For the past two days, there have been a crew of men in the front part of our house painting (and I’m LOVING the new colors…darker versions of the old ones). Having hung around most of yesterday morning, I decided we should get out for a while today. I needed a few things at Target plus we had a couple “free kids meals” coupons for Chili’s. Aiden still had some Easter money to spend so we goofed around in the toy aisle for a bit. In a moment of weakness, I purchased some Nerf darts and clips that go with a gun Logan recently bought (with his Easter money…against my will…because daddy thinks Nerf is awesome). Annnnnyway, the set was 50% off and they lose those foam dart things so quick, I figured it was worth it. After picking it up and declaring that I, magnanimous mother that I am, was going to purchase the set, “for the house”, I received the following praise from Logan, “you’re the best best best besssssssst best mom ever!” While that’s a great thing to hear, it’s not always encouraging to know that he super loves me when I buy him stuff…like ammo…but whatever.

Later, as we were walking towards the check out, he continued with the adoration and said, “mommy…on my word, I promise you can have 10 whole minutes just to yourself today”

wow…that’s (sniff) all I ever ask for!

Scene: Interior of house, mom and dad’s bedroom, 5am Sunday morning. The sun is just coming in the windows. All is quiet when, entering via the bedroom door, a boy of about 6 years bounds in with a happy and expectant face:

Logan (6 year old boy): “Happy Easter! Is it time to hunt for eggs yet?!”

Mom (glancing through 1/2 open eyes at the clock on her bedside table): “Um…hu? What time is it…5!? No honey…it’s still too early” (rolling over to her husband) “it’s like Christmas morning all over again” (to son…in a very groggy voice) “come in and cuddle with us for a while baby…it’s too early to go downstairs right now.”

The boy walks, with slumped shoulders and a deflated sense of excitement, over to dad’s side of the bed where he climbs in and lays restlessly as the clock slowly moves from 5 – 5:30. The boys then sits up and announces:

Logan: “I’m going back to my room now”

Mom: “do you mean to your bed? to sleep more?”

Dad: “don’t wake up your brothers”

Logan: “I won’t”

close up of clock as the minutes tick by from 5:30 to 5:45. Entering the scene via the bedroom door, we see Logan and his two younger brothers.

All three: “Happy Easter!” and “Can we go downstairs yet?”

Logan (with look of innocence, wonder, and the slightly sheepish grin of ‘I’m lying right now’): “I guess I was talking too loud because they woke up!”

Close up of mom with a look on her face that speaks to the thought of, “talking too loud? probably more like shaking them, jumping on their beds and saying ‘get up it’s Easter!’”

Cut to Dad exiting the bed and leaving the room.

Dad: “hang on guys, I have to go find the video camera”

Cut back to mom, exiting bed and shutting the door to keep the excited trio of little men from escaping before this precious moment can be caught on film.

Boys (who are currently being held hostage while mom finds a sweater, quickly brushes her teeth and shoves contacts into her eyes): “can we go? can we go?”

Dad (shouting from the hallway): “OK boys – come on out!”

Shot of boys running excitedly down the hall. Dad is poised near the stairs with the video camera while mom trails after them shooting with the still camera that she placed beside her bed the night before in anticipation of just such a moment.

Dad (to mom in a whisper as they crouch at the top of the stairs, video camera running, while the boys empty the Easter baskets which were waiting on the landing): “Tell Logan to go put on something besides just his underwear!”

End scene.

The boys with their baskets before the hunt. Logan is holding what’s left of his bunny…maybe just it’s end. Speaking of, Aiden had the most genius move all day: he bit the booty off his bunny and stuffed it with other candy…pretty funny.

Brady on the hunt (thing on head = rug burn from his time at Bouncetown last Friday…I think he had a run-in with one of the giant inflatables).

Logan’s Happy Easter drawing

At Meemaw and Grandpa’s house for a late brunch: Our usual attempt to get a picture of all the boys. This inflatable is in the next-door neighbor’s yard, but we had clearance to invade and photograph :)

Not bad!

Being the mother of 3 boys and the Grandmother of 7, Meemaw made sure that her house was fully stocked with nerf guns. The boys chased each other around the front and posed for a picture.

Easter egg hunting time! All 6 participants had a specific color of egg to hunt for themselves. Colors were determined in the fairest way possible…drawn blindly out of a bucket. Logan actually got green, Aiden was yellow and Brady was orange.

Happiness is hunting for hidden candy!

