Spring Breaking

Our awesome Little League weekend was the jump start to a great spring break.

Seriously, the weather was perfect all week.

But not to get too exciting we started the week off at the carwash.

It took us all morning to clean that baby out, from the trash to the extra sets of clothes and coats and books and toys shoved under seats and inbetween seats and scoop out the crumbs in the cup holders and discovering a few sour bottles.  Whew, that backseat was a treasure trove.  I was glad for the help and since those piggies made all that mess it was only right that they do a bit of cleaning.

Then I let them run the wash.  Mostly the sudsing brush which they had alot of fun with because the bubbles were pink and thick and then we vacummed like crazy.  We had two machines going from either side of the van to capture all those crumbs.  Afterwards they speedily agreed not to eat in the car for a while.  They had seen how much work it takes to keep it clean, but they had had fun too, and all for a $10 car wash.

Tuesday was another fine day.  We arranged with friend for a kids bike ride at our Farmington bike trail.  Cayden's idol, Eliseo(9), was there with his new mountain bike and Cayden pushed along with all his might to keep up with him. He did pretty well.  I heard Eliseo ask him a couple of times to slow down because he was following too close.

We ended the evening with a library run. 

The girls are always teasing Adam because he says he doesn't like to read, and he teases them for being such nerdy readers.  So they made a big show of leading him around explaining how a library worked.

I was grateful that Wednesday ended up to be playdate day for the girls.  Each had a friend invite them over to play, Score!

But Thursday was a big day.  We went to the zoo.  We were having a grand old time watching the animals especially those ground hogs, until Cayden started getting tired, and when that boy gets tired, the fits and screams start.  We tried everything to jolly him along from snacks to tiger rides to playing on the playground. I even put him in the baby sling to try and calm him down.  Needless to say, we saw the rest of the exhibits in a hurry, and as we were walking out to the parking lot, Ellie gave a tremedous sigh, "Mom, we made it."

Just then, I felt a giant stab of guilt.  My 8 year old feels as stressed out as I do on our outings.  She knows she is my only help and try as much as she can, things still go haywire.  While I was dealing with Cayden, she had been pushing the stroller with the baby and making sure Gracie also hung on to the stroller handle.  She was probably hustling Emma along too.  That girl is an angel sent to me, and I need to do more to make sure she isn't given more responsibility than she should handle.

After Adam came home that evening, she and I headed out to Target alone!  No babies allowed!

Ground hog bum shot up close and personal.

*photo credits to Ellie who snaped this through the peephole at the exhibit.

Friday was beach day.  It took some convincing, but I made Adam see that it doesn't have to be the middle of summer and swimwsuit weather before we make it to the beach.  Our spring beach day was great, overcast, cool, and great sand playing and graham cracker eating.

*The water was freezing, so we didn't bother with suits, except for Cayden.  He is a boy, therefore, he will get wet, and so we put on his trunks.

Saturday was a project day.  Adam was the trask master and set the girls to work powerwashing the house.  And later was our first attempt at making a "bunny run" or outside home for Hunny.  See that lovely fencing that has smaller holes at the bottom which transition into bigger holes.  Well, Hunny can't get through the smaller ones, but he can easily hop right through the larger ones.  Dhh,why advertise it as rabbit fencing?  It certainly is not the right product here.  More tries to come...but he sure looked happy hopping along both inside that fence and outside of it.  It turns out that I am an excellent bunny catcher.  We cornered him and I went down on my knees close to him(I think he knows I am the one who feeds him regularly and chases that aweful boy away who is always bothering him).  He started heading towards me and I quickly pounced on him.  He was unhurt, but my back muscles were screaming for a while afterwards.

We got the Harry Potter book series for Christmas and Ellie has been devouring book after book.  A few weeks ago I noticed that you could rent the movies through iTunes and that has been our Saturday night, after the babies go the bed, tradition for the past few weeks.  This week we finished the last three movies, each one more scary than the last.  So here we are with our scared faces ready to watch the final battle between Harry and V-.

What a great time we had together, outside and inside.
Now back to school and our regular lives.
    *somebody Help me..