Spring Break Didn't Break Me!

Best Spring Break EVER. 

My honey took off work for all of it plus one day... SWEET!

We begged Amanda to play hooky from school on Thursday so we could get a head start on all the festivities. And then we begged friends of ours to take their 4 boys out of school that day too and join us in our insubordinate behavior. gasp. I'm pretty sure that less than a millisecond lapsed between the begging and the agreeing to our absurd idea.

days 1-3:

Camping as a whole family for the first time ever. We arrived at Kelly Park a day before spring break started and thank goodness. The place got c.r.o.w.d.e.d. on the afternoon of day two.
The Casablanca kids and the Gove kids got along wonderfully. They kept disappearing together but we always knew where they were... I'll let you know how later on in this post.

We spent the first day setting up camp and then went for a walk to check out the spring. We didn't think it would be warm enough to swim in yet apparently we were wrong. After much begging by the children we agreed to come back the next day (at the warmest time of the day) and let them test out the waters.

All hands on deck! It took a village to set up this tent!

They all wanted to jump in SO BAD!

The only thing that would lure the kids away from the spring was the promise of time at the playground...

But the kids weren't the only one's having fun! Go Jocelyn!

Samantha spent most of camp with her shoes off. Most heard phrase at camp: "Sammy-Sue! Where's Your SHOES!??!?!"

That's one happy camper!

Daddy and Sammy hanging out together


On day two another family joined us for the afternoon.
We went on a hike around and through the park
and ended up at the spring again. 

Gluten-Free Layer Bars

So these are the gluten-free bars I made for game night last weekend.

Don't look much like bars, do they...

Though they did cut nicely into rectangles -sort of-,

they were extremely sticky and required much

licking of fingers.

I followed this recipe from allrecipes.com

with a couple of modifications based on some reviews.

click on the recipe to enlarge

So no peanuts and I added a Gluten-Free Ginger Snap crust.

I think next time I'll try pressing the ingredients
into the pan more to make it more dense.

Overall it was a super easy recipe that didn't
require any mixing and way easy to clean up.

and by the way, Reynold Wrap No-Stick Foil is totally 'da bomb'.

Would you try this recipe? 

Do you have any other super easy gluten-free desserts?

You would think it was summer already... or at least Spring Break. We've got a few more days till that starts around here, but don't tell Amanda or the rest of my little monkeys. Somehow chalk drawing on the sidewalk turned to chalk painting (mixing water with the chalk), and when that wasn't enough Amanda broke out the paint and a paint brush and started face painting.





 










Later on, and unfortunately not documenting in photographs, I sent them inside to put their swimsuits on while I cleaned up a little... I was ready and waiting with a hose to clean them off along with the sidewalk and driveway. This ended in them being much dirtier than they were to start with. Needless to say the first mud tracks of the season came through my front door and around the corner to the bathroom.

And I was only a teeny-tiny bit upset about it. :)

12 of 12 Challenge

1. Saturday morning tradition
2. Yard work
3. Keeping the little ones occupied during yard work
4. Picking Amanda up from a sleepover
5. Slurpee break
6. Someone must have stayed up mighty late at that sleepover (wink, wink)
7. My honey playing Civilization
8. We had camera shy friends over for dinner/games - this is what was left of Sammy's haystacks
9. Green cherries? who knew - great alternative for our red dye 40 sensitive boy though
10. One of the games we played
11. Where's Sammy? I see toes!
12. What was left at the end of the night of our super-sticky, 7-layer, gluten-free bars.

I'm linking up with a different Amy G  HERE

Post edit:

There really should be a pre-#1 picture of the first thing I did on the 12th, but I totally spaced about the challenge and didn't bring my camera. I spent an hour of the morning having breakfast with a friend... if I had taken a picture, it would've looked like this....Me: in a bright green oscar the grouch sweatshirt, Cathy in full on Grumpy attire, and the ever so pretty princess Garla, late to the ball we were having at Einsteins. :) It was a good day!

The Long Weekend

Monday was President's Day but this year I'll remember this day as being "The Beautiful, Peaceful Day of Children Playing Well Together All Morning and Afternoon With Little To No Direct Supervision By Me".

It was a great day of quietly observing them play and relaxing... and then while Samantha took a nap Amanda and Hayden went to the neighbors house and baked cookies and played some more.

I'm sure my own time could have been better spent cleaning and organizing and working, but it wasn't. Instead I took some me time that was well needed. I also managed to throw a couple of loads of laundry in... :)

Last night I had a lovely visit from a dear friend who let me cry and whine {just a little bit} and brought me what every girl who has been abandoned by her hubby for a week needs: a large Peppermint Chocolate Chip Shake from Chick-Fil-A. We talked about books and movies and my silly kids.

And all the while the other girls in the house were waiting patiently till my friend left so they could convince me that an all girl slumber party in my bed was necessary. Holy wiggle worms - Samantha doesn't stop kicking her feet till she's totally asleep... and Amanda will keep tickling Samantha until she falls asleep. Can you see how this might be a problem?

Nearly fell out of my own bed two times last night and had to shake Amanda awake this morning. Needless to say, she missed the bus so I had to drive her to school this morning.

And where might the other monkeys be right now?

In the backyard, of course, collecting mud samples!

12 of 12 Challenge

saturday tradition: dunkin donuts, the sugar induced craziness begins!, mad libs baby, owie,
amanda teaching the youngers the art of wish making, sammy tells us "this is BLUE!",
hanging out at the mall germland, amanda's fancy new phone cover, {insert your own caption here},
my tired eye, amanda during computer time, just before our pre-V-day date...

I'm linking up with a different Amy G  HERE

Out of the mouths of...

a young boy with Aspergers:

"You know what you need? You need a vacation. You need to get these kids a babysitter and take your husband and go somewhere. You need to go somewhere nice, away from these kids. You know, you need to go to hotel or something. And then come back later and be nice to these kids... 'cause you just went on the best vacation ever."

Amen, little 7 year old brother. Amen.

I love my neighbors kid and his profound unfiltered wisdom. Occasionally it's irritating to hear point blank these little truths. Sometimes it sort of stresses me out how right on he is and makes me wonder if everyone else sees through me like he does. But when he's right, he's right.

Besides, whose gonna say "naww. I don't need a vacation. the beach? phhfft... naw."

Not I!

stuff I don't ever want to forget,,,

Today while Sammy and Hayden were playing with playdoh I asked Sammy if she liked playdoh. She said "Yes! I LOVE playdoh... I like to move it!" I said, "You like to move it?" and she wiggled her hips while standing on the chair and sang, "I like to move it, move it. I like to MOVE IT!".... totally cracked me up!

I haven't been able to bring myself to write about something that surely needs to be written *somewhere* besides Facebook. But today I will try, and maybe I will make it to the end without sobbing... but I probably won't.

The flowers haven't turned brown yet but the condolence cards are slowly making their way into my nightstand. It's getting a little easier to talk about it, but that oddly doesn't make me feel better - just cold and detached from the reality that my dear, sweet mommy passed away too soon and our goodbyes were short, hasty and felt so one sided. I held her hand for the first time in 2 years and had what felt like seconds to tell her that I loved her. I know it was taking every ounce of life in her to squeeze my hand to tell me that she heard me, but I wanted more. 

My mommy knew how to talk - she was a talker. So I know she had stuff she wanted to say to me and my sisters but could not. And that just kills me. I try to imagine what she would have said to us if she could - but I can't. Okay maybe she would say something like, "I love you girls. Be good! Remember who you are!". Maybe.

I know she is in a better place, free of the pain she had endured for far too long. But I miss her and her beautiful blue eyes... and her smile.

I love you and miss you mommy.

Sept 19, 1942 - Jan. 19, 2011