Birthday Week Finale

What comes at the end of every March?  If you guessed Spring Break, you'd be right!  Oh, and Aidan and Aubrey's birthdays.  A whole lotta excitement packed into a one (or two) week period.  We continued the double-party tradition this year and invited friends and family over for a celebration the weekend before the actual birthdays.  I decided to take a walk on the wild side and have a painting wall.  One-, two-, three-, four-, and five-year-olds are really careful painters, right?  Well, these kids were.  Not a drop of paint on the floor or walls.  They were awesome little Picasso's.  I would definitely do it again.

Cousins

The birthday kids, plus mom and dad

Chocolate Cars cake and banana cupcakes

The beginning of the painting wall

Mid-point

The End

Ready for some cake!

Hmm, do I like it?  (the answer was "no")

Chow down

Rise and Shine

I've loved getting up this past week knowing that within a half hour the sun would be up and shining. With Kyle's new job came a new routine in the morning...I get up and get ready, then wake up the kids and dress them while Kyle makes breakfast. It's working so far, we'll see how this week goes now that it's going to be dark again.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about Daylight Savings Time. In fact, this is the first time I can remember being happy to "lose" an hour. Why? Because Aidan and Aubrey have been waking up anywhere between 5:30am-6:30am. Can't a girl catch a break?!? I just want a few extra hours of sleep on the weekends. Voila! Turning the clock ahead an hour this morning meant that the kids got up at 7:30am. Lovely, even if I didn't truly get any extra sleep.

Back to the Grind

Kyle decided that being a stay-at-home dad was just too easy.  Why should life be simple and enjoyable when it can be crazy and chaotic???  Enter the job search.  Kyle has been half-heartedly job hunting for the past few months.  He periodically sent out resumes when something interesting popped up on Craigslist.  Finding a job that was going to be flexible with the hockey season proved to be too much, but now that the season is over, it's time to get to work.  Kyle interviewed at, and was hired by, a small environmental company just a few miles from our house.  He will be handling their accounting and whatever else needs to be done at a small company.

I don't know who is more excited; Kyle because he gets to interact with adults, or Aidan, because he gets to go to daycare.  I'm thinking Aidan is more excited.  Aidan has been talking about daycare non-stop since Thursday.  He wakes up at 6:30am in the morning to tell Aubrey that daycare is only XX amount of days away.  He talks about it while we are grocery shopping, and it's the last thing he talks about before going to bed.  I hope it lives up to his expectations!

The bonus in this whole situation is that it requires minimal effort on my part.  I leave at 6:30am, so Kyle will be in charge of getting the kids up, ready to go, and transported to daycare.  The new job is currently 8am-1pm, so that means Kyle also gets to pick the kids up from daycare and get them down for naps when they get home.  I see this as a win-win for me.  Aidan and Aubrey (and Kyle) get intellectual stimulation and I don't have to do anything!

Ask me in a week if everything turns out like I am imagining.