Surviving and keepin’ it real…

Should you think I always have it together—this post will offer insight;). My hubby just got in LATE last night from a biz trip—and I had spent the last 2 days surviving with my kids + 2 extra. On top of hubby being out of town + my turn taking extra friends + booking tickets for Africa…our shower started leaking. Yes…again. Last February (yep–2009) my hubby decided to fix a shower leak and retile. Given our busy lives…he finished tiling the shower (because he insisted doing it himself) about 5 months later. All was good until last month, when we discovered it was still leaking and it was time to call a professional. Sorry Rich…you get kuddos for trying! SO…on top of our craziness…I’ve also had tile shower guys here fixing our shower. The tile guys and I have had a good couple of days—English is tough…but they share a love of coffee and lemonade with me so we’ve bonded well;).

With our craziness and with just getting back in town on Sunday…then finding out we get to travel…I had missed our normal grocery store trip. Instead of taking the whole crew (which would have most likely ended in tears), we managed pretty well on what we had—until last night. I kept telling myself we’d go make a grocery run after our friends left until my new friends, the tile guys, came down stairs to break the news. In the midst of entertaining 5 kids and hoping I’d have some energy for a grocery trip later, they came down to tell me we were short 5 tile pieces (seriously?!) and they would work around it for now–but they’d need it by 7am in the morning. OUCH. Because the tile place closed at 9pm…Rich wouldn’t be home until 10pm…we knew that it had to be done then…and no grocery trip for us…instead a 1 hour trip to the tile outlet where we bought the tile to fix the shower.

After our friends left around 4pm, I loaded up the car and headed out for the 1 hour treck across town. We got the tile (and a few stares at our craziness)…and then decided to take everyone out to dinner because we NEEDED a night out…a little fun…and we were STARVING! When you’ve had a hard day, some times you just need a break from the normal dinner cookin…we took a vote…and being the organic and health conscious mom that I am, I of course took them where they requested when they saw the HUGE sign right beside the tile store…

(They LOOOOVE some Chuck-E-Cheese…and this was Frank’s FIRST trip…yes, it’s germ infested…but they had so much fun—although you can’t tell by this pic (above) because Chuck-E completed freaked Frank out.

OK…you just have to laugh when you look to see that first–you forgot that you quickly dressed your son before his nap in the dark because he had gotten his previous outfit dirty. I didn’t even LOOK to see what he had on before we made a mad rush out the door. And honestly, I had no intentions of going ANY WHERE other than the tile store when we left! Frank has on LANEY’S SHIRT! How funny is that…

I couldn’t help but laugh every time I looked at him with those ruffles on the sleeves! You know you can be a momma of 4 when 1) You no longer care if your kids match 2) You no longer care what they where…and the wrong gender clothing…you just laugh and don’t bother to explain (or worse when someone says “What’s her name?” and you answer “Frankie”)

They had sooo much fun…and I didn’t have my “real camera” but here’s some of our crazy fun captured with my iphone…


I love how much fun Parker is having in this picture…


I’ve always thought Chuck-E-Cheese pizza was disgusting…BUT I’ll have to say—the pizza we had last night was strangely REALLY GOOD! We gobbled the ENTIRE thing down and finished it off with pink lemonade!


And that my friends…is my 2 cents on survival. Some times—you gotta do what cha gotta do. And for us–it was skipping adding to our craziness with more craziness…and just having a little fun together. I need to learn how to play my once perfected game of skeeball though with 30 pounds on my hip! Frank is going through some serious mommy anxiety and has to be held 24-7…so my skeeball game was a bit off with the extra weight on one hip;). YET…we left with prizes from our tickest: 2 pair of purple star earrings and 1 plastic lizard.

And finally—it’s FRIDAY…which means its the WEEKEND annnddddd…EXACTLY 14 days until our departure for ETHIOPIA!!!

Have a GREAT weekend folks!

XOXO!

Andrea