Blessed Beyond Measure: A Team Week 181: The Simple Life

When we were finally all better from the stomach flu life got back to our simple life with the everyday chaos and family time. It was a very welcome change after 10 days of *gory details*, bland meals, missing work/school/daycare and much more time cooped up in the house together than we needed or cared for.

That said, this is what our "Simple Life" looks like...

More silly faces with Avery...gets us EVERY time :P

Asher and Avery recently learned the joke of making someone else's hand move and hit themselves. Not entirely getting why the joke is funny, Avery cut out the middle and just goes around hitting himself and asking, "Why cause I am hitting myself?". In the video below I am trying to get him to say it as he keeps hitting himself in the face.

Video: Why Cause I Am Hitting Myself?

The Simple Life in our house includes A LOT of wrestling. Love being a #boymom...and love the fact that these moments give me a few moments to myself.

(2) Videos: Jock Jams/Wrestle Mania

We also enjoy simple (& free) entertainment...like checking out the school that is being demolished near Avery's daycare.

Our simple life still includes me taking one day off a week. With all the sickness we've had recently that one day has been used up several times to deal with a sick kid on a random day instead. This week with everyone finally healthy (knock on wood) we had a great day at home together...

Avery and I built the coolest VTech track ever combining the Train Track AND Racetrack with Duplos to make an awesome double decker track.

The Simple Life in our home ALWAYS includes as many moments to try and make someone laugh as possible. Here I am sticking out my "tongue" (i.e. a small red pepper on my tongue...which BTW gives a strange tingling sensation).

Another part of our Simple Life is attempting to enjoy our own lives and life as a couple but I'll be honest...it is hard. Eric and I get very little time together and very little time by ourselves which is why we went on the cruise, which we disguised as a 'long date' to the boys. On Friday the disguise was taken off after the boys saw a picture from our 'date' on my computer:

Friday's Facebook Post:

The jig is up...

Asher (after seeing a picture on my computer): Did you and Daddy go on a cruise?

Me: Maybe?...

I am also always trying to find fun new things to do with the boys. Recently I found the idea to make a Lego volcano on Pinterest. It was a great project to do with the boys. We had fun building the volcano together and then we had fun with baking soda, vinegar and food coloring making it erupt over and over again.

Video: Lego Volcano

The Simple Life also includes going out to eat. When I was a kid I would walk from my school after it was let out to the office across the street that my mom works at. Within minutes of arriving, I undoubtedly asked my Mom, "what's for dinner?". It was like clockwork and I never really noticed it until my mom's coworker began to tease us about it. After that, I began to notice that the question annoyed my mom a little but I didn't really understand why. Now as a mom I TOTALLY get it. Every day I pick up the boys from daycare and school and like clockwork they ask me what we are having for dinner. Every day I know the question is coming and I rarely have an answer. The question makes my entire body tense up as I know that I have to attempt to provide a nutritious meal for our family but have no idea what to make, have little time to actually cook it before they go to bed and have basically no desire to do so. I HATE the question and cannot help but think it is payback for those days back when I was in school. With that in mind we eat out fairly often. I try to keep it to one time a week but sometimes it is more than that and typically our one time lands on Friday because by that time in the week Eric and I are spent and want nothing more than a Simple night out with the family. I love to be able to tell the boys that we are going out when the questions comes and on this particular night, after a long time of very boring and bland meals I was happy to tell them that we were going to one of their favorite places: Mod Pizza.

Finally, it was the weekend and as always we enjoyed Simple times together watching movies, crafting, going to church and replacing our living room rug after 10 years of abuse by our children and dog.

On Saturday I was amused by Asher when he wanted to head to Meijer with Eric on their bikes. (Obviously itchy for Spring to arrive). I told him it was too cold and he said he had been outside and that it wasn’t very cold, so I pulled up the weather app on my phone and told him it was only 24 degrees. He refused to believe me and said, “but there are hot air balloons on it so that means it will be warm”