might remember Robert Wednesdays...well Robert is 4 now, and was over this weekend. I gave him a trim...before...
and after... What a handsome young man! When we dropped him off, we picked up Lizzie, and then of course we had Aubrey over today... They had a wonderful time playing together and it is so wonderful to hear all those giggles!

OK, I have to regress just for a minute to earlier this week...the precious one had softball practice, and got to pitch...
Although catching is her thing...it was nice that she took a brave step and tried pitching...fast pitch is no easy gig that's for sure!

Finally...let me just share this picture of my honey...who forgot his jacket at the precious one's most recent game... I'm not sure a caption is really necessary here...what do you think?