My kids came home Sunday night after two long, torturous weeks away.

And Praise the Lord….. that’s the last of the excruciating two-week stints until next summer.

I don’t know what to do with myself when they’re not here… I make a miles-long to-do list and end up roaming around the apartment staring at the walls. I’m not me without them.

So yesterday, I had planned ahead of time to get all my hours in at work so I could take yesterday off and spend it with them. And it wouldn’t have mattered what we did…. I just needed my quality time with my girls.

They get more beautiful when they’re away, it seems, and I kept staring at them, wondering how I got so lucky, and thanking God over and over for giving them to me. It just blows me away how blessed I am when I look at my kids.

And I hugged them and kissed them on the top of the head approximately 172 times each. I couldn’t help it. They were gone forever.

We didn’t really do anything special; cooked breakfast, reorganized their room and closets, a little school-clothes shopping, lunch at Taco Bell, then spent the afternoon playing at the pool.

The picture above was the view of the sky from my pool chair, and it’s the perfect picture of our day yesterday: gorgeous day, my girls were HOME, we had the pool to ourselves, and all was right in my world.