Happy Belated Valentine's Day

Translation:  "I love you all the way to heaven."

I was cleaning up some stuff tonight and ran across this gem from Buddy.  Several weeks before Valentine's Day Buddy asked me who loves him more:  Me or Jesus.  Because I'm an idiot, I told him that Jesus loves Him more.  I was trying to teach him that no matter what he does, Jesus loves him perfectly and completely.  Whereas I lose my patience and get angry, Jesus never does.

Of course that hurt his feelings really bad.  I tried to backpedal, scrambling to find a way to convey how much I love him too.  I told him I love him all the way to the moon and back, as I often do.  He believed me, but was still hurt that I have "limitations" on my love.

A few weeks later, this darling Valentine arrived in my hands.  I feel like a jackass all the time when parenting him, but this really cut deep.

And yes, this would be the 10,982,730th reason I love this boy.  He has no conditions on his love.

Spring Break Really Isn't a Break for Moms... But it Sure is Fun!

I know all you can focus on is the darling children in this picture -- one of which is screaming because he wants to stand by himself -- but check out those gorgeous blue skies, Mt. Ranier, and too bad you can't see it, but the Puget Sound is back there too

What do you get when you take:

4 moms + 10 children under 6 + time off of school + 2 days in Seattle - naps + an agenda full of kid-friendly adventures?

Chaos.  Fun.  Exhaustion.  Pure joy.  

All ten of the children lined up eating a snack.  Ordered oldest (6) to youngest (18 months).

Yes, you read that right.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Three friends and I took our TEN children to Seattle for spring break.  Miraculously no children were lost (for more than 10 minutes anyway), all kids got along and behaved marvelously, and we all had a fantastic time.  And I've got the pictures to prove it.  It sure helped that our kids are above-average awesome.  And in my humble opinion, so are their moms.

 An attempt at a group shot at the top of the Space Needle. 

I've been a Pacific Northwesterner all my life (besides college) and I've never been to the top of the Space Needle.  The ride up in the elevator scared me spitless, but once we arrived safe and sound I loved it.  Seattle is so gorgeous from the ground, but it's breathtaking looking down and getting the panoramic view.

Shortly after handing out snacks, some teenage boys arrived and started doing tricks on their skateboards.  The children (minus adorable Briella) were spellbound.  This might have been the highlight (that and the hotel pool) of the whole trip for the kids!

Riding the Monorail (or the choo-choo as Sambo called it).

Getting eaten by a shark at the Point Defiance Zoo.  I consider this photo a miracle!  All 7 boys standing nicely in one place for more than a second!

Sambo LOOOOVED having all sorts of kids around to play with and follow around. He was so happy the entire time!

And of course Buddy was happy.  He was spending his vacation with his three best friends!

The weather was perfect at the zoo.  While we rounded up some lunch, the kids got busy rolling down the grassy hill.  And playing "pretend football" since we didn't have a "real" football.

Another highlight for Buddy was the shark tank of course.

Have I mentioned how awesome the zoo is?  It was our second time there and I'm already itching to go back.  The zoo has a really fun park.  The kids forwent visiting many of the animals, just so they could play longer at the park.

The younger of my two daredevils.

Pointing at the walruses.  We arrived just in time to see them get fed.

It was so great to be with my boys!  Love them!

 Not pictured (unfortunately):

• Our trip with the kids to the hotel pool and hot tub.  Talk about an accident waiting to happen!  Luckily only minor injuries.
• How jam-packed our hotel rooms were once we laid out everyone's sleeping spots.  We had two rooms each housing 7 people.
• Meal-times.  Wow, is all I have to say.  (Every night at home I freak out about what a mess my boys make.  I was right-they are the messiest children in the world.  That's now been confirmed.)
• The four of us moms hanging out in the hallway of the hotel after the kids went to bed so we could gossip and eat our snacks.
• The hotel manager "escorting" a yucky blond woman to her room at 11:30 PM.  That was a little awkward with us four moms sitting there in the hall trying to guess what they were up to -- and stifling our laughter.  He didn't stay long (probably because we were staring at them).  Mandy-Any ideas why a manager would bring a guest to their room? 
• The looks of disgust/pure shock/confusion we got when we filed into anywhere with our herd of children.  One lady did stop me, however, to tell me that our children are "such a blessing."  I'd have to agree.
• The 1,956,093 potty stops we made during those 2 days.

There's No Crying in Baseball

The other day my neighbor told me that she has started a sticker reward chart for her eight-year old to try to discourage his incessant crying over every little thing.  If he can get through a day without melting down, he gets a sticker on the chart.  I thought that was funny in and of itself.

Then she continued, "We have a few exceptions, though.  He is allowed to cry if (1) he gets lost, (2) there is blood, (3) somebody dies, or (4) he feels the Holy Ghost."

HILARIOUS!

Dance Forever

This is so cool.

I'm so glad another generation of youth will be awkwardly slow dancing the last song to this classic.  I can't believe I'm old enough to have slow danced to the original.

I Like Dating Handsome Men

Last weekend I took Buddy on a date to Family Fun Center.  We spent the afternoon and well into the evening enjoying each other's company. The rules were:  (1) Have fun.  (2) Do as many activities as possible before going home.  (3) Buddy chooses the date's agenda.  To say we had a GREAT time would be an understatement.  We had amazing conversation (as you can imagine) and enjoyed spending time together -- just the two of us. 

We finished the evening at Taco Bell, one of our favorite "restaurants".  We especially enjoyed not hearing G complain (he doesn't like TB and calls it "dog food" -- so lame) and not having to wrestle with his little brother (aka "the cat in the paper bag").  We were in heaven eating a dinner only our date could truly appreciate.

Other highlights were:

• Buddy is still young enough that he's not embarrassed to be seen with me or even hold my hand.  But he WAS embarrassed when I laughed and made a big deal out of ramming into other bumper boats.  He begged me to stop doing that because that's "annoying".
• And he was proud at first when I was the fastest driver on the go-kart track... but became mortified when I accidentally rammed a slow kid-driver in front of me.  The workers held up a "last warning" sign to us and he still hasn't stopped talking about it.  And when we got out of our go-kart he reported my poor behavior to the manager on duty.  Seriously.
• When we lost our locker key and had to go on a "treasure hunt" to find it.  What could have been a stressful situation (considering my keys and purse were locked inside), turned out fun because he was my helper.
• Following his lead in the kid playground area.  I'm not nearly as agile as I once was, but it was still fun to try to keep up.  (Although those things stink something fierce like kid BO.  Yikes!)
• The gorgeous sunny weather.
• Not having a plan.  Just playing and having fun.
• Loving him.  I'm so lucky!