g is for greta

**I am embarrassed to admit this but feel that I must for full disclosure purposes: This post is about an event that took place LAST SCHOOL YEAR! She isn’t even in 1st grade anymore. I am a lazy bum. Continue…

Every kid gets excited when they hear the words “field trip.” Corinne is no different. Unfortunately, she paid attention to the part that said they needed parent volunteers to help out. She feels like we don’t spend enough time together and guilt tripped me into signing up. I was excited for her, though. Don’t get me wrong.

I was assigned to have Corinne and her friend as my little group. Two kids? No problem! Here they are on the bus all stoked and ready to pull out of the parking lot:

Corinne’s group of friends from 1st grade were some silly girls. This picture still makes me chuckle. We’ve got gang symbols, a plea for world peace, and some rocker fingers going on.

As you can see, Corinne’s friend is really into world peace.

It was a fun day. I’m really glad to have spent time with these great girls. I need to try to do things like this more often (without complaining about it).

-g.

I just wanted to get a picture of the kids before we left for church. They were all ready early (and people say miracles don’t happen anymore) so it was the perfect day. Corinne had slept with her hair in tiny braids after her shower and was so excited about her wavy hair. Mason was feeling good about his spikes, and Ethan just goes with the flow. I sent them to the front porch, and this is what I got:

Okay. That was just a warm up. “Smile kids!”

Better. For some reason Ethan was confused. Third time is a charm!

Mason appeared to be giving a look to all the single ladies in this one. Try, try again. Right?

At this point, I just started clicking repeatedly hoping that the stars would align, and they would all smile/look at the camera at the same time.

It was at this point that I realized we would likely now be LATE to church. Even though I didn’t get “The Perfect Shot,” I would definitely have to say that this series of pictures captures their personalities.

Next time, I’ll leave it to the professionals.

-g.

It is no secret. I loathe cleaning the kitchen floor. There are many reasons:

1. It is the original 1987 brown and country blue floral print laminate from when the house was built. It no longer shines (even after being cleaned) and is cracking in many spots. I just don’t want to redo the floors anywhere in the house until the kids can be more responsible.

2. The kids have it dirty within minutes of me spending an hour scrubbing it. Talk about infuriating!

3. I am lazy and would rather read a book or even have my eyebrows plucked one stray hair at a time than crawl around on my knees like Cinderella.

Anyway, I started the dishwasher one morning on our way out to play. I had received a trial packet of soap and figured, “Why not?” Well, this is why not…

Turns out it was DISH SOAP not DISHWASHER DETERGENT. Ugh. My brain was malfunctioning that day like most days. Anyway, the kids had a blast cleaning it up.

Besides, the kitchen floor got cleaned! It was actually much easier than the way I normally do it, and the kitchen smelled great, too! Maybe I’m on to something…

-g.

I can’t believe it has been 5 MONTHS since I posted last! I am the worst! We were busy with summer and busy with life but STILL!! I promise to be better. The kiddos are back in school so it will be easier to update now. Hopefully I took pictures of the fun stuff we did this summer so I can remember them all.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am BACK!

-g.

Okay, so I’ll spare you from most of the reasons. I do really love my kids, though. Yes, they drive me to the brink of insanity almost daily, but they are the reasons for the highest peaks of joy, too.

They love tatoos. Seems like they are everywhere now: cereal boxes, prize at the dentist, pack of Nintendo cards, etc. Corinne and Mason decided they wanted to match.

I couldn’t get those suckers OFF when Sunday rolled around. Unfortunately, that meant they were sporting tats to church.

Mason is just plain silly. The kid just radiates fun (unless he is having one of his moments where he is flailing on the floor throwing an ear-piercing fit). We went to the Dublin Rec Center to swim. Instead of putting his clothes in the cube, Mason put himself in. Weirdo.

Corinne is coming of age. That has lots of different meanings. She whined on Saturday when I asked her to put her laundry away. I decided it was time for the “I am not your slave, I am your mother” lecture. She sighed, rolled her eyes, and put her laundry away. Ugh. On the other hand, she is so helpful and loving to her brothers. She gives them instructions for the day on how to be good boys while she is waiting for the bus then blows them kisses as the bus pulls away. The other day I captured this:

She and Ethan had decided to watch a movie together, but Ethan fell asleep. She was so proud of her ability to “mother.” She is a good girl with crazy teeth.

Ethan is plain insane. I honestly don’t know what this kid has for breakfast (okay…I do know what he has for breakfast, but apparently it affects him differently than the rest of us) that causes him to go into hyperdrive. My goodness! He is a sponge these days and wants to be just like his older siblings. Here is a prime example of him showing what he learned from Mason:

Looks like he took good notes during Fits 101. The top grade is from Melting Mom’s Heart 101.

He’s just so stinking cute. Especially now that he is talking in sentences. He is adorable to listen to!

Being a mother to these kids is an honor. I feel like I should give them a gift on Mother’s Day for allowing me to be their mom. I couldn’t be happier…

-g.

I have been trying to explain to the kids that Spring is the season that bridges Winter into Summer. The easiest thing to tell them was that some days would feel more like Winter while other days felt like Summer. The days in between are Spring. It’s been really confusing because Ohio weather is never predictable.

We woke one morning over Spring Break to snow. By the time the sun came up, only half of the yard had snow left. The kids took advantage of their ability to play in the snow without freezing off any appendages. We had a blast! On one side of the yard, we were playing baseball. On the other side of the yard, we were building a Spring Snowman:

A dear friend had her 4th child close to Easter. I invited her older two kids to have a sleepover to give her a bit of a break. We decided to go to an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday morning. Who knew they would be hidden in the snow?! I never even thought to take hats or gloves. They were FREEZING!!

Getting dressed in the morning is challenging because by lunch, the weather is completely different! I’m glad the kids seem to be able to go with the flow. Just to be on the safe side, we bought the kids sandals over the weekend. Corinne and I painted our toenails, too. Here’s to hoping for warmer weather!

-g.

My sweet Mason woke up on the morning of his 5th birthday and said, “Since I am 5 now, do I get to go to kindergarten today?” We had always told him that he would go when he was 5. That’s my boy. He LOVES school and can’t wait for the next stage.

Mason also loves video games. He picked a PacMan cake, and I was thrilled since it was such an easy cake to make. Bless his heart…he was so tickled by it.

All of his grandparents were here for his celebration plus Tia Stephanie and Uncle James. It was so fun to have all of us together. Plus it meant lots of presents! He was so spoiled!

Mason testing out his new SpiderMan scooter from Grandma Ann and Papa Bill.

Another favorite was his Mario toy from his cousins in Utah. He even gave him rides on his new scooter. Ethan broke his arm off a few days after his birthday. Poor Mario and poor Mason!

Here’s his 5 year picture with monkey…

and a 1 year for comparison.

-g.

For a long time, we have been talking about going to Kalahari. Stephanie took action and found a deal that was too good to pass up. The kids had a blast! Here are some pictures. Sorry if they are fuzzy or dark. It was tricky getting the kids to stand still long enough to capture the moment.

Mason LOVED the lazy river. He honestly spent hours walking/swimming the loop. He was so excited to be able to reach the bottom.

Corinne was a good sport and stayed with him for most of his laps.

One of the other favorite spots was the wave pool. Corinne was brave enough to ride the waves on a tube with someone closeby. Mason mostly stayed in the shallow part playing around.

Corinne was tall enough to do some of the waterslides and bigger rides. It was fun to see her so giddy with excitement!

Everyone was definitely feeling the love!

Thanks to the Rices and Woolfs for helping with the kids and making the whole trip happen!

(FYI–Ethan did make the trip with us. I know there aren’t any pictures of him. He spent the first day in the pool playing. Unfortunately, we didn’t take pictures until day 2 when he spent the whole time in the arcade/playplace with Abuelita.)

-g.

Tony’s birthday is on the 8th. (Mark your calendars, everyone.) Normally he doesn’t get his own cake because Corinne’s birthday is on the 10th. This year, she was having a birthday party so I decided to get Tony’s his own strawberry casada cake. It was divine! I highly recommend it!

I don’t even have any pictures of the actual birthday boy. We all know what he looks like, right? On to Corinne then…

On odd numbered birthdays, the kids are allowed to have a celebration. Corinne picked Galaxy, Games, and Golf for her party this year. It was a good time had by the kids. I did cupcakes and let the kids decorate them so there isn’t a picture of a gorgeous cake made by yours truly. Ha! Some of the kids took it so seriously. Check out their faces:

Corinne’s favorite part was playing with her friends and the presents. What kid wouldn’t love those things?

So here’s my 7 year old looking so big…

…in comparison.

Sigh.
-g.

I think we have used 4 out of 5 allotted snow days. Ugh. One of them was a lame excuse for wanting another day off. Don’t they realize how hard it is to entertain kids that are stuck inside their home for numerous days in a row?! We were all bouncing off the walls! Here are some things that kept us busy:

LOTS of playing inside and out

I thought this sign was cute but felt bad for my buddy Ethan for being banned. (No Ethan aulood–Privit)

Decorations for birthdays/Valentine’s Day–We hung “Happy Birthday” and the numbers Tony, Corinne, and James (brother-in-law) were turning from the chandelier.

The kids didn’t like that it wasn’t easily readable. Corinne had another idea that worked PERFECTLY!!

That left the chandelier all lonely so we did this:

Any reason to stretch out their attention spans a little longer and eat some time off the ol’ clock!

One of the mornings we woke up to some chaos.

I guess that snow day was warranted. Eventually the roads got cleared and life was as normal as it could be with my three wonderful yet crazy kids!

Today I noticed my daffodils creaping up through the mulch. Spring is on the way!
-g.