Spring Break is Over

Spring Break is over! We all had to get up, get dressed, fed and to school on time this morning. It sure is easier to let the kids sleep in than to wake the sleeping bears. This is how they look when I wake them up before they are ready:

Our afternoon at the farm and park is all the excitement we managed to fit in on their break.

All Day With Mom

Today I decided to take the children to work with me instead of having them go to day care. Actually, the only way I was gonna be close to on time was to tell them they could go with me if they would get out of bed NOW! We are all sleepers in our family and it is quite difficult for us to get moving in the mornings. Usually the promise of something fun, the Easter Bunny or Santa's visit or getting to spend the day in the library with Mommy more than likely will do the trick.

While we were in a library with thousands of books for my precious angels to choose from my angels chose to do this.

Mind you Anna Grace has been an avid reader since K-5. The other two love to be read to but with the wonderful internet to lure them this is how my babies choose to spend the day. Hey, they were pretty quiet!

By 3:00 we had all had enough of the library and the rest of the staff had had enough of us so headed out to make the most of this beautiful afternoon. We stopped by the farm to visit with Papa and Uncle Will and check out the animals. We all loved the goats. This guy did his best to knock down the gate. It took all the nerve the children could muster to get close to him. Once they got near though they loved it.

I feel sorry for people who don't have the opportunity to do all the great things Papa has enabled my children to experience. I love the fact that my babies have held baby chicks, rabbits and goats. They have fed the chickens, horses, cows, pigs and even bottle fed a motherless calf and deer. They know what it is like to ride a tractor and see first hand where some of our produce comes from. We have witnessed chickens hatching from the eggs laid by the mama hen right on the farm. They have been out to collect eggs from the hens and picked their own corn out of the field. Papa has cut back on some of his animal population in the last year, here are a few of his remaining pets.

Mama hen and her chick

Papa bunny. Mama didn't want her picture taken as her babies are coming soon.


Uncle Will's pet snakes. YUK

Uncle Will's monster truck "big red" He took them for a ride in it while I visited with Papa in his office. Josh is standing up next to this truck. It is very "tall".

posing on one of the gates by the horse barn


After the farm we tried the park for a while. We didn't last long because a group of older children came in and were using some pretty rude language. We did get to play on the monkey bars and swing for a few minutes.
Josh was saying, "Mama, why do you keep taking my picture? Just push me."


After the park we decided home is best. All three thought it was warm enough to put on their bathing suits. They climbed the trees, rode bicycles and played tennis against the side of the house. I did stop them before they played in the sprinkler. All in all it was a good day. I hope to come up with something even better for Friday.

Spring Break

The children have the week off from school for Spring Break this week. Yesterday we stayed home (only because day care was not open) and worked on getting Joshua's room in shape. We cleaned and rearranged his space. Poor baby has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for over a year so we decided it was time to at least put a frame under it. I needed some more storage space too. We also moved furniture around and added some Clemson tiger paws to cover some of the dents in the wall. My boy loves to throw his toys and his walls have taken a beating. I have been trying to clean out anything that we don't need or use and give it to the church for a yard sale. We trashed a grocery bag of broken toys and bagged up quite a few other items for the church. All we need now is a few organization boxes and new bedding and window treatments and his room will be to my satisfaction. (for now any way)

My precious niece and nephew, Cameron and Lacie, came over to help us too. It was amazing how well the children got along.

Today it is back to work and day care for the Kirvens. I really need to come up with something fun for the babies to do while they have no homework and don't have to get to bed quite as early as on school nights. I had planned to take them to the beach Thursday for the weekend but several things have come up and it's not gonna happen this year. I have taken the time off from the library already so maybe something will come to me by then.

Easter

Another Easter has come and gone and now all there is left is a bunch of globs of melted chocolate in plastic eggs that have been hidden at least a dozen times. I imagine we will be finding eggs for some time to come. This mom is quite happy that we no longer use the dyed real eggs any more for these awesome hunts. I am quite a freak about eating food that has been left out for any length of time and a boiled egg that has been roasting in the flower bed for hours is enough to make me cringe. We celebrated for three days. While it is fun to have a bunny come to your house and deposit a basket of goodies for the children, I tried to help them remember the real reason we have Easter, Jesus death on the cross and resurrection. I think the truth too often gets overlooked by the "fun" stuff.

And now for the fun stuff. Friday all three children had parties. I went to Sara Abbett's.

Rab loves "Miss" Kim

Doing the limbo.

Best friends!!

Zeke

comparing the loot

Sara Abbett's class

Timmy went to Josh's without a camera so no pics. Then I returned to school for Anna Grace's field day.

sack race - winning round 1

Wheelbarrow race - not as easy as they thought

We love Miss Rizzo!
She's exhausted after all that racing.

Saturday we had our church's egg hunt.

and...

Of course Sunday was church. Our church always puts up a living cross. Someone covers the cross in front of the church with oasis and we all put flowers in it. It is incredibly beautiful every year, even when Easter comes so early that very few flowers have had time to bloom. Also, after the service, we released butterflies to the cross. The children all got to raise the butterflies from caterpillars.

How Does She Do It?

By she I mean the mom with several children, or the single mom or the mom with no other family around to help her. Life with children is so much better than it would be without them but insanely busy some times. How does the mom with many children get them all up, dressed, fed and to school on time? Or the single mom...what if she is sick? How in the world does she function without a spouse to step in and help? I really feel for the moms who don't have their own mom, a sister or sister in law to help them in a pinch. I am so truly blessed to have a husband and family who are always willing to help me with my three children. Life gets crazy and it would be impossible without the love and support of the amazing people in my life. This week we have three different Easter parties at school. It is impossible for me to get to all of them. Sara Abbett's and Josh's are at the same time on opposite sides of town. Dilemma..... I had planned to go to Josh's because I never do for him like I do for the girls until, when I asked SA if she cared if I missed her party she said, "It's ok mommy, you didn't go last year either so I didn't expect you to go this year." I am going to hers! Anna Grace is having a field day on campus at a different time. Maybe I will go for a bit to take some pictures.

