mild adventures

spring break 2014

or

lots of pictures of my family watching tv in different locations. all taken with my iphone camera because i forgot to pack my good camera. 

recently, i've realized something. i need to constantly readjust my expectations of what i should be doing and accomplishing. circumstances with children change in the blink of an eye. i was hoping for a really fun spring break. we didn't get a really fun spring break with a daily breakdown of photographically captured great moments. instead, we had a stressful, weather-hampered spring break with a daily breakdown of photographically capture moments. we made it work.

day 1

i had procrastinated on reagan's easter sunday outfit and i still needed to go to the mall for one last item(and maybe something for me too). reagan needed new church pants and he's so skinny that i needed him to try them on. i thought it would be easier to just go with all the kids, rather than make multiple trips purchasing and returning potential easter pant candidates without the kids. because when am i never not with all the kids if they're not in school? never. the answer is never. we are a package deal. my first spring break expectation readjustment came after we had been at the mall perusing for about an hour. we had purchased reagan's pants and nearly destroyed a dressing room in the process. we headed down to forever21, where all the other 30-something moms with 3 kids shop. as i am dragging my now completely miserable and 100% unmotivated children through the store, i lost blythe. this actually happens a lot because she thinks it's a game but in forever21 it's rather frightening because the place is a chaotic, poorly merchandised mess staffed by potential walking dead zombie candidates. after about 45 LOOOOOOOOOOOONG seconds, i finally find her across the store. i snatched her up in my arms and squeezed her to bits, mostly so i don't strangle her to bits. i don't realize that she had my giant water bottle in her arms and she proceeds to pour the whole thing down my back of my white shirt. after that, we went to chik-fil-a at the food court and i again readjusted my expectations. 

luckily, we got one happy picture of day 1 of spring break:

day 2:

i started making the girl's easter floral crowns. i don't know why i thought this was a good idea. i loathe time intensive crafts. but i recall wanting to wear a floral crown when i was younger so i convinced myself this was something i could do. i googled several DIY options and read a few of them until i realized you just need to get the proper tools(floral tape, floral wire cutter, hot glue gun, flowers) and then you just have to wing it. my only suggestion would be to make the wire crown portion thicker than you think to support the flowers and a few inches too big because as you twist and use the floral tape, the circumference of the crown will shrink. MATH!

scarlett wanted me to only use gigantic flowers. that makes keeping it balanced on your head a little more difficult. more MATH.

at about 6pm that same day, the sky finally cleared a bit before the next storm blew in so we went bike riding for a full 30 minutes. 

i don't remember day 3. thomas came home sick from work and we had to postpone leaving for georgia until he got a little rest so he could drive. i'm not allowed to drive because of my narcolepsy. not an actual medical diagnosis but might as well be. 

day 4:

since thomas was on the verge of dying and was being measured for his coffin, the kids and i were able to go to a little easter egg shindig that we otherwise would have missed. things have a way of working out!

after we got home, thomas was recovered enough to make the trek down south to georgia. 

day 5:

sickness continued to abound. and i pretty much did all the egg dyeing myself. plus, it was a torrential downpour from almost the minute we arrived so leaving the house was also not an option. we watched a lot of FROZEN over and over and over and then when the kids were playing elsewhere, thomas and i watched the american greed marathon. and now i know exactly what to do if i wanted to be a con artist and steal money and then get caught. 

later on day 5, we celebrated reagan's 9th birthday. again. instead of party, reagan wanted a trip to georgia to visit mimi's farm and to spend a day at the wild adventures theme park.

we ended up celebrating everybody's birthday except thomas's, because why the heck not?

my hair looks really good in this picture. that is all.

day 6:

more frozen

and some spontaneous outbursts of song!  

we tried to brave the rain and head to wild adventures. and on the way we WATCHED MORE MOVIES!

this is was southern georgia looks like while driving: 

if you watch "the walking dead", this will all look familiar to you. next stop terminus!

sadly, this is what the sky looked like when we arrived at wild adventures:

so we had to readjust our plans and choose to be happy with family time in the car and lunch at longhorn steakhouse. the birthday boy was surprisingly resilient with this VERY DISAPPOINTING turn of events. i was pouting more than he was. when it rains, it pours. pun intended.

easter sunday we braved the rain again by having the world's fastest and soggiest egg hunt in recorded history.

the rain stopped briefly and the easter bunny lamely threw all the treats in on 20x20 area. it was pretty and the kids didn't seem to mind not having to try very hard.

upon discovering rose bushes have thorns:

all the sugar, cabin fever and lack of sleep came to a head at church on sunday and blythe outdid herself with being the ABSOLUTELY MOST TERRIBLY BEHAVED SHE HAD EVVVEEEEEEEEEEEER BEEN. at church, that is.  

which continued to easter pictures:

so this is the only picture i got with her. because she didn't know she was having her picture taken. otherwise she would have been facedown on the floor. and that's my easter skirt i bought at forever21. i actually don't really like it much because it fit weird and i didn't like my blouse with it and i didn't like my gross, frizzy, rainy day side braid. all my easter outfit coordination and planning for naught. again, more expectation readjustment and reminding myself that nice family photos are overrated and easter is really about the resurrection of our Savior and the rest is just details. 

