For a pretty decent, though hectic and tiring week last night absolutely sucked. Oh, not the visit by Chris and Chris – that was terrific  but after I went to bed. Doing all my little prebed chores and tidying and readying myself for bed saw me get my head on my pillow a little after 12:30. Luckily I went right to sleep, but that is when the problems started. First off at 3:30 Trinity woke up in her crib (which is in our room) demanding to get into my bed (not an unusual occurance as she was co-bedded and at times still is). Sadly, I couldn’t find her soother so I had to take her out of the room into the kitchen to find the one I cleaned, then go to the washroom and THEN head back to bed. This had her awake enough that she chattered and rolled around for at least 30 min. Once she was asleep I finally was able to fall asleep myself. 5:30 rolls around and the twins are up and complaining about their window – it was open and the wind had picked up. This made the blinds move against the window loud enough to wake the boys up to complain to me. So I had to close up the window and then convince them to go to sleep again… another 15 or more min. Back to bed (thank goodness Trinity stayed asleep). 7:30 rolls around and it is a mixed blessing – Emanuel woke up, used the potty and POOPED! Which is great BUT that meant he needed his bum wiped and mommy was groggy. So I do that and let him go into the livingroom only to find Trinity AWAKE. END OF SLEEP.

Normally all this up and down and dealing with the ridiculous would have been nothing but with all the past 3 months’ stress I am ill equipped to laugh at things first thing in the morning. Which of course the kids picked up on (naughtiness abounded this morning). Thankfully I DID get in a bath, though I had to send Emanuel to his room for a  time out THREE TIMES (unheard of with that child) for taking toys from his sister. All I can say is that the creator of Legos deserves a medal. After I got out of the tub all 3 boys were sent to the basement to create and play (and fight a little to be honest).Well really to make a nice big, fun mess!

Blast Radius of Boys + Lego

Creations (Gavin left)

Miss Trinity actually managed to keep herself occupied with our box of Little People. So I cobbled together a lunch of sorts out of the leftovers and allowed myself some computer time to check my email and read fanfictions (aka pout while still accomplishing something).

Fun With Little People

All of the awfulness of the night was compounded by 3 not so nice phone calls (the earliest at 8:05 even though I had dealt with THEM on Wednesday and she knew it) and the fact that I had not talked to Ken since Wednesday evening (thank goodness Kathy had messaged me during the day yesterday to let me know she had gotten home and he was taking a nap in their spare room). I love the man dearly but I worry (I think it is the Mommy in me) and sometimes the inevitable us being apart fight is worth it if I just get to talk to him when he is away (I have never missed his cell phone more!). Somehow I think that is a girl thing, although if it were ME who was away Ken would expect me to check in to make him feel better about my being safe… MEN.

I had the boys try some apple leather today with great success. The pieces I managed to pry off the metal pan are almost gone (although that may be mainly my fault). Definitely not the most economical way to use my apples but with so much extra sauce it is yummy enough to be worth it.

I did manage to turn my afternoon around – not that I didn’t mope a bit and play some mahjong. But once the Legos were played with an liquorice was eaten (we finished the package) all 4 kids and myself headed outside to the pool! Trinity was desperate to get in so I obliged. For once even with the water being cold she was determined to stay in. Falls onto her face, splashing, dumping water on herself – it was ALL good. The boys were so impressed that their little sister was actually willing to play in the pool with them. The placement of the pool was also perfect, we move it every week to ensure the grass is not completely squashed (or weeds depending on the location) and before Ken left for his meetings I had it moved next to the good apple tree. Our timing today was such that the pool was in the shade which was terrific with how warm this afternoon has gotten. I actually had to drag her out of the pool when everyone else was done, but 3 cupcakes for the boys and half a banana for Trinity seemed to make amends. (though you wouldn’t think so for Zander’s whining about wanting something to eat even though it was time for me to start supper AND he had had a popsicle on top of that cupcake)

Wet Little Girl

Gotta Love the Bigger Pool! (Zander red)

Post pool cartoons are always fun. Trinity has taken to making the rounds sitting in her brothers’ laps – even Emanuel’s! Although her favourite brother to sit with is always Gavin.

