"It's not about the goodies..."

Stasa started telling us early last week how Easter isn't all about the goodies and eggs, that it's about Jesus. I'm glad she's realizing that holidays aren't all about presents and material goods. It's actually something we say for most things. Material things, while we have many, aren't that important. We talk about that when we go over our safety plan for fire or other emergencies. People are important. Not toys. Not things.

Unfortunately, it's a very hard thing to remember when your sister is getting birthday presents that you want for yourself. Even if you did have over 20 friends at your party (which equates to A LOT of presents). Always wanting what you don't have. Yet another lesson we're always trying to drive home - don't worry about what other people have, be happy with what you have. Share. Respect each other. Be kind.

This weekend we decided to brave the Easter vigil mass at 8:00 PM rather than face the crowds of people in the morning. We expected to have standing room only, so we got there a half an hour early to get a seat and were surprised to find the church mostly empty. Even as mass started there were still plenty of open seats. Even so, we opted to sit in the cry room, something we only do if the kids are misbehaving. But given the hour it was a crapshoot, so the cry room was our best bet...which would up being unnecessary. The girls were very interested in the holy fire and the lighting of the candles and held theirs very carefully. Tommy had a death grip on his (with my hand over it) and kept saying "light, mommy, light!" After about the second of five readings, the girls curled up on the chairs under our jackets and fell asleep. I thought Tommy would for sure fall asleep given the time, but nope. He was in it for the long haul and started getting a little goofy - quiet, but goofy. We've tried a vigil mass in the past when the girls were younger and I think we left right before the gospel reading (about an hour and a half in) because they had reached their limit. This year thanks to them sleeping we made it through the entire mass in peace.

Of course, that meant we got home on the late side and everyone went to bed later than normal. Tom even commented that maybe that meant the kids would sleep in for us. Yeah, right. Stasa was up and in my face first thing in the morning, sad because the Easter bunny hadn't come. (Remember how she lectured us about Easter not being about the goodies? Yeah, that was a lesson quickly forgotten.) I asked if she was sure, and she said she had looked out her window and didn't see any eggs, so she assumed that the bunny forgot about us. I suggested she go play and let us wake up a bit and not two minutes later she came sprinting back into our room yelling "THE BUNNY DID COME! HE DID!" She spied their Easter baskets from the top of the stairs. Holidays with kids will never get old.

Our bunny didn't bring a ton of candy this year and instead brought snacks like pop tarts (hey, it's breakfast food), pudding pouches and these chocolate milk straws. As they were plowing through their baskets, Tom asked Stasa to check if the mailman left anything by the door. She got up to check (not realizing that mail doesn't come on Sundays) and ran back shouting that there were eggs out there! So we got our shoes and jackets on over our jammies and ran out to search for eggs. Stasa's really quick and we had to remind her to let Lexi and Tommy a chance to get some of the eggs. Tommy happily wandered around and got really excited every time he found an egg on his own. Our eggs always contain money and the kids sorted their coins once we were back in. I think Stasa found all the eggs with dollar bills and wound up with a total of just over $5 in change while Lexi had just over $3 and Tommy got about $2.

After a quick nap it was time to head over to have dinner with the family. Since we didn't have a family party for Lexi, she got some birthday gifts while we were there. Grandma got her two new Lalaloopsy dolls with long hair and Uncle Pat and Mimi got her some fun and fancy dress ups and boas. Now, as soon as Lexi opened the Lalaloopsy dolls (there were two) she immediately turned to Stasa and said "you can play with this one" and handed her a doll. So thoughtful and kind. But as the day wore on Lexi decided that she wanted to play with both of her Lalaloopsy dolls by herself. When she asked Stasa for it Stasa broke down crying because life just isn't fair. And this mini meltdown over these dolls went on throughout the evening and night as she begged to have one of them.

I find this so interesting since as the oldest child Stasa usually gets the newest of everything and Lexi as number two gets a lot of hand-me-downs. Nearly all of Lexi's closet is hand-me-downs from Stasa and yet she's THRILLED with them because they're new to her. Most of their toys are shared between the three of them and usually they're okay with that. As I stated earlier, almost all of Stasa's class came to her birthday party. Over 20 kids. That's a lot of gifts. And Lexi sat patiently and watched Stasa open each and every one and not once complained that she didn't have any nor did she cry. She just accepted that these were Stasa's gifts and was happy with whatever little things Stasa let her play with.

