We’ve returned to normal life after a crappy run that was divided up over the past two Catch the Moment posts. Woo hoo & yay for good times!!

Linking up with Mindi, Sarah, and Stephanie for this year-long Catch the Moment challenge. I have to tell you — I had a hard time narrowing down my choices on a couple of the days below. When we’ve had such a good week and gotten this many pictures that put a smile on my face — life must be a-okay.

 183/365: July 2nd. A friend and I went to a local sunflower patch.

 184/365: July 3rd. Okay, so this isn’t a great photo at all.  I took it at about 11:40pm after publishing last week’s Catch the Moment post when I realized I had been too busy running around (getting ready for the long weekend) to pull the camera out once all day long.  The polish looked cuter at Target. I didn’t realize it was going to look like Queen Elsa had painted my toenails.

 185/365: July 4th. “Hey Theo – think of something funny!” This is what I got. Love these crazy nuts.

 186/365: July 5th. Our 11th wedding anniversary and dinner at a fancy (to us) restaurant. We’re easy to impress but this place was really nice and we enjoyed sitting in the “silo” with the kitchen view at FARMbloomington.

 187/365: July 6th. The boys discovered a love of cherries over the holiday weekend.  I’ll finally be posting our July 4th weekend recap on 7/11 so check back!

 188/365: July 7th. A night when I knew we wouldn’t be doing anything spectacular so I just snapped a quick pic of the boys watching cartoons while I fixed dinner to get the pic-of-the-day out of the way.

189/365: July 8th. A trip to the park after getting ice cream on a warm summer night.  This is the simplicity and joy that I miss yearn for during the winter.

OFFICIALLY at the halfway point in this project – I feel like celebrating!

This week of photos represents two very different weeks — the end of a bad one and the beginning of a new, fresh one.  If anything COULD go wrong the last week of June, it DID go wrong. Something – no, multiple things, went wrong every day and the week just kept getting worse and worse.  Sunday afternoon things started turning around for the better and this week has been great.  Thank goodness.  Glad to bid adieu to the end of the first half of 2014 and move on to the second half.

Linking up with Mindi, Sarah, and Stephanie — the hostesses of this year-long Catch the Moment photo challenge.

 176/365: June 25th.  The boys wanted to go swimming but in the midst of our crummy week, I didn’t feel like packing and lugging all our stuff to the YMCA after dinner. They were more than satisfied with the little blow up pool we got for Dexter’s 1st birthday. They had fun showing off their jumps. I think the neighbors enjoyed the show too.

 177/365: June 26th.  Twenty minutes before I was going to walk into a meeting, I got a call from the babysitter. She said Dexter had thrown up and had blisters in the back of his throat.  Nine kids had already come down with Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease that week so there was really no question as to what was going on.  He was sick the rest of the night but woke up Friday feeling better. Ryan stayed home with the boys.

 178/365: June 27th. After an early nap, Theo woke up late Friday morning blazing hot.  He slept off and on all day between temperature checks and Ibuprofen & Acetaminophen doses.  When I got home at 2:30 I took Dexter, who was feeling much better outside to play.

 179/365: June 28th. Theo’s fever continued throughout the day Saturday.  It’s so hard seeing him so miserable. It’s so hard being cooped up in the house. Especially when one kid feels good and is going stir crazy.

 180/365: June 29th. Theo’s fever continued through about 1am Sunday morning. He had his last dose of medicine and woke up Sunday fever-free and feeling fine.  He had blisters in his throat too so we thought it best if we stayed home yet again Sunday.  In the afternoon I decided to clean out my car and the boys enjoyed their little pool again, which turned into making mud puddles!

181/365: June 30th. I kept the boys home one more day from the sitter to be on the safe side and worked a half day.  In the afternoon we went swimming with a friend but I didn’t even get my camera out.  I realized I still hadn’t taken a picture on my way to Target later Monday night.

182/365: July 1st. Last day of soccer clinics. Thank goodness. They didn’t put forth their best effort, let’s just say that!  But we had a decent night at soccer (not their worst!) and went swimming right afterwards.