My relaxing afternoon.

today was supposed to be an easy day. ellie had preschool, and while she had preschool I ran errands and went to the grocery store. the errands took a bit longer than planned, which resulted in me being quite late to pick up ellie at preschool. thankfully i have friends who are more on time than I am, thanks alana, for getting her for me! so, at about noon, i head home. home, for a quiet, relaxing afternoon. right. first i had to unload the car, which is always an effort, but especially so on grocery store day. so i hauled bag after bag of groceries into the house wondering when the kids will be old enough to help me do this. the girls kept busy chasing butterflies and stomping ants, austin played on the floor, and i began to put the groceries away. i began to realize why the total at the store was signifigantly higher than i had thought it was going to be, what, did i buy the whole store? i must have been hungry. so, slowly i make a dent in the pile of bags at my feet. i discover that the girls stepped on one while getting out of the car. of course, it had eggs and bread in it. today i decided we're going to eat a lot more fresh veggies, another reason my total was high. why is it so much harder to eat healthy than to eat junk? it's more expensive, more time consuming, and stuff spoils so fast! anyway, so i finally put the food all away, and then proceeded to wash, cut, and prepare the fresh veggies for the tray that i plan to sit out everytime my kids want to eat. ok, so that took forever! i will say that when it was finally done, they dove right in and started munching away! i'm not sure if that was because they liked it, or because they we're starved since it was 1:20 and they didn't eat much breakfast! i cleaned up the kitchen (more work for trying to be healthy!) while the kids ate. then i remembered that i had planned on making a stepping stone for jason's mom for mother's day. she has one for each grandchild, except for my last 2 kids. so i decided that we needed to have annie make hers today. i figured it would take 30 minutes. wrong. seriously, this is not an undertaking for a 2 and a 5 yr. old. while i'm reading instructions, ellie is trying to open the dry cement bag. stop it ellie, she doesn't stop. i think i grasp the idea and decide to proceed quickly before dry cement is everywhere. too late. the bag tore. ok, so we scoop up the stuff and put it in a bucket. we add water, we mix. everyone takes a turn mixing. when it's annie's turn, she kind of flings it everywhere. mommmies turn. as i mix i say, it's kind of like stirring cookie dough. cookie dough? annie says, and proceeds to try and eat some. NO! i say, it's not really cookie dough! note to self, never describe craft projects in terms of food. finally, it looks like it's the right consistency, and we pour it into the mold. the instructions said it would take 5-15 minutes for it to set enough to put handprints in it. so, we wait. as we wait, i try to keep the girls from messing with it. this proves to be next to impossible. it pretty much went like this. . me: annie, don't touch.
annie: ok mama.
she touches it.
me: really annie, don't touch.
annie: ok mama.
she touches it.
me: ellie, don't try to pick it