I often feel like a broken record when it comes to parenting.
"Please get your shoes on."
"Clean up your mess."
"Don't pick your nose and eat it."
"Brush your teeth."
"Be nice to each other."
"Wash your hands!"

And on and on. But reminding Stasa to be happy for her sister is a hard one. Stasa's had so much time in the spotlight this year with starting kindergarten, learning to read, performing in school plays, starting Girl Scouts, losing teeth...and Lexi has been watching all of this from the sidelines. It's Lexi's turn. She just started Pre-K a half a year early (which will be GREAT for her) and we're really playing that up. And she turned four and is now able to write her name by herself. All big things. So we find ourselves reminding Stasa that we need to let Lexi have her turn and to be happy when people gift her things and to be even more grateful when Lexi shares her things with her. And really, that material things aren't important. It's easy to preach to others that "it's not all about the goodies," but it's a hard pill to swallow when it's turned back on you. Stasa will get there eventually.





Life is hard when your parents play outside with you and bring out the kites on a windy day.


And it's even harder when your parents won't let you whack your sisters with your toy golf clubs.

Soooooooooooo let's get caught up again, shall we?

You know that Time Lapse setting for videos on the iPhone? Yeah? Well, that's what I feel our life has been like since the last time I posted. Work for both of us was busy through the fall and winter and is just now easing up. Added to that has been Tom going back to school, which doesn't add a whole lot to my plate, but it certainly does to his.

Let's go month by month...

November & December

As usual Thanksgiving and Christmas were spent at home with family. Stasa even had a Thanksgiving meal at school and lots of fun things counting down to Christmas, including special Christmas readers and visits from Santa and his elves. I'm sure I've said it before, but I really do love her school and can't wait until all of the kids are there. Stasa also sang in a Christmas pageant with her class and the whole school. The kids were all so adorable and the kindergartners sang and signed Silent Night in their Sunday best. 

January

The new year brought more snow and cold weather AND Stasa's sixth birthday. Every day I look at my Timehop app and am amazed at how quickly all of the years have flown by. We gave Stas a choice for birthday parties and she decided that she wanted to invite her whole class. Thinking that only a percentage of the 24 kids would show up we booked a party at our local bounce house for 15 or so. Well, we wound up increasing that number to 22! when nearly everyone RSVPed yes. Stasa couldn't have been more thrilled to have everyone there to celebrate with her and was a gracious host when it was time to leave, handing each of her classmates a helium balloon as a favor. That many guests means many many thank yous to write, which for a kindergartner is quite a task. She took about a week to finish them all since I insisted that she write them with a short personal note. It was actually great handwriting practice for her, too.

February

Between school and all of the events we've had with that we've also had some Girl Scout meetings, though we wound up missing both our February meeting and a February event due to snow and school closings. To say I'm excited for spring to come is an understatement. I'm so over the cold and snow and ick. February was mostly consumed with my work and preparing for a huge firm event. I spent so many hours working that month I can't even recall anything else that we did other than the usual daily routines. 

March

That brings us to this month. My birthday month that I now share with Alexia, who just turned FOUR. My birthday was pretty low key - we wound up getting a ton of snow that day and both school and daycare was closed, so I spent the day playing outside with the kids and then later that night Tom trekked out to get me Taco Bell (per my request). Lexi only had one request for her birthday: that we spend it at Chuck E Cheese with just our family. So last night we did just that. Stasa spent the day at home sick - her first all year (knock on wood) - and she and I took breaks to decorate the house and bake the cake. Tom took off a little early from work to get the smalls from daycare so we could hit up Chuck E Cheese on the early side. If I ever do lose my mind and actually plan a Chuck E Cheese birthday party I'm tempted to host it on a weekday evening. The place was practically empty. We grabbed a table, bought some tokens, for which I had a great coupon, and let the kids loose. Stas eventually got tired and rested at our table for a bit, but Lexi and Tommy couldn't be stopped. I was actually surprised by how many games Tommy was able to play. We combined all of their tickets and ordered dinner. While we waited for dinner we let Lexi pick prizes for everyone. Of course you have to have like 2000+ tickets to get anything of value and we only had about 260, so she wound up choosing candy and a few plastic bracelets. They also had a deal for walk in birthdays, so I got her a birthday crown, guitar balloon, and medallion. Once we finished dinner there we packed it up and headed home for cake and a lively game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I forgot how much fun that game is. Tommy's favorite part was taking the balls out of everyone's goal and putting them in his own. And so now the kids are counting down to Easter and Tommy's birthday and then we'll all count down to summer and warm days spent at the pool and camping. 

