Double JJ

Josh got into town Thursday night.  The same night I got the Jetta stuck in the snow not once but twice.  I got so much snow stuck under the engine, it smoked for a long time.  Always a good time.  We planned on meeting my parents and sister at Applebees the next day.  I texted Josh when we were all sitting down and he walked in.

To say they were surprised is putting it mildly.  My dad looked like he saw a ghost and my mom immediately started crying.  They were thrilled :) :)  After lunch we ventured on up to the Double JJ.  On the way it started snowing like crazy, making for a longer trip.  The kids got a "nap" in.  We made it up there in one piece and checked in at the resort.  
Let me start with the things I forgot::pajamas for Adelyn, Band J only had one pair of pajamas, swim diapers for B and J, my winter coat, tupperware for supper leftovers, cups for Adelyn and liquid dish soap.  The only thing we made a trip for was the swim diapers because they didn't have any at the resort.  That's what I get for packing everything (literally) the hour before we left.
We got a suite with a couple rooms in it.  My parents got the nice part (king size bed and jacuzzi bath tub).  We took the other room with the double bed and bunk beds.  There was a full kitchen on my parents side and a living/counter space on our side.  We moved the table out of our room and that's where we set up Brecken and Joelle's pack n play.  We ate some supper and made our way to the water park.

One of the only pictures of Daddy this weekend..                                           Auntie and Jojo

Adelyn had to have a "tutu" swimming suit.

Adelyn and Brecken going down the slide                                  Brecken and Joelle going down the slide

It was a good thing, for B and J, I brought life jackets.  B jumped right in the lazy river.  Luckily I was right next to him and snagged his life jacket before he floated away.  Adelyn saw this and jumped in.  Not so lucky for her, she did NOT have a life jacket on.  She was pretty traumatized and declared she was NOT going to swimming lessons (they start in a couple weeks).  I'm sure Joelle would have had many incidents if she did not have a life jacket on...  They had some to rent at the resort and I was going to get one for A but she said she didn't want one..  Thankfully she only had one incident.

I managed to convince Adelyn to go down the big slide.  She didn't cry..but I only convinced her to do it one more time.  Next year B can do these fun things with me..

Friday night the kids were up until 10:30 because we were at the water park until 9 and then they partied in their pack n plays for a while.  We stayed up until 12:00 playing games, Adelyn woke up crying at 4:30 and then she was up for good at 6.  At 7 I had Eric take her in the bathroom because she was getting too loud.  I told him I would come get him when everyone else woke up.  I didn't come get him until 8:30.  Whoopsies.

After breakfast, Saturday morning, we went on the pony rides.  The lady asked who was going first and Joelle ran up and said "Meeee!"

Adelyn wanted to go by herself :)

And Little B did NOT want to go around twice.

These are live cattle.  They are huge.  Eric pointed them out first and I told him he was trying to make me look dumb and that they were wooden.  Nope, they are real.

Pretty horses.

This horse had a serious itch on it's butt.  So bad it broke the fence over it.  No joke.  That's a mean itch.

Llamas.

Joelle petting one of the mini-horses.

We thought for sure everyone was going to take good naps Saturday afternoon. Ha. Ha. Ha. Adelyn wouldn't go to sleep, after getting mad at her a couple times I finally laid down with her, while I was laying in bed she said "Thank you for taking us here."  She promptly fell asleep and then woke up 45 minutes later.  She decided everyone else had to wake up too so she poked them awake.

Tubing around after naps.

Someone was playing with the huge water gun and accidentally got Adelyn and Joelle.  He felt really bad...I laughed.

Auntie and Jojo-I had just taken the lens cap off and the camera had no time to adjust.  Hence the fog.

Josh and B taking a ride on the lazy river.

The second (and last) time I convinced Adelyn to go down the big slide.  I told her Papa wanted her to go down ;)

Bunch o cuties floating down the river.

Rachel and Sean.

The kids went for a swim in Papa and Nana's bath tub.  It was impossible to get a picture with every one looking.  I have about 20 of them.  None with all three looking.  I had my dad come in and whistle for the last couple.  He made Joelle cry and Brecken was standing=inappropriate for publishing.

Saturday night we put the kids down around 8:30 after their bathes.  Brecken and Joelle would NOT go to sleep and were talking/laughing up a storm.  Adelyn was ticked because she wanted to go to sleep.  We finally took Adelyn out of the room and had her watch a movie in my parents bedroom.  B and J ended up rocking their pack n plays over by the silverware drawer, emptied it out and were throwing spoons/forks/knives at each other.  Joelle had a couple shanks (knives) tucked in her mattress.  They finally fell asleep around 10:30.  Adelyn went to bed around 11 and we went to bed around 1.  Brecken and Joelle were up at 2:30.  I had them in bed with us for about 20 minutes, put them back in their beds, they started fussing about 20 minutes later and Eric ended up sitting on the floor by their beds for another 1 1/2 hours.  He said B went to sleep right away but Joelle just sat in her bed and stared at him.  I got up with Adelyn at 7:30.  She watched a movie in our bathroom while I took a shower and started picking the room up.

