Real Life Mother's Day

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a great weekend - enjoying Mother's Day, the Kentucky Derby and a few days of rest.  We had a great weekend.  There were lots of sweet moments, special things and hard stuff.  A little bit of everything with a stiff dose of reality.

Let me tell you about my real life Mother's Day.

FRIDAY:

Kevin gave his last final of the semester and then hurried home to us.  We ate a quick lunch and headed out on a road trip.  He'd surprised me with a gift card to TJ Maxx/Marshalls/Homegoods and wanted to take me there to shop.  We thought we timed things perfectly for car naps for the kids and coffee + conversation for us.  Fletcher was fussy and Olive fell asleep reluctantly.  We arrived and she was a total grump and Fletcher needed a full body bath with wet wipes.  Olive almost always wakes up happy, but she was mad.  She was confused about where we were and kept asking for my parent's dog.

We gathered our people and our stuff and headed into Marshalls.  Olive had a MELTDOWN about getting in the cart.  She was not interested in that and didn't want to be in the store.  No amount of candy bribery was going to convince her otherwise.  So Kevin pushed Fletcher in the stroller and I took the wailing toddler in the cart.  She attracted looks from everyone and comments like you're too pretty to be crying which only made her cry harder for dramatic effect.  She finally dried it up when we went into the dressing room.  Nothing fit... so we kept looking.  I couldn't find anything I loved and Olive returned to her grumpy state so we left the store empty handed.  

Kevin took her to the car to relax and I headed to Homegoods with Fletcher.  I found several things right away that I wanted and then Fletcher started crying.  I was thrilled to find this J arrow for his nursery.  Fletcher's name means arrow maker so I've been on the hunt for an arrow for his room.  We crossed paths with Kevin and Olive who was in a much better mood.  We swapped kids again and Olive and I started exploring the store.  She spotted the toy aisle and was being demanding.  We looked at the toys and kept going.  That made her mad so we headed for the checkout.  Kevin was at the front of the store trying out a nice bench feeding Fletcher a bottle.  We all headed to the car, rolled our eyes and regrouped.  

We psyched ourselves up for a Target run because we didn't just drive an hour to skip out on Target.  Everyone was in a better mood.  We divided and conquered so we could get everything we needed quickly.  Fletcher fell asleep in his stroller and Olive was perfectly happy to ride around in the cart.  Toddlers... such fickle people.  We looked around the store, found lots of fun things and headed to check out with gift cards in hand.  We grabbed Starbucks for the road because we were both feeling worn out.

Back on the road home.  Olive was quiet, but happy on the drive back.  We chatted and planned out our weekend.  As soon as we got out of the car in the driveway Olive got a strange look on her face and BARFED everywhere.  She started crying and we started cleaning.  Welcome home... we had a low key evening and figured she must have gotten car sick because she was fine all night.  We put everyone to bed early.

SATURDAY:

Fletcher slept 5 hours straight last night so that was exciting and Olive was yelling for her mermaids at 8:00am.  I got up and we started the day.  We shared a yummy breakfast and watched cartoons.  I got busy on all the glamorous things like dishes, laundry and tidying up.  We made some phone calls and hung out in our pjs.  Kevin got up, we had lunch and it started storming.  He suggested I go and take a NAP.  You don't have to tell me twice.  I napped while it stormed for 2 hours and it was amazing.

I woke up to a toddler trying to pry open my eye lids.  Back to reality.  She said, "Mama, I been missing you so much!"  I got up and we had a snack.  Back to playing, dishes and all that exciting stuff.  Kevin head to work and the grocery store.  I asked him to get eggs, formula and pick up some purple paint for Olive's room.  He made it almost home without the eggs and turned around to get them.  Three trips to the store later and we finally had eggs.  We had dinner and Fletcher cried through the whole thing.  He finally went to sleep, Olive followed suit and the adults had some bowls of ice cream.  Have you ever tried Mississippi Mud Pie ice cream?  It's delish - chocolate, vanilla, fudge swirl with oreos.

SUNDAY:

Fletcher was up bright and early and Olive slept in way late.  So I snuggled the baby and waited for the toddler to stir.  She woke up happy, we ate breakfast and made some cookies.  Kevin woke up and sent me out of the house to run some errands.  I left him with a fussy newborn and a toddler who was crying that I was leaving.  Poor him.  Hooray for me!

I headed out to do whatever I wanted for a few hours - Old Navy, Sams, TJ Maxx and Kohls were on the agenda.  I had some returns, gift cards and things I needed to pick up.  I had great luck at all my stops and got a few texts from Kevin saying that the kids were teaming up against him.  He survived and I had a great time.  I tried on clothes, strolled through the stores and only had to worry about myself.  It was great... for a few hours... and then I was missing my family.

I came home to find they'd painted hand prints for me and they were all glad to see me.  Kevin said he had a whole new appreciation for doing art projects with kids.  haha. 

I thought it would be a good idea to snap a quick Mother's Day picture of me with the kids.  Fletcher thought it was a fantastic idea and Olive thought I was the worst.  She threw a big fit because she hated my plan and by some miracle she finally agreed it was a good idea.  Thirty minutes later.  We ended up with a happy group picture.  Don't be fooled there are 99 outtakes for this 1 cute shot.  Glad I have it even if I worked up a sweat trying to make it happen.  Kevin is a patient photographer :)

We picked up dinner and had a taco picnic at our new house with my Dad.  He's in town working on the house and we stopped by to say hello.  It was a nice evening and a nice day.  I'm lucky to have this cute crew of mine even if they drive me bonkers sometimes.

My weekend wasn't perfect, but we still made lots of sweet memories.

What were you up to this weekend??
Any real life moments happen at your house??