My Two Babies

Sitting With Gavin

Of course the naughties came back by supper time (3 days without Daddy can do that to the crowd), but at least everyone was fed. I managed to bust out my brother’s cross stitch today as well so I can cross his name off the list and go back to the stocking. I am hoping this weekend Ken can design a few more for me so I can get these all behind me to the point where we are just on the hunt for frames. I want to get creative with those so a trip to a thrift store or two may be in order.

I snuck in our number 9 print out with the boys so not a complete wash in the organized learning. Saturday is actually planless at this point so I am hoping to do something with the boys – maybe practice Johnson again or something. OR I could sleep the day away… please? Naw, probably not. When I called my mom today she said to remember things always get worse before they get better… so maybe this is the worse and now the better can commence a little more quickly? Oh well all this struggle and such IS making me stronger and wiser and that definitely accounts for something! And even better – early to bed for all 4 kids AND the original Ghostbusters movie is on tv. Mommy time!

Who Can Be Too Sad With a Sweety Like This? 🙂

Ok so with all my complaints about the government lately a trip to the provincial capital may seem odd… maybe gutsy? Well, not so much! But first… our craft of the day!

Today’s craft was off of a website my cousin in BC actually alerted me to: One Minute Crafts.com and was called Sunny Dais Foot Art… Very simple really (though there was a video to watch first which was nice!). First you trace out your foot (or in our case each child’s foot) on a piece of white or scrap paper and cut it out.

Gavin getting his foot traced.

Then you cut out the feet and trace them onto your coloured paper – 4 for each colour – yellow, red and orange… We did orange for Emanuel, red for Gavin and yellow for Zander… as well as trace a cd on yellow paper for your circle and cut out.

All the cut out shapes!

Next you place them in an alternating pattern to make your sun rays… and glue the circle over the middle… I actually added a second circle on top of that as my white glue dried kind of lumpy to make a smoother finish. And then we placed it on the wall above our tree!

Finished Sun

Lots of fun for the kids, and then we talked about what a sun does for us and whether or not it is warm or cold when the sun shines right now. They were so proud of their feet being the things traced out and used! Would totally suggest for anyone to do BUT we DID cut out all of this ourselves and make the pattern.

Now onto my playdate – while we could not co-ordinate with any of our friends who have children we did plan an outing to the Legislature with Chris and Chris… not to complain about the government – even better – to play in the fountains! There were 3 that you are allowed to go into, one a calm pool we skipped, another with little tiny waterfalls and then a huge one that is a nice deepness and great fun to sit in and float around! Next time I need to bring our floaty we have for babies for that pool! It wasn’t too deep for Trinity to stand in but too deep for her to do anything but hold onto us.

The Leg and the Pool You DON'T Play in!

We brought the boys some of our Ikea kids’ bowls to play with and a cup for Trinity and let them loose… they climbed all over and splashed and played for about 2 hours! Even Trinity got in on the fun a little, though she was not interested in getting anywhere close to the waterfalls and really did not want to wander too far from us where we were sitting and cooling our feet.

Chris, Trinity and Me 🙂

Gavin sitting in the Waterfall!

Zander in the Waterfall!

The deeper pool was great fun for the boys, and hopefully next time we can spent more time over there and actually sit in and relax! The water was surprisingly warm and very clean.

Ken, Chris, Trinity and Emanuel in the Deeper Pool

Emanuel, Zander and Gavin

Snack Time! Emanuel, Gavin and Zander!

I am very happy with my day, it got hot in the house but we had fun in the morning and a BLAST in the evening… a good day to remind oneself that you make your OWN fun and there ARE things to be done on a shoestring budget that don’t FEEL like you are cutting corners! Well it DOES help that the company was terrific too!

Sign of a Successful Outing! Fast Asleep!