Due to the upcoming Easter holiday, the boys didn’t have any activities yesterday or today. Instead, we spent Thursday morning / afternoon with friends and had a super fun, super long play date! Lisa suggested making cookies, brought the dough, rolled them out, cut them with Aiden (the other boys were far too busy to help), made this incredible frosting and then we all decorated them after lunch. I am honestly not a huge sugar cookie fan and I am HOOKED on these – amazing cookies!! By the way, while Lisa was getting the cookies in order, Laura was making us moms a spinach, goat cheese and mushroom egg scramble. Seriously – is it any wonder why I love my friends?! They come and cook for us! ;)

After our play date, there was more and more and more playing with the kids in the neighborhood. They were up and down the row of houses, but settled here for a while. At one point I had 7 of them running around, but it was the kind of afternoon where they were all getting along and having a great time. I’ll have 20 kids over if they are all happy and not fighting! I finally called it a day around 5 and planted my 3 (pretty exhausted and somewhat emotional) children in front of a movie with cold pizza…yes, it was left over from lunch…pizza twice in one day is either a. bad-mom laziness or b. coolest-mom-ever move. I vote b. The boys, who had built a fort earlier in the week for TV watching, requested another. Having just picked all the couch cushions off the floor from the afternoon playing, I went the lazy route…nothing at all like the masterpiece once created by Brian for a movie night – see pics below.

Cookie decorating (more like slap on some frosting and eat it all up!) After the kids had a turn, me, Lisa and Laura did our best to make the remaining cookies “cute” while they went back to playing outside.

Brady: licking sprinkles off his hand – yum! While I’m here, let me just reiterate that Brady prefers to be in pajamas (mismatched ideally) at all times. These PJs are not actually the ones he slept in the previous night. These are his day-wear pajamas, selected after his morning bath.

Aiden: the super cookie helper! Lisa gave him first dibs on decorating since he perched himself on the counter at her side the entire time she was cutting the shapes out. This is actually his second round.

He’s good, but not that good. I think Laura frosted this one for him so he could just add the sprinkles.

Now on to the “main” topic of discussion here (yes…that did take a long time coming!) Here is the fort that daddy made the boys back in like February for movie night. It’s got sleeping bags, multiple blankets, clips, laundry pins, at least 4 dining room chairs and room to breath:

Here is what I made: 2 chairs with a blanket clipped on either side. Really more of an awning than a fort, but they were happy. I mean we know the clear winner of fort building…me…cause it’s so much less to clean up afterwards - ha!

As is his custom, Brian decided to pursue another interesting culinary challenge last week: cheese making. He spent the week researching home-made cheese and then, Friday morning, tasked me with finding: 1/2 a galloon of goat’s milk and cheese cloth (both acquired with ease). When he got home that night, we all curdled some milk together!

Steps: boil milk to a certain temp, add lemon juice, let curdle 

Put curds into cheese cloth

Bundle tight and drain over the sink then put in the fridge for a while (obviously these are not specific instructions). Our goat’s cheese wasn’t 1/2  bad…less sharp than typical goat cheeses. We made the boys sandwiches the next day with it and I had it on my eggs.  We won’t be mass producing and hitting the farmer’s market any time soon, but it was a fun and tasty experiment.

I started this post on April 4th…now it’s the 11th – ahhh! (my computer is being slow and my kids obviously sense a need to have 10 minutes of alone time and come a running with requests whenever I sit down to type)!! Here is another very belated post. This time: spring break in Cali – March 18 to March 25th.

On Friday, March 18th, we woke up early early early to fly to California for Spring Break. Our good friends down the street just so happened to be flying out of the same airport around the same time (but to a different destination) so we rented a limo to the airport which cost a ton less than driving and parking all week. All of our kids (6 in total) were SO excited to start our adventure together. It made the 3:45 pick-up time a lot more fun for the adults as well.

In California, it was a week of non-stop fun!

Friday: met up with Pete, Sarah and Charlie…also Meemaw and Grandpa for a trip to the fun zone on Balboa Island. Then Meemaw and Grandpa watched all the boys so we could go to a delicious dinner with Pete and Sarah.

This is Logan giving me the eye while we share a ride on the Ferris wheel. See…I kind of forgot that I don’t like Ferris wheels until I was already on…so Logan spent the ride laughing at me, rocking our car despite my pleas to stop and saying things like, “isn’t it funny how I’m supposed to be one afraid and you’re suppose to be the brave one, but I’m brave and you’re afraid?!” ya…about as funny as Aunt Sarah laughing at the look of horror on my face every time we went around (she was standing on the ground because she was much smarter than me!). hee hee.

Charlie and Brady on the carousel mini horses – too cute!

Logan chose (begged) to spend some of his vacation allowance on the “giant rubber band thing”. Hysterical! He was laughing so hard, he actually drooled on the trampoline!

Saturday: trip to Bolsa Chica beach with Nana, Papa, uncle Mark and his boys Jake and Tanner, Pete, Sarah, Charlie, Meemaw and Grandpa. It was bit cold that day so the beach was practically deserted. Perfect for us though – lots of room to run and play. My crazy children took a dip in the ocean despite the fact that it was freezing. Chicago-born-and-raised = tough in the FREEZING water I guess

The first thing Logan did at the beach: completely soak his cloths. Funny for him, but stressful for mommy who didn’t bring a change of cloths to the beach. It was only like 60 degrees, but he was fine :)

With actual bathing attire on, all three boys played in the water and had a blast. 

Uncle Peter built a sand castle  

Daddy built a sand pyramid:

Meemaw found some kites and it was the PERFECT kite-flying day. All you had to do was let go and away they went.

Bonfire: hot dogs and s’mores for lunch!

That night, we went to Pete and Sarah’s to celebrate Logan’s late and Charlie’s early birthdays

Men of distinct style, Brian and Peter realized they were wearing the same outfit.

Sunday: Drove down to San Diego, stopped at the USS Midway aircraft carrier. I think this was Logan’s favorite part of the whole trip!

Dinner after at Hodad’s: one of the 6-ish Diners, Drive-In’s and Dives restaurants we hit on the trip (Triple D for those of you as addicted to Food Network as ourselves). Brady, Papa and Logan got to dine in this crazy converted car. 

Monday: SeaWorld! I thought the dolphin show was amazing…of course we saw Shamu (or “the Martys” because every killer whale, according to my children, is named after Logan’s pillow pet killer whale, Marty). There was also a cool pet show with cats and dogs!

The set of the “Pet’s Rule” Show – so cute! 

They even have Shamu-shaped pretzels! Um…shamu is delicious…and slightly salty. ;)

There was a big play area…Brady loved his suspended tunnel and crawled through it for at least 20 minutes while the big boys went on a ride with daddy (Brady was too short for a lot of stuff throughout the trip so me and Nana took turns hanging out with him on “Brady-sized” rides).

On Tuesday, we met up with Mark, Grace, Jake and Tanner (who was celebrating his 4th birthday) at Legoland. The boys had a blast with friends along!

Jake, Logan and Aiden playing “statue”…a game I made up to see if we could actually get them to stand still in the ride lines. I would make up a statue pose and they would see who could hold it the longest. This game didn’t last for very long :)

Everything at Legoland is made of…legos! …like this super cute owl family. I love owls!!

One of our favorite parts was the mini land. Logan said, “look mom….that’s where Auntie Denna lives!” (see Golden Gate Bridge pic below) This was totally amazing…3 giant areas covered in replicas of famous landmarks, cities and other scenes in miniature….all made of legos. the boys thought it was the coolest thing ever!

On Wednesday, we traveled from San Diego back to the Los Angeles area. The boys were left with Nana and Papa while mom and dad returned to the Laguna Beach area for a night of fancy dining and sleeping in late! We all met at Disneyland the next morning. Papa works for Disney so they have the “in” on all the coolest stuff. We just followed them around all day and had a blast! We started at California Adventure, made our way over to Disneyland and then back again for the amazing water show at night. It was a long day/night, but everyone had a blast! 

Most of us had a turn carrying the boys around on shoulders during the day….Papa and Daddy took the brunt of the work…I think we were all a bit sore the next morning! Logan wore his Lego Ninjago headband that he got at legoland the whole day. It was noticeable enough that he got called on during a little show we attended where the kids get to talk to the dad turtle, “Crush”, from Finding Nemo.

Once again, Brady made his own entertainment while the big boys got to go on a ride with daddy and Papa. Here he is, playing in a little nature area on a slide…that he went down at least 20 times. He doesn’t even know he’s missing anything – look at that happy face!!

The vacation was a blast – it was hard to leave and come home (especially since the laundry was a’waiting for mommy). The boys are still talking about it all weeks later (and obviously I’m still getting around to posting about it! Now I need to make a photo album!!)

For a couple of days now, Logan has been wanting to play “mail man”. After an early 6-year well-visit to the doctor’s (8am), we came back home and made our “agenda” for the morning…which included playing mail man! First, we all wrote cards for each other and put them in Logan’s swim bag…er…um…mail bag. Logan then sorted the cards into piles, used rubber bands to group them and distributed them to us in the living room. It was tons of fun. Here was the delivery list:

Brady got: a card with a candy bouquet drawn on it from me and a card with some scribbles Aiden said was a swimming pool.

Logan got: a card with him dressed as a super hero flying over the city from me (think stick figure with flapping purple cape-thing on back) . It said “you did a great job at the doctor’s this morning,” and the drawing was labeled “super Logan!”. He also got a card with a “dolphin ride” on it from Aiden (blue lines down the page that looked like a slide) and a card with a tiny orange scribble on it from Brady.

Aiden got: a card with hot air balloons on it from Logan, a card with tiny orange scribbles on it from Brady and a card with a zombie grave on it from me (um…sorry…he’s obsessed with this ipad game called Zombie farm right now so that card said “good luck with your farm”). Sounds weird, but he opened it and said, “awesome!”

I got: a card with tiny orange scribbles on it from Brady (sensing an artistic theme there???), a card with flowers on it from Logan and a card from Aiden that was (apparently) a picture of me and Daddy in the pool (Aiden was working on a summer theme). Logan’s card was labeled “To: Renea” (Renay), but then it said “love you mommy” on the inside.

Before the cards, Logan was using a box that he would fill, seal with packing tape and deliver. I was the only one who got any deliveries, but they were group efforts from all three boys. I got: some juggling balls in one shipment, an ipad in another (I heard them plotting that one and just yelled “um…please be careful with that package!”) and a pair of sunglasses that looked strangely familiar…oh…and the roll of tape came in the last shipment along with a handful of Lego guys (I have to say that particular package wasn’t sealed very well!)

Making cards:

Mailman Logan sorts the day’s cards for delivery: