Tulip Festival 2016

The weekend was supposed to be much different. I had planned to go away with my mom and sisters, but the day we were supposed to leave I discovered that I hadn't gotten rid of all the Lice in my hair. The girls had been clear for weeks, but I missed some in my own hair. 

(I may write more about the whole Lice epidemic in my personal blog at some point)

I was in a word, depressed. 

In an attempt to keep my spirits up, Eric took me to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. He knows how much I love tulips and we had only gone to the festival one time before when Ailey was a baby. 

Zach got to accompany us as he was still a little too little to be left at home with his siblings.

The tulip festival was beautiful and we went on a day where it had rained earlier and it smelled wonderful! It was at this point in time that Eric and I decided that someday we will have a home in the woods where we can enjoy that smell more often than we currently can.

We then went to dinner at Greek Souvlaki. I wasn't a fan, but that's okay. Eric wanted me to try it and I did. It just wasn't for me.

We then went to see The Avengers: Civil War. We loved the show and before we even left the house Eric convinced me to wear one of his Capt. America tees to show which side we were on.

(...For some reason Eric's phone flips pictures. I'm just too lazy to fix them, ATM...)

What Happens Next...

January's Junk

And the rest of January looked like this...

{...SO SMART...}

For awhile, Eric had been toying around with the idea of getting a smart watch. He looked around and just never really found anything he loved. Then one day he discovered a type of watch that would talk to his phone and he liked everything else about it, so he went and got one.

When he got home that day, I decided I wanted one as well. I had decided I was going to get a Fitbit after baby was born, but this smartwatch was capable of most everything a Fitbit would do. Plus, the watch came in white and I can change the watch face as often as desire strikes. There's also a watch face that uses pictures from my phone! I was pretty much sold. I also like the fact that I can check the time again without pulling out my phone.

{...LIKE THE BIG KIDS...}

As long as we've had our 'new' car, we've had headphones for the kids to watch movies without us needing to listen. Jace was always a little too small to use them. But we recently discovered that's not the case anymore and he gets the idea now.

{...IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC...}

Nate got headphones and an mp3 player for Christmas and was over the moon about it. He would listen to music daily. One day, he was so tired that he fell asleep while listening to his tunes. It was quite a sight to see knowing that he was out cold.

{...WHO NEEDS A CHAIR?...}

Tanis really is a great big brother and super patient with most of his siblings. Especially when they do things like this:

{...THEY LIKE EACH OTHER...SOMETIMES...}

Another Sunday night at Grandma's and when I went to check in on the kids, this is what I found.

I can't imagine Lex's back is very comfortable, but to each his own...

{...A CLOSE SHAVE...}

There are certain dogs that need to be groomed regularly. Flower isn't one of those breeds. Domino is. But because we weren't used to doing it with Flower, we haven't been as on top of getting Domino taken care of either...and he was getting really past due. He looked like a stray dog and he had hair growing in front of his eye and we wondered how he could even see. His hair was so matted he wasn't even fun to pet. We decided enough was enough and took him in.

When I went back to get him, they brought Domino out I wondered if they brought me the right dog! He was so much smaller without all that fur and he just looked completely different. Sure enough though, it was Domino and he was a much cuter dog afterwards.

What Happens Next...

Girls With Cameras

Having teenagers is fun. It's also fun when the teenage girl in your house has a little sister that she can teach awesome things to. Things like how to take the perfect selfie...

Or they may have learned it from me....

(In my defense, I was trying to get a picture of my injured lip. I was playing catch with Lex and he threw a ball right at my mouth...You can see my mascara running from crying, it hurt!)

What Happens Next...

Baby's Day Out

So I get an instant message from Eric early in the day. He tells me that I should join him for lunch. A little later on in the conversation I discover that it's because he forgot his wallet. So, really he was just using me to get to his money. Hahaha.

But, because he was offering lunch - I decided we'd go. I also decided I'd take the kids on Trax because Eric works downtown and Shilo don't drive downtown! It really doesn't help that I didn't know exactly how to get to Eric's office.

