Just trying to keep everyone happy...

I'm not gonna lie, I can't wait for the weekend to start.  Today my patience has been tested from the moment I woke up-- probably because Caleb decided to start the day an hour earlier than usual.  And then he woke his sister up.  This led to a fun filled morning with two cranky kids, as you can imagine.  At one point today I felt like I was going to lose my cool-- so I announced that I was giving myself a time out.  Caleb looked at me strangely and said "You can't do that!"  But I did.  I went and sat in his room for a few minutes, regained my composure, put a big smile on my face and made him the best lunch ever.

So, lately I've been doing my best to keep the kids happy... so that I'm happy.  It all started yesterday.  I had to make a trip to Superstore to pick up a few groceries.  Caleb usually groans when I tell him we're going to Superstore-- I really don't blame him-- that place makes me feel grouchy too.  This time I decided to try and make it fun-- I told Caleb that we were going to have a treasure hunt in Superstore!  Over the past few weeks I've been cutting out pictures of grocery items that we often pick up at the store.  I pulled out the pictures of a few items we needed and told Caleb that he had to make a list of the things we had to hunt for at Superstore.  He glued them to a piece of paper and off we went.  On the drive over to the store he kept shouting from the backseat, "I'M SO EXCITED!!"  The moment we walked through the door he was looking left, right, up, down trying to find the things on his list... when an item was discovered, he was able to use his marker-- I tried to get him to draw and "X" over the item... he insisted on drawing a circle around the picture.  You win Caleb.



Finding diapers.  How exciting.  Emerson watched from the sidelines and even managed the swipe the list from Caleb a few times.  The treasure hunt was a big success... Caleb's begging to do it again.  I think I'm going to pick up an official looking little clipboard for him so that he can monitor his list in style.


So that was yesterday!  This morning we didn't end up leaving the house.  That would have been a disaster waiting to happen with grouchy kids.  Instead we did some activities at home-- the activities started early.  By 7:30 am we were already coloring... believe it or not.


Then I decided that we were going to do some baking.  After looking through my recipes I decided that we were going to bake gingersnaps again-- since they required the least amount of eggs ( guess I should have put that on the list yesterday :)  And really, what else am I going to eat for breakfast on a day like today?  Ginersnaps it is.  Caleb was most helpful.  He decided that he really wanted to wash the dishes.  His technique was quite unusual...  instead of scrubbing the dirty dishes with a cloth, he insisted on pouring water on them.

As you can imagine, this did not end well.

So towels on the floor it is.  Dishwashing ended when I started a bubble fight with the suds.  Once cookie baking was finished we were all a little happier, maybe a bit cleaner due to the suds, and my floor had been unintentionally washed by Caleb.

This little missy sat on the sidelines and watched-- sometimes quiet, sometimes crying.

And now they're sleeping... finally.