Horray Spring

I LOVE these warmer days. It just makes me happy to be able to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. We haven't begun our planting for the season but I do look around and make huge plans for Timmy. He is so amazing in the yard and is kind enough to do most of what I ask. As much as I hate to admit it he has a much better eye for design. The children too enjoy getting out of the house and moving in the yard. We were so lucky last weekend that the horrible storms that blew through South Carolina did no damage to our property. I was braced for the worst, even cleaned out the closet under the stairs just in case. Say a little prayer for those less fortunate.

My precious angels do have a good time making up games to keep themselves occupied.







Bathing suit tennis, basketball (w/o a goal), baseball, and bike riding...does it get any better than this?

Notice the look on J's face. Think he's looking for trouble.

When Josh made fun of Rab's hair she said, "If you had long hair and were playing tennis you would have to wear it like this too." Doubt it sister!!

Boys vs. Girls

Every day is an adventure when you have children. This morning I went up to wake Josh up as usual but Mr. Naughty thought it would be fun to touch my boobs. I had already explained to him that you do NOT touch girls in that way, even went as far as to tell him that you could go to jail for it but that obviously did not sink in. When I moved his hands and again told him that it is wrong to touch ladies he hugged me, laughed and said, "Now my face is touching your boobies." I finally had to just walk away from him because no matter what I said or did he continued to act like creep. I fear the day when he does get locked up for this kind of behavior. He has gotten out of control lately. Mind you this is the day after I had to take him out of church and have a private word of prayer with him for being sassy to the preacher during the children's sermon. I have said many bad words and things inappropriate in front of the children but never, blah blah blah when someone is talking. Where in the world did the kid learn this. I may go insane before he makes it through school.

On a lighter note. AG had a birthday party for one of her classmates yesterday afternoon. I told her I simply did not have any money to buy the child a gift and thought we should stay home. My precious child went to her playroom and made a bracelet for her friend. Now I feel sure the little girl did not even notice that little gift when everyone else gave her a Webkin but I was proud of Gracie for being creative. She is so frighteningly like me in most ways but thankfully not in every way. She is generous, caring, and kind to others most of the time. It makes me so proud to be her mom.

Fashionistas

My girls have a unique sense of style. I love to see what combinations of clothing they are going to put together and unless it is trashy I will allow them to wear it to school. I draw the line at revealing clothes and sometimes (but not always) flip flops in cold weather.





Here are the girls in their glamorous outfits today:











Sara Abbett is wearing a precious brown flowered top with a pink sash and denim mini skirt with a ruffled hem over black leggings with pink polka dots. How adorable is that! To complete her look Miss Rabbit has on pink cowgirl boots.











Our next model is Anna Grace. Gracie has on her sister's black leggings under a layered black knit skirt. On top of this she has on an extra long black sparkly t-shirt. As a spectacular finish to her outfit Miss Grace is wearing black and white polka dotted sneakers.



Not one to be lift out, Josh put on jeans and an orange shirt with his sister's orange Crocs.

My life is good!!!

Back to Reality

Ok so the beach weekend was wonderful. Now I am back to reality. I've taken a couple days off work to try to get my house in some kind of order. Sad isn't it that I have to take time off for such chores? Cleaned bathrooms and changed the big beds yesterday and today the real work has begun. I am going to get the laundry cleaned, folded and put away before the end of today. The children have been complaining about not having anything to wear every day.

This is why:

I found these messes under the girls beds today when I went up to change their sheets. Those piles are not just the regular junk that we see in their rooms on a daily basis. No, that is what was jammed under their beds. No wonder there isn't anything to wear, they "cleaned up" after my tirade last week.

Started this post yesterday but couldn't get it finished because I had 493 loads of laundry to do and cleaning the kids rooms took ALL day. What a feeling of satisfaction to have it done. I even did a little redecorating in the girls room. We put some green dots around on the walls and hung some fun lights. I do love fixing up for them, wish they would take some pride in it.

Being a mom is truly the greatest gift God has given me. I love these babies so much. It is trying at times but worth all of the grouchy moments when one of them gives me a big hug or tells me they love me.

Girls Weekend

This weekend was our first Mother/Daughter girls weekend at the beach. We older girls have been making this trip once a year by ourselves and thought since we have so much fun together we should let the little girls in on it. We still do the grown up girls weekend, we just added another get away with the little ones. We had a fabulous time. Everyone got along great!

playing Barbies while they wait for our ride

Friday- Mom and Mere went down early with the two "big" girls. They did the bit of grocery shopping necessary to survive a weekend (wine, snacks and sodas) and got the house ready for the fun! Jill and I followed several hours later with the little ones. We arrived at 7:30 and the fun never stopped. We ate pizza for supper and tried to get in a game of cards before bed. The girls acted like little over excited maniacs and we laughed until it hurt.

Mere is ready to get the party started!

After a little night's sleep, Saturday was all fun and games.

We had Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, went for a long walk on the beach to look for shells, then headed out for a day of shopping. First stop was a fabric place for Mom to pick up what she needed to recover some chairs and stools in the beach house. While there Lacie was swinging between two chairs and fell flat on her face. NOT PRETTY!! Next on to Broadway at the Beach for serious little girl shopping. Lots of pink and sparkly things were purchased. It was absoulutely wonderful and now I can hardly wait for Spring Break.