What was I thinking?

Today we had a busy day.
I knew we had gymnastics at 11 for an hour. I knew my cousin (who is 4 years old and playmate to my dd) was coming over at 2 and he would be there until 5:15ish. I knew I needed to go to the grocery store for 2 things (remember that 2).
So we wake up and do our morning thing. We get ready for gymnastics. Older dd is nervous - her first time with the new park district. We get there. It's like a real gym. Our old park district had "gymnastics" on mats in the same room that the ballet classes were in. This place has a foam pit, parrallel bars, balance beams at all heights, a real tumbling floor, etc, etc. She looked at all, and hten with big eyes turned to me and said "Mom. Am I going to have to do all of that?" I encouraged her by telling her she would probably not have to do that, and it was okay to be nervous but at least try, and all that motherly love and wisdom. (Thankfully they didn't use the high stuff but she did go in the foam pit and enjoy it!). We took her in and removed her pants and shirt (she had her little gymnastics outfit underneath) and I went to take youngest dd to viewing room to watch. Youngest had a meltdown ... crying, screaming, saying she didn't want to leave. I thought she was so concerned about her big sister being in there alone, so as I'm dragging her out I am reassuring her that her big sister will be okay and we will be able to watch her. After about 1 minute of crying in the viewing room I make out the words "drink" "water" and it clicks .. there is a water fountain in the other room and she wanted to drink from it. So I promise when big sis is done, we will get some water and she spends the rest of the time frolicing around! But the second I told her big sis was done, she immediately said "I get water now." And you thought the saying was Elephants never forget. It's not. It's 2-year-olds never forget.

Then we drive to the store, or we start to drive to the store, when I remember I forgot to get a paper from her gymnastics teacher. So we go back and get it, then go to the store. I have 2 things to get: cottage cheese and mozerella cheese. But we pass the pop, and it's on sale and Christmas eve is here next week so I grab four cases (1 coke, 1 cherry coke, 1 caffeine free pepsi and one diet pepsi). I mean, after all it's on sale and we need it. Then I pass some grilled herb chicken tortellini - sounded so good I grabbed it (Did I mention it was lunch time and I was hungry?). Then I walk around and think we need more fresh fruit so I grab some oranges. While grabbing oranges I spot spaghetti squash on sale! Yum ... I like spaghetti squash and we haven't had it since last fall. So I grab 2 for us. Then we see egg nog on sale, and well ... you get it. I did manage to get the 2 things I needed with a bunch of things I didn't need .... 85.00 dollars later (and armed with the items to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers), I left the grocery store.

Came home. As I'm unpakcing the car, I see the neighbor across the street. Her son and my dd and cousin like to play together. So I ask if J can come over and make gingerbread houses with us later. She says yes, so I quickly get groceries put away and served lunch. As the kids were eating, I did my oldest dd's Awana stuff. We didn't look at it all week. Apparently I was supposed to read verses from the Bible every night to her to tell her the story of Christmas. So as she's eating, I'm reading.

Then aunt shows up. As she is leaving I'm dragging my screaming toddler up for nap time. Then I decide I should start the frosting. Without thinking I make buttercream frosting. Doorbell rings. J is here. So I start putting the "gingerbread" houes together so they have time to let the frosting dry. The kids watch a movie. It ends just as I decide the houses are ready. We start to add frosting to all surfaces and decorating them when they start collapsing on us. Although buttercream frosting is very good, it does not hold things together very well. So I have 3 broken, tipped, falling apart gingerbread houses. The kids decide to just eat the frosting and candy. So now I have 3 messy gingerbread houeses and 3 messy children!

As they wash hands, I clean table. And start again, this time making royal icing (which hardens very nicely and can hold graham crackers together to form a small house! They play, thankfully nicely, and finally the frosting hardens and they can build. Then I have to whip up some more buttercream frosting to use for the candy to decorate. Now mind you, I haven't really cleaned up anything in the kitchen at this point. The living room is trashed from the kids, along with the family room. As the kids work, I snap a few pictures.

They all finish and are washed up when I start to work on our dinner - lasagna. Which, although not a lot of work, more htan I was anticipating. I have the meat browning and the cheese filling starting to mix when the doorbell rings. J's mom has come to check up on our progress. Although I would have rathered she waited outside in the freezing cold weather, I invited her in to the messy house! She did say that my house looked much like hers and it was so hard to keep it clean with kids which made me feel better. But I still wish that the house would have been not so messy. Oh well! They leave.

Then my dd leaves with cousin and his mom to go to Awana with them. My dh comes home with 25 more minutes until dinner and life seems pretty calm after that. It just feels like I had a crazy day! Yikes! Actually, I liked it! I wish I could have tons of kids over here to do all these neat fun projects with! I do think I would enjoy having an in-home daycare, other than the fact that I can only fight one extra carseat in my car. It would be fun to have lots of kids underfoot to do all these fun art projects! ;-)

Maybe someday!