Five on Friday: Things Making Me Smile Lately

I've noticed that nobody ever says to me, "You sure have your hands full!!" anymore. But the truth is, I feel like my hands are fuller than ever. Sure, the kids are more independent now but with more independence comes more individualized interests and activities (that they all need rides to). 

Remember those days when I used to complain that I practically needed a flowchart to keep everyone's schedule straight? Those days are 3-5 times a week now.

Yeah, we've reached that stage of life with five kids.

So I'm just going to take a moment  and not worry about which balls I'm probably dropping by doing so. I'll enjoy my next thirty seconds of silence before the day's chaos starts with a quick collection of pictures of things that have made me happy lately.

1. My 2nd grader had to bring something in to school to represent her hair. We had fun making it . . . aaaaaaand putting it on the dog with a tiny ridiculous hat. 

2. This eggplant at the Farmers' Market. It had a nose! I had to take a picture, of course.

3. My very artistic teenager got some cones of henna!! Mama's never having boring hands again! (As long as I can find time to sit down with her and get some more, that is . . . )

 4. This one is two-fold: first, my 7-year-old said she might want to be our neighbor Mary (dubbed "Grand-Mary") for Halloween. Second, my bff reminded me that she has an article hanging in her kitchen about another little girl doing this exact same thing with her fake-Grandma-next-door:

5. It's been awhile since we've found any really interesting skulls . . . and we didn't actually find this one, either!! But our neighbor did and gave it to us because he apparently realizes we're kind of weird. Check out that tooth!