Stop.

Sometimes, in my days of running, working, typing, writing, taking pictures.. I forgot how to stop. How to do nothing but enjoy the moment, how to take it all in. How to breathe. And while there may be plenty of photos and now a little writing to go with them, this week, I finally took the time before the week caught up with me.. so now, you're getting Tuesday's story on a Saturday and well, I'm okay with that.

to breathe.
to relax.
to love my life.
to love my friends.
to laugh.
to have some fun.

My tuesday started off with two of my favorite little people and birdhouses. I walked into an empty playroom. Odd. Downstairs, spread out on a wrinkled paint-splattered tarp were two littles, two bird houses, plenty of paint brushes, and playdough cups filled with smudgy water.

If one creative endeavor a day isn't enough, we ventured to the kitchen for a different adventure. Spring shaped cookies, covered in colored sprinkles. Suns. Birds. Clouds. Flowers. Tulips, especially.

Dont worry, folks. That "Grandma Corbis" container is full of applesauce.. we only make cookies from scratch.

I watched as the girls stretched on their tippy toes to cream the butter and sugar. Laughed as they snuck bites and balls of dough from the bowl, thinking I wouldn't see it.

So we (well, not me) ate cookies, took baths, and watched "Barbie: A Fairy Secret." What a day. But gluten-free me was asked for my cookie recipe, imagine that.

But the day didn't end there. After missing free-Rita's-cause-Spring's-here-but-the-lines-are-sooo-long-day, I was craving some sweet, cold ice to sooth my sore-wheat-poisoned throat. I spooned it in and fought off a brain-freeze quickly enough to make it to my English midterm.

After sitting through a lecture, presentation and exam, we called it a night and headed on a fix-the-house shopping spree. As Hana and I filled our cart with pillows, fought funny looks from employees ready to go home - we stopped to laugh. It's a rare occasion that we have free time, let alone free time to spend together without the presence of homework or astronomy exams. (Welcome to college, I suppose.)

Then we met with friends to nourish our starving tummies and to drink up the beauty of good friends. We ate burritos, slurped down soda, avoided my camera in Sam's hands and laughed... laughed a lot.

If you've ever wondered why I never end up in the photos.. it's because I always look like a hot mess.

We like each other. Apparently, a lot.

Since that night though, life hasn't seemed to stop for a moment. Tomorrow, we move into the house officially. That's meant multiple trips to Lowe's, Walmart, Ross, Staples, Target... you name it. In between, cleaning things to put back upstairs. Packing the things at the hotel. Hanging photos. Building furniture.. a lot of that, actually. But that's a story for another time, when life seems to stop again.