The whole fam in front of the saloon.

We went to the water park for a little bit Sunday morning and were going to hit the sledding slopes Sunday afternoon.  The Weather Channel said that they were certain a huge ice storm was going to hit at 1.  We decided to skip the slopes because we didn't want to spend over $100 for nothing and headed home.  It sure was some ice storm.  NOT.  Absolutely nothing..until late at night.  Oh well.  

Eric and I went to bed at 8 and woke up at 6:15 this morning.  We had all the kids down by 7:30 and Adelyn slept until 8 and B and J slept until 10, this morning.

Hillbilly Sledding

We already did the Hillbilly Slip n Slide.  So we had to try out Hillbilly Sledding.  I packed the snow down on half of the stairs and off we went!

This is the view from my slider door.  Blessed.  The trees used to come all the way to our deck.  60 some odd trees were removed.  By us.

I asked Adelyn to try it first.  Once she realized what was happening she jumped off.

                                                                                                     Once Adelyn realized she could push            Surprisingly, Joelle jumped on.                                              her sister to her fate, she was all about it.

Going, going, gone!  She wasn't too pleased with the end results but we all clapped like fools for her, so she didn't get toooo mad. ;)

Little B's turn!

He thought it was HILARIOUS.

The attention span of a two-year-old.

            "Momma! I push?  I push?"                                                               "Ooohhh Airplane!"

Love this picture.  Just love it.

They decided to try on their stomachs next.  They flew right down!

Joelle's getting brave in her old age!  She went down our big slide (on the swing set) without anyone telling her too!

Adelyn's turn!

We had a blast in the backyard today.  We were outside forever.  Adelyn and I pulled the sleds all over the back.  Brecken and Joelle had fun stomping around.  Joelle actually fell in the fire-pit and thought it was hysterical.  I was shocked she laughed at that..  After we exhausted the back, we went for a walk down the street.  So thankful we got outside today, no one cried (too much) and we burned off some energy.

It's Not Always Roses..

Just keeping it real here, folks.  Our days are, more often than not, terrible right now.  We are going through a terrible, horrible, awful, no-good stage.  I loathe it.  Seriously.  Adelyn is great by herself.  Brecken and Joelle are great by themselves.  Adelyn and Joelle are great by themselves.  Adelyn and Brecken are (mostly) great by themselves.  But, man, when you add that third one in there...  Someone is ALWAYS, and when I say always I mean about 90% of the time, someone is ALWAYS crying.  Not exaggerating in the slightest.  They fight over ev.ery.thing.  Adelyn yells at B or Jojo for doing something. B will scream in her face.  Then A will cry.  Jojo will take all of Adelyn's favorite things.  Just to make A mad.  Then A will yell at her.  Then I yell.  Then I'm mad at myself because I yelled.  Then I talk nicely.  Then no one listens.  Then I yell.  No one listens.  And repeat.  Then I go read Parenting (or anything else) and they tell me that I'm an awful no-good parent because I raise my voice to my children.  Then I feel like a terrible person because of that.  Last night::Adelyn ran Joelle's hand over with the trains and pushed her out of the way.  Joelle bit Adelyn.  NOW who am I supposed to punish?!  And I'm supposed to talk nicely and think everyone hears me all while everyone is crying.  Ha.  I didn't punish either of them, just made them say sorry to each other and I cuddled them both.  Some days that's all I can do...

Take today for instance.  I go into every day (ok..most days) determined to make it a good day.  Today was no different.  After, I might add, that I was up with both B and J until 2:00.  

Side rant:: That's fun right now too.  If Brecken wakes up he won't go back to sleep until someone cuddles him.  Like we'll let him scream for an hour-no sleeping until someone cuddles him.  But if you cuddle him for about half an hour, he'll go right back to bed, no complaining.  Joelle::She'll scream (loudly) for 15 minutes but go back to sleep.  The second you walk in there, you have her for the rest of the night (or you'll have to put her back down and listen to her scream for 15-30 minutes, again.  Catch 22 every time we try and creep across the carpet of their bedroom.  Side rant::Done.  

We started out pretty good.  Brecken woke at 8:15 crying up a storm, which is unusual, but I just went and got them and decided to for-go my shower for the morning.  Getting dressed, B has my Kindle.  I ask him (nicely) to put it down.  Precisely 2 seconds later he rips the Kindle out of it's jacket and breaks the jacket.  A piece of metal still in my Kindle and still have not gotten it out.  Whatever.  Now Eric can just find me a pink one instead of a black one..

I decided we are going to go outside, negative windchill and all.  The walls of this house are closing in on everyone and we need some fresh air.  Mind you it, literally, takes me a solid 20-25mins to get everyone's snow clothes on.  Brecken's boots are large on his tiny feet, so that's fun trying to make them fit.  I wanted to put two pairs of gloves on him because I don't have thick gloves for him.  Can't find the second one of the second set.  1 glove on one hand, 2 on the other.  Whatever.  Adelyn has a fit because I put her pants inside her socks and then put her boots on.  "They feel weird."  And by "they feel weird," I don't mean she calmly tells me they feel weird and could I pretty please fix them.  I mean crying and whining and flopping around like a fish on the floor.  She rips her gloves off.  The same ones I have painstakingly put each of her fingers in the correct finger holes.  We put the gloves on again.  And I try to put a second pair on her.  Hardy, har, har.  I succeeded at putting them on.  But the second I put them in the nice thick coat (that she also hates) she has a fit and tells me to take them off.  I do.  And I tell her she's going to be crying because it's cold.  "No I won't."  Whatever.  We go outside.  I start shoveling.  Everyone is super happy because they are freeeee.  I congratulate myself for the best idea I've had all week.  Then I try to start our snow blower.  Because, in all honesty, our drive way is not the shortest drive way ever.  And we got a lot of snow.  It starts right up.  I let it run for a minute.  The second I try to blow snow with it, it dies.  No amount of trying nicely to start it, kicking it (hey, it works sometimes) or yelling at it is working.  So now I'm uber frustrated about that.  Probably because my lap top took a huge dump on me (again) last night.  Things.  They are always breaking.

So I pause.  Take a deep breath and focus on the adorable snow angels Adelyn is making.

Ha ;)  The hand with the pink glove is the one that got two.  The other hand froze.

Joelle's attempt at a snow angel.  I'm not sure if she's trying to make one or lick the ground..

Three cuties.

Aannnddd cue the crying.  Adelyn was upset because Brecken accidentally whacked her in the face with a snow covered glove and B was pissed because he couldn't get up...because he looked like the little boy off of a Christmas Story.

I get everyone standing, they stop crying and I try again to start out decrepit snow blower.  Still no luck.  Absolutely nothing.  Adelyn and Brecken have started crying because their hands are cold (big surprise).  I'm pissed because the drive way is precisely 25% shoveled.  And the snow blower won't work.  I'm crying because of how frustrated I am with everything.  I tell them to pick up the toys and we are going in.  Joelle starts crying because we have to go inside.  Can't say I blame her..  But we did manage to stay out for an hour!  I think that's a record...usually I spend 20 minutes getting all the stuff on just to come in 15 minutes after we go outside..  I get everyone in and A and B are crying because their hands hurt.  I made us all some hot chocolate and the crying stopped while we drank it.  Then everyone just started fighting (and crying) again.  
Not to mention, right after lunch, I had to go to the bathroom.  I'm in there, I hear the door to the pantry open...and then close.  It's usually not a big deal when they open it and go in there but it always means trouble when they close the door.  So I tell them (loudly) to get out.  The girls listen.  I hear B getting into the packets of gum.  I peek around the door, sure enough.  Now I'm really trying to get him to stop.  With my luck it would get lodged in his airway.  I talk nice, I yell, I talk nice, I yell.  Finally, he puts it in his mouth...and then brings it to me and spits it out.  I finish on the toilet.  Flush.  Clogged.  Seriously.  Only me.  We got a new toilet just over a year ago because our old one clogged.all.the.time.  Our new one has never clogged...yet.  I'm not joking.  When I was talking to Eric (and crying) I mentioned this last tid-bit after I was done crying.  He says "Stop. You're lying."  I said "I'm not.."  He bursts out laughing..and I'm laughing.  Yep.  Only me.  A girl can't even get a break in the bathroom.  And I threw away all the packets of gum.

My favorite part of our day is nap time and bed time.  Not because they are going to sleep (although that is part of it).  But because we always read books together and everyone (usually) sits nicely by each other and listens quietly.  It's about my only guaranteed 15 minutes of happiness twice a day.  Today I just put them all in their beds and walked out.  I RARELY do that.

Someone please, please tell me that almost 4 and 2 (just) 2-year olds are just terrible ages and someday (hopefully) soon our lives will get easier.  And people will stop crying.  Including myself.