example of how water logged southern georgia was:

and the we drove home. and, wait for it, WATCHED MOVIES!!!!!!!!!!!!

so in short, but really long because i take way too many pictures, this was not our best spring break. the big kids were remarkably well-behaved but i had more than a few moments of wishing things could just be fun and sunny and outdoorsy. but it was lethargic and sickness-plagued and indoorsy. there is no moral to this story. things are just not fun sometimes. at least i like my kids and husband and there is no chance of a drought in southeast georgia. i did enjoy my shrimp kabobs and rice at longhorn steakhouse. the end. 

march madness

march absolutely has 31 full days. 

if we have more months as strawberry jam packed a this march was packed, we will actually be okay. i used to feel overwhelmed when each month would pass but i feel i should be encouraged that we can do as much as we do in a month and still feel happiness and fondness toward one another as a family. 

blythe is a total mess of catastrophic proportions. 

each day on the car ride home from school, she rummages through reagan's lunchbox and finishes off his nutella sandwich. i'll keep making them if at least one of the kids keeps eating them.

blythe finally got her cat fur trimmed up. it was epic.

she's also a constant tooth brushing...

mickey mouse loving...

torturous co-shopping...

perpetual mess maker! every picture of blythe is going to be blurry because of the speed with with she moves. 

she loves to sit in her carseat, nakey, inside the house, and will spend minutes and minutes buckling and unbuckling herself.

when she's not pulling her diaper off, she's helping herself to reagan's underwear. today at church, we had been there a full 30 minutes before i realized that she had pulled her diaper off before we left church and she had been sitting free as a bird, unbeknownst to the rest of us until she flashed the row behind us.

very occasionally she will actually sit on her potty. but not for long.

and since we let her do whatever she wants, she can con scarlett into pushing her around on scarlett's old bicycle inside the house. i fully admit that she has won and we are beaten.

scarlett is my favorite middle child. she has overwhelming shyness and social anxiety one minute, but then she will completely surprise me with her exuberance for an activity.

her ballet class had observation day and it was a highlight of MY LIFE! i was so proud. i'm smiled and teared up like a giant goober. she was so intense and serious and professional. 

and she completely surprised me with how far she has come in her flexibility. we simpson girls are not known for our ease of movement. my goal is to stretch enough to catch up to her. 

and her teacher even said she had great naturally hyper-extended legs! look at the booty! i'm just so glad she likes it and feels good about herself. i'll catch her practicing from time to time in her room and i feel like i should be plotting ways to get her on the disney channel so that her life can be destroyed in just a few short years. i'll ask billy ray cyrus how they pulled it off.

but really. 

even her teacher remarked about how seriously she takes it. i tried to wink at her and wave and she IGNORED me. true stage presence right there. i'm hard to ignore.

but not so serious are the pictures i'll find on my phone after church:

she also decided she wanted to make more things into contests between her and blythe. the latest contest is, "who is the cutest girl swinging". it's a little subjective but you can't blame a girl for trying to stack the deck in her favor. 

she also found a 4 leaf clover in the yard. this is also her smile for when she practicing for her disney channel audition. slightly painful but you can still picture it on a t-shirt.

reagan's mom finally got his cub scout shirt in gear. sort of.

reagan went to a gymnastics party and had to be dragged out of the foam pit. his concept of lost socks and germ-phobia is a little underdeveloped. ignorance is bliss. i jumped in too and poured bleach on my feet when i got home.

and thomas has mastered the art of combing long girl's hair. next up is teasing the crown in order to use a bump-it!

i went to the women's conference. i didn't really want to go because it started at 8pm eastern time zone. at that time of day i like to be in some level of dishabille. but i wore my most tent/blanket-like dress and sat in the chair closet to the door. once again, o-heidi-of-little-faith was humbled. it was wonderful. the Spirit of the Lord was strong. it spoke to my heart. i thought of so many of you, my dear sisters in Christ, and how grateful i am for your support and example and continued desire to live the gospel. we are never alone.

but the chair by the door was still awesome because i ran out and drove home in 3 minutes flat and put my sweats on and assumed my nightly position on the couch, falling asleep on thomas's shoulder while he did some work on his laptop. we are a dreamy team.

finally, the twins:

and we started a new family goal of only having dessert/junk food on sunday. no one likes it but me, but we eat garbage all the time and it needs to stop. i love to bake with the kids, but they were asking for lunch dessert and dinner dessert and dessert snacks and treats for every minor accomplishment. because i'm not the worstest mom ever, i include a couple of cookies in their lunch boxes and they can have any treat offered them for a special occasion like a party or school, but at home we stick to sunday dessert. and sunday dessert is a doozy. it always includes ice cream and some crazy concoction of brownies and sweetened condensed milk and crack cocaine. practically.

this was our 7 layer brownie:

brownies, chocolate chips, sweetened condesed milk, m&ms, nutella scoops, caramel balls and cookie dough globs.  plus, ice cream. my body went into shock after the sugar overload and i cried rivulets of sugar. 

but by the next sunday, we were ready again!