Catching up...and a confession

Let's start with the confession first. A lot of people take a look at our life and assume we've got it all together. Full-time jobs, three kids, mostly clean house (or so it seems in pictures), crafts and activities, volunteering, and the list goes on and on. Well, we don't actually have it all together. With both of us working full-time and still making time for our three kids, well, some things have to slide. So yeah, the laundry is constantly piling up and we often go to bed with toys still strewn about the playroom...and sometimes the living room. And yeah, it DRIVES ME CRAZY, but I think it makes me even more crazy running around trying to do it all. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't judge the life by the picture. Our house may seem put together in pictures, but it's likely I just threw some of the toys and mess over to the side to get a clean pic. Tricky tricky.

On to catching up. Life got crazy busy since Stasa started kindergarten. Tom and I have been trying to volunteer when we can, which only helps fill up our already full calendars. I also somehow found myself not only signing Stasa up for Girl Scouts, but myself as a leader. WHY? Because I'm crazy. But really it's been okay so far - I have two other moms helping and we only meet once a month. It's manageable for now. We'll see how I feel by the end of the school year.

Now that we're thisclose to Thanksgiving and then rolling into Christmas, I thought it made sense to actually share everything else that's happened between the first day of school and now.

Right after school started we took off for a Labor Day camping trip with family at The Cove. I think I may have spent the majority of my time walking back and forth to the bathrooms with both girls. I so love these camp grounds, especially the fact that there's a small lake beach.




Funny thing about that bathing suit I'm wearing. We packed what felt like our entire house to go on this camping trip with the kids. Every time we try to whittle down the pile, but with five of us there seems to be so many things we need. It wasn't until we drove all the way there, set up camp, and started getting the kids ready for the beach that I realized I forgot our bathing suits. Good grief. Since Tom wanted to chop firewood for later, I packed the kids up and drove 45 minutes into town to the closest Wal-Mart in the hopes of finding something for me and Tom. We hit the jackpot. The girls picked out Tom's new trunks, which featured the Dude from the Big Lebowsky. It was that or trunks with an eagle and flames. The girls couldn't stop laughing at the dude. So the dude it was. My options, however, were pretty slim. I finally found a top and bottom that sort of went together. We grabbed our stuff, paid, and hightailed it back to camp, where we changed into our suits only to find that the top I bought was waaaaaay too busty for me. Good thing I brought a bunch of sports bras. We had a great time with the kids and family and can't wait to go back next year!




On to...regular days hanging around the house.








Then between huge work events we had Halloween. I barely got the kids costumes together before the trunk-or-treat at Stasa's school. This was our first trunk-or-treat and Tom was going all out with decorations, which I thought was a bit much for a school thing, but I couldn't have been more wrong. People went waaaaaaaay all out. When the deuce and a half rolled up next to us with a big screen and fog machine I turned to Tom and said "not enough." Next year we'll have to amp it up even more.





And then again between even more work events we wound up in the hospital with Tommy. It started with what looked to be a bug bite which then got infected and drained, but then got worse. We had started taking him to the doctor on a daily basis for meds and monitoring and then ended up taking him to the ER one night after his fever spiked. And thank goodness we did because the infection was serious. They admitted us and put him on a few different IV antibiotics for four days. We were finally discharged, he finished all of his meds and is just now getting back to a normal routine (and diaper changing schedule). We didn't tell a lot of people that we were in the hospital since news was changing every day and we really couldn't have visitors. Tommy was in pretty good spirits for the majority of our hospital stay as long as no one was touching him or his IV.




That brings us to this past weekend, where Stasa was the lucky duck of the week and got to bring home the class mascot, Brown Bear. We had already gotten an earful on what everyone else had done with Brown Bear, which included bounce houses, play places, exciting (and expensive) outings. Well, we showed Brown Bear a GOOD TIME. First stop: the spa (aka our washing machine). Then he met a bunch of our bear friends, learned the fine art of mancala (and got his butt kicked), played dress up, went to dance class, the mall, Cracker Barrel and dinner with Grandma. Basically went and did whatever we already had on our schedule. And Brown Bear LOVED all of it. At the end of the weekend Stasa put together a poster about all of the fun she and Brown Bear had together. And since she got Brown Bear she also got to share her poster with the class, be the line leader for the week AND bring up the gifts at school mass.






And that about catches us up...for the most part...there are still a lot of things missing, but that's life, right?

Our Christmas started at 3:30 am

Yes, you read that right. 3:30 am. Stasa came running into our room and happily announced "Santa brought a MEELLION of presents!" I peeked my eyes open and realized it was still dark and I was still exhausted. Thinking it was maybe 5ish, I looked at my alarm and was shocked to find that it was only 3:30 in the morning. We finally convinced Stasa to join Lexi, who was sleeping, thank goodness. It took awhile to calm her down, but she finally fell back asleep until about 6:30, a much more reasonable hour for Christmas morning.

The kids were eager to get downstairs as fast as they could. Well, Tommy was just getting a contact high from the girls' excitement. Stasa opened her whole stocking and showed me every thing up close. Lexi focused on wrapped gifts first and was happy to sit and play with each toy before opening another present. The llama was happy with the box his toy came in.

Christmas just keeps getting more and more fun.

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree, of all the trees most lovely

This was the first year we put colored lights on the tree. I prefer white lights for everything, but Tom and the kids like having lots of color, so color it was. Really we should have a couple more strands of lights on it, but I didn't have the energy to go out to get more so I made do with two strands. When we unpacked all of our decorations we noticed that our star was broken. We bought a new, and in my opinion much better, tree topper and the kids love it. The girls helped decorate the tree and put the majority of their ornaments on two branches. And they both helped daddy put the tree topper on and plug it in.



We never got a chance to get our outdoor lights up thanks to a string of snowy and icy and rainy days. I did manage to make and put up two giant wreaths on the front of the house, but then never plugged them in. Next year. Really I want to cover our house in lights a la Clark Griswold, but Tom's not fully into that idea. Next year. Our elf, Mr. Socks, has also been pretty busy flying back and forth to the North Pole and getting into all sorts of trouble here.

I finished all of my elfing thanks to amazon and a couple of trips to Target. Now I just need to wrap, though I'm afraid that's going to have to wait until Christmas Eve. For now I've got a ton of cookie baking to do!

Happy Halloween!

I still can not believe how October flew by and it was apparent that the month got away from us on Wednesday night when we were making a late night run to the pumpkin patch so we could carve jack-o-lanterns. Thankfully the kids didn't care that we were so delayed in carving pumpkins and happily picked out their perfect pumpkin and face they wanted carved into it. Stasa was really helpful in cleaning them out and Lexi tried, she really really tried, but was picking out one seed at a time. LOL

Tom had decorated the yard the weekend before, so after we finished carving our pumpkins, we nestled them among the graveyard that is our front yard and they looked fantastic!

The girls woke up yesterday so excited for Halloween - dressing up at school, the candy, dressing up at home, the candy, a school parade, CANDY, CANDY, CANDY. LOL Eyes on the prize. When I came downstairs to leave for work I found Stasa inhaling the scent from the candy bag. ::deep sniff:: This ::sniff:: smells ::sniff:: SO. GOOD. ::sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiff::

When Tom and I showed up for the school parade, the teachers were still getting the kids dressed in their costumes and trying to keep them somewhat calm. Lexi was literally vibrating with excitement. Her little body just couldn't stand all of the excitement and had to release all of her energy in the form of jumping and shaking. The kids were crazed. Half of them were overly excited and jumping and the other half were wailing and melting down.


Tommy was ADORABLE in his sailor suit.



After the parade we grabbed the kids and got away from the madness. The girls were already dying to tear into their candy bags, and we let them have a few pieces while we got dinner ready and them in their costumes.



We wound up both taking all three kids around the cul-de-sac, then Tom and the girls walked over to our favorite trick-or-treating neighborhood while I packed Tommy up in the car to drive over since it was threatening rain. Well, the minute I got in the car it started raining so I brought Tom and the girls umbrellas and then followed them along in the car since Tommy was in and out of sleep and I wanted to be able to pack the kids in if it really started pouring. They managed to get through a few streets before the girls started getting tired. Lexi finally announced that she was done and we packed it in - they had more than enough candy for their age anyway. We got home and they dumped their bags and immediately started sorting through their goodies. We let them have some candy before calling it a night, brushing teeth, and tucking them in bed.

Yesterday Lexi looked at me and said, "Mommy, you know what's after Halloween?" I asked her what was next, she smiled and said "CHRISTMAS!" HAHA

Camping with the kids

After work on Friday we packed up the kids and the car and headed out for a weekend of camping in Gore, VA at The Cove. I found this place on a website of Virginia campgrounds and was somewhat skeptical since it wasn't a national park and didn't really have any reviews, but we figured we'd give it a shot. We had made a reservation for the weekend and were given a site within walking distance of the latrines. We didn't get on the road until after 7:00 due to some packing mishaps and a quick pitstop for dinner so by the time we arrived to check in it was already dark. The folks running the place were super nice and marked a map to show me how to get to our site. Unfortunately I'm not the best navigator and wound up leading us down an ATV trail. Poor Sexy Flexy roughed it, but managed to make it over a quarter mile on it. After a few more wrong turns we finally found our camp. Thankfully Tom and I had the foresight to do a dry run of putting up the tent so it went up pretty fast in the dark. Of course, our headlamps helped quite a bit, too. The girls ran around with a couple of the headlamps while we finished setting up camp for the night.

We weren't sure how big the site was since it was dark so we set up our tent closer to the firepit and picnic table (which we were grateful for because we left our big table at home). We initially put the girls in the same bed, but that lasted all of 30 minutes of "get off of me!" and "leave me alone!" before we split them up. So Tom slept with Lexi and I took a bed with Stasa and Tommy slept in the middle of the tent. I didn't sleep too well thanks to my air mattress slowly deflating through the night. I woke up on the rocky ground with a sore hip. I was happy to get up and out of the tent as the sun came up. Tom and Tommy got up with me and we got the coffee started while the girls slept.

Lexi woke up next and had fun walking around and digging in the dirt while Tom fried up some bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Our camp site was actually much larger than we thought and we could have easily fit a couple of more tents on it, even with our 10 person tent and large canopy. And the bathrooms were just a quick walk downhill and were pretty clean for a campground AND they had showers with hot hot water and plenty of toilet paper. And we discovered that they cleaned the bathrooms every day around lunchtime, which is when we took the kids down to hose them off. 

The girls were happy to explore our campsite and grounds after breakfast while we planned out the rest of our day. 

While the girls explored, Tommy snoozed in the tent. He's officially a tummy sleeper now. He took many a nap in the tent over the weekend.


After Tommy's nap we got dressed in our swimsuits and headed down to the beach. It was so much easier navigating in the daylight and we found the beach without any trouble. The sand was clean and white and the water super clear. We found a spot and got settled and the girls ran off to play in the sand and water.


I found myself so much more relaxed at this beach. I'm not a helicopter parent by any means, but I was glued to the kids sides when we were in Virginia Beach. That beach was (and always is) so overcrowded. This beach was much, much smaller, but even when it got busy it wasn't really crowded. And since it was a lake it was pretty shallow in the swimming area so we felt comfortable letting the girls run in and out of the water without us. There was a pontoon at the deepest point of the swimming area and Stasa kept asking to go out to it. I wasn't sure she'd actually make it since she's never really liked not being able to touch the bottom, but she happily swam out in her inner tube and then spent a good amount of time jumping off the pontoon.




After a few hours at the beach we packed up and headed back to our camp to rest and get ready for dinner. Stasa insisted she was tired and laid down in the tent.


She was *thisclose* to falling asleep and then Lexi ran in to play. Naptime never happened except for Tommallama.


Since the girls didn't want to nap and were going stir crazy hanging out at the camp site, Tom took them on a walk to let me and Tommy snooze. They came back bearing a bouquet of wildflowers for me.


This one was perpetually filthy. Like she would get hosed off or wiped down and minutes later we would find her looking like this.


Her hair was a rat's nest because she refused to let me put it up and I only managed to get it up a couple of times because I bribed her. I walked around with the kids while Tom made dinner - grilled chicken legs and tuna with corn on the cob and grilled potatoes. We were in the middle of dinner when we looked over and found this:


The sun and fun caught up to Miss I Don't Need a Nap. She fell asleep around 5:30/6:00 and wound up sleeping straight through the night. Stasa and Tommy stayed up with us for some campfire fun.


He was such a happy little camper.


Earlier in the day Tom foraged for fire wood and chopped up a couple of small felled trees and had quite a good amount of nice dry firewood for our fire. Stasa was his helper for the night. She was quite the pyro, just like daddy and Pappou, and Tom even found a good fire poking stick for her.


They made a nice fire - with just one match according to Tom - and Tom taught Stasa campfire safety. She was a great listener and was really cautious around the fire. She really enjoyed poking and stoking it, but always waited for Tom's permission before doing it. She even found her own rock to add to the fire pit and Tom etched an S on it for her.




Once we got the fire going, we broke out our s'mores ingredients and taught Stas how to roast marshmallows. She really enjoyed catching her marshmallow on fire so she could blow it out and she LOVED s'mores.



After we demolished our s'mores, we hung around and enjoyed the fire. We even read some bedtime stories by the fire.


Around 10:30 Stasa decided she had enough campfire, doled out kisses and crawled into bed. Tom and I enjoyed the peace and quiet and warmth of the fire (and a few drinks) before calling it a night. Tommy didn't sleep as well that night and I was only half asleep most of the night. I got up and out of bed as soon as it got light out. Tom was up with me and we almost able to have our first cup of coffee before the girls woke up. Before we knew it the girls were up and ready for the day.


Stasa dressed herself in her dirty clothes from the day before, put her hair up and brushed her teeth. Miss Responsible.


After breakfast and 100 trips to the bathroom, we got ready and headed off for the beach. Because we all woke up at the butt crack of dawn, we arrived at the beach at 9:00 am, well before anyone else. It was nice to have the beach to ourselves for awhile and the water was so peaceful. The lifeguard offered the girls some leftover sand toys and a small fishing net. We all tried catching some of the many minnows that were swimming around, but were unsuccessful. Those suckers are fast. Stasa spent 90% of the time in the water and went under quite a bit. I bet if we were there another two days she would have learned how to swim. She was so close.



Lexi was content playing in the sand and building and destroying sand castles. She ran in and out of the water a lot and wanted us to take her out to the pontoon like Stasa. I ended up taking her halfway out in her inner tube and then just splashed around with her in the shallow water.


Tommy played for a bit and then promptly passed out for HOURS on the picnic blanket. Once he woke up we packed up and headed back to camp.


When we got back to camp Stasa insisted she was tired and wanted to be in the tent. I tried talking her out of it since it was wicked hot in there, but she went in anyway and passed out in like two minutes.


While she napped, the rest of us hung out and snacked while we decided what to do about dinner and the rest of the night. It was supposed to storm later in the night and we had already planned to leave first thing Monday morning, so as the evening arrived and the thunder rolled in, we settled on leaving that night after dinner and s'mores.



While Tom grilled dinner, Tommy joined Stasa in the tent for a short nap.


After their nap we all ate dinner and finished packing up camp and started another camp fire to let Lexi have some s'mores.



Lexi took a few bites and then announced that she didn't like s'mores and only wanted the ingredients separate and uncooked. Whose kid is this? We got packed up and back on the road around 8:30 and headed home. Good thing, too, because it started raining as soon as we were on the road.

Our first family camping trip was a success. The girls really enjoyed it, so much so that Stasa was in tears when it was time to pack up. All said we really loved this campground and said we'd like to make this an annual trip with the family. Everyone we talked to was really friendly and a lot of the families come every year. We would definitely try to get one of the sites near where we were this time. It was super close to the bathroom (definitely a plus with kids) and felt far enough away, but was a quick hike or drive to the beach and main office. They have snow tubing there in the winter and tons of ATV trails and fishing spots.