So Ailey, Jace and I got ready and drove to the nearest Trax station and began our journey. The trip would take about a half hour, but that was okay. And luckily we made it just in time for a train and we didn't have to wait.

Ailey loved riding on the train for the most part. She got a little nervous at the times when we were 'high up'. Jace did really good and didn't mind being in the stroller for the whole of the train. (Yes, he's in a 'girly' stroller - it's the only small stroller we have)

Eric met us at our stop and we headed to KFC for lunch. Ailey and Jace had lots of fun seeing Daddy in the middle of the day.

While we were in line for lunch, there was a gentleman in line who is probably batting for the other team - but he was one of those gentlemen who has this cool, soulful vibe. He was talking with Jace and mentioned to me that he thought Jace was an 'old soul'. I agreed with him to be polite. But really, I thought it was kind of fun. Jace is definitely a smart little bugger and very aware of things that happen around him, but I don't know that I'd go as far as saying he's an old soul.

After lunch we went to see Daddy's work. In the 5 years or so that he's worked in that building, I've never been there. We once parked in the parking area to go to Disney On Ice when Eric and his dad both worked there, but I had never been inside.

Eric introduced us to people he works with, which is hard for me cause I hate being the center of attention, but it was nice to put faces with names.

I needed to get back home as the other kids were going to start getting home from school, so Eric walked us back to the train and we said goodbye to Daddy.

  

On the way home, Jace had fallen asleep - so I took him out of the stroller and snuggled with my little guy. I don't get to do it often as there always seems to be something that needs to get done. So I was thankful to have a half hour where I could snuggle him without feeling the pressure that something else needed to get done or I had to be somewhere else.

Ailey decided she'd sit in the stroller in the meantime and went from the stroller to a seat more times than I can count.

Overall, it was a really nice day out and the little kids did AWESOME. I was thankful that Eric got me out of the house.

What Happens Next...

Love Notes

Life has been difficult for me as of late. Nothing has really happened, I've just been feeling really depressed and it's taken it's toll on many areas of my life.

One night I was really having a rough night and just broke down. Eric and I sat talking for probably a good 2 hours that night. Okay, so Eric was doing the talking and I was blubbering. And just for the sake of clearning the air - our conversation wasn't an argument between the two of us. Eric was really just trying to help me feel better.

Well, the saddest part of me breaking down is that it was early enough in the evening that the kids were around. For the most part they just went about their business and they knew I was sad, but they also saw that Daddy was helping Mommy through things.

So when bedtime came, we all went to bed and I thought nothing really more about what had happened. Then I woke up to this:

The pantry door was filled with 'Love Notes' from Shaylyn (the apple was Ailey's 1st project she did in Preschool). Shaylyn had spent a good portion of the night writing these little love notes for me.

She had notes that were serious, some that were silly, some that were humorous and some she just drew fun pictures on. In total she had 40 something notes. (I only know that cause one of her notes said, "I thought I'd stop at 28...but I decided to do all 46."

It was hard to choose just a few favorites, but here they are:

(Not so much a love note, but it made me laugh anyway!)

I am beyond grateful for this girl and her words. It was refreshing to see that she cared so much about what I was going through, that she wanted to make it better. She didn't really do much in the ways of the world, but she did more than enough for this struggling mommy.

I'd be remiss if I didn't bring Tanis into this entry. While during the course of our conversation, Tanis wanted me to know that when he was feeling sad, he liked to look at Disney quotes. The next morning he sent me an email with this:

I so appreciated that as well. Probably most importantly the one about Harry Potter. I put way too much emphasis on what the world thinks about the way I'm doing things and not enough on what the most important people around me think.

If my kids feel like I'm doing a good job and they're happy - that is really all that should matter.

Around this same time, I saw something on Facebook and other things that brought home the fact that my children are MY children and while other people may do things differently, it shouldn't matter. I know my children and what they each need and they came to me for a reason!

I'm super blessed and thankful for these teenagers in my home and I pray they'll always be sympathetic to those around them.

What Happens Next...