Mother's Day & A Weekend Off

My class was taking a break for this weekend because our instructor was graduating from grad school.  It worked out swimmingly because we have our most intense assignment due next weekend, so we got two weeks to complete it. 

But, the problems became:

1. The kids and I got sick.

2. It was Mother's Day weekend!

We all have colds right now and this weekend I was really feeling it because of the lack of sleep the couple nights before so on Saturday, I was supposed to swap out the kids' winter clothes for their spring clothes.  I felt the pressure because Hubs brought the buckets into the house from the garage on Thursday and I still hadn't taken care of it or the mound of laundry that was piling up.  We've been having issues with the installation of our new washer and water getting underneath our laminate flooring, so I've been a little bit stressed.  I haven't had the motivation to get through all these clothes because I was frustrated that I wouldn't be able to get my laundry done in my normal process.  I wash on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and after the projectpalooza, I had for the first time, caught up on all the laundry.  Put away and everything! So I finally started my routine of WDFPA (wash, dry, fold, put away) on M, W, and Sa.  Without being able to use my washer without fear of further ruining our floor, the flow has been clogged up (pun intended).  Plus, since I was feeling sick and the kids were feeling sick, I found other things to do that day (mostly sitting around on the couch requesting more hot tea and tissues from my butler loving servant of a husband every tweny minutes.  

Hubs cut the grass in the front again on Friday.  He cut it about two weeks before that and it was overdue for a cut for about a week.  We had some rain and then Hubs injured his hamstring at volleyball last Monday night and I've been sick, so we just hadn't gotten a chance to cut it.  Looks great now!  But the back yard hadn't been cut yet this year.  And it's a large space with lots of things to cut around.  And noone sees it on a regular basis so it tends to get left as long as we can excuse ourselves from doing it.   So, needless to say, it took him a while to get it all done on Saturday.  Then, Saturday evening, Hubs went out and bought a raised garden kit for me since we plan to do a veggie garden for the first time.  We've been saving organic matter for the past few weeks, so we had some compost material to put in it and now it's just waiting for the plants!  

After sitting the whole day, I finally found some energy Saturday night around 10:30 and folded and put away all the laundry that was in our room.  I also sorted through and folded all the new summer clothes that would be put into the kids' drawers so around 1:30AM, I was finally done.  I had reorganized our closet in the process and fixed a drawer whose face was falling off.  So much better.

This second wind ended up killing me in the end because I couldn't shut my brain off until about 3AM and that's when Josiah started whining and coughing, so Hubs got up with him, but of course I couldn't sleep while that was going on.  So, all in all, I got about three hours of sleep Saturday night.  But, it was my first week back at church since my class started and I did not want to miss it.  The kids weren't well enough yet to be taken to their classes, so I took all three of them to church with me.  Overall, it went okay, but Calah would not let me sit down even for a moment.  Thankfully, there was cake there for Mother's Day, so the kids each had a cupcake and that settled them down.  DISCLAIMER: No, I don't usually let them have cake at 11AM and no, I don't resort to appeasing them with sugary foods.  But this day, it was all I had. 

After church, we went home to change and grab some jackets and blankets for the kids and the double stroller so we could go to the zoo!  We haven't been since Christmastime, so we were long overdue.  Even though I wasn't feeling well, Benji has been asking to go to the zoo for over a month and I finally had a free day so we went.  And it was a little chilly but thankfully it was sunny out, so we stayed warm. 

Normally when we go to the zoo, it's around 10:00 when it first opens.  A lot of the animals are pretty lethargic at that time of day.  So this time, we got treated to the tiger walking around her habitat, drinking the water, and standing up on her hind legs to POUND ON THE DOOR for food.  It was pretty hilarious.  Unfortunately, no picture of that! I was too busy being amused by the live action. 

The Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit is back, so of course, we had to check that out.  The boys were actually a little scared of some of the dinosaurs once we got closer but all in all they really liked it. 

So we moved on to the dolphins before heading back home.

 Watching the dolphins:

It was a shorter trip but since we're members, we normally visit the zoo seven or eight times per year.  I assured the boys that we'd be back soon.  They were all knocked out in the car about 15 minutes into the drive.  We picked up a pizza for dinner instead of going out for Mother's Day since the kids were all asleep and we dared not wake them for fear of the wrath of crabby preschoolers.  So, we got the pizza and opened it up in the driveway so the kids could sleep a little longer.  We unloaded the car and I went to unlock the door to get the kids out.  I reached in and pulled the lock up and the alarm went off.  Nice wake up for the kids...

It was the best Mother's Day to date because it's our first one with our complete family on the "outside" and we got to spend the entire weekend together and we had a lot of fun wrestling, playing, tickling, laughing, and cuddling.  It was a nice refreshing weekend that I definitely needed.

Hope your Mother's Day was meaningful and spent with family!