I woke up on Saturday morning to an unusual situation: no plans for the day ahead. For the first weekend in a long time, we had nothing to do, nowhere to be. "We" would be the kids and me. Mike had his friend Mike in town and they were headed up to West Lafayette for the Purdue – Ohio State football game. It was one of those morning where I could have happily stayed home in my pj's for the entire day. The kids had other intentions, though. Oh, we could have all stayed home in our pj's, but not all of us would have been alive by the end of the day. Not when you have one child who thought it would be brilliant to set her alarm for 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday after staying up past 10 p.m., and another who thought it would be brilliant to hurl Little People school-buses and wood blocks at the cranky early-riser. No, it was best if we all got dressed and got ourselves a little bit of fresh air, in hope that some sanity and common sense might drift in along with it.
I threw everyone in the car and just drove, and we ended up at Ritchey Woods. I set the kids free in hopes that, given the 127 acres available to us, surely they could manage to find their own space and keep their freakin' hands to themselves.
A downright ugly morning slowly dissipated into a borderline lovely afternoon.
We all cope with stress in our own ways. Eli found his special place right away.
Myself, I prefer a pumpkin spice latte.
The colors are just amazing right now, and the light filtering through the trees was awesome.
I do love this girl dearly, even if she does wake me up at 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Little does she know, I'm taking notes. She'll be getting a few Saturday morning phone calls in college.
When I got back home and starting looking through the pictures I took, I realized that every picture of Eli featured two trails of snot from his nose to his mouth. And there were some really good ones, too.
Howza bout you put that camera down for two seconds and wipe a boy's nose?
Thank God for nature. After a good hour of running around, we came home and all went to our bedrooms to rest. I had to wake Eli up 3 1/2 hours later. Shortly after that, Mike came home. And just like that, all was right in the world again.
Great pics! Love the one of Eli with his head in a pumpkin!
“I set the kids free in hopes that, given the 127 acres available to us, surely they could manage to find their own space and keep their freakin’ hands to themselves.”
Seriously made me giggle! I can so relate to this.
Oh how I love a blog with which i can relate to 🙂 so many mums blogs are filled with perfect children and perfect days… I love how this turned into a great day for you guys but showed that there can still be some… ummm how should I put it?…. madness and normalness to balance it all out. thanks :)Its really only through having the trying times that make the good times so much better
karina in Australia
( trying to balance madness and good times myself 🙂 )
Love the pictures! Love the one of Eli with his head in the pumpkin. I feel like that many days. LOL That little piece of nature heaven is just around the corner for us and I just love it. And the snot trail in pictures? I have lots of my 6 year old like that. I am sure she will love those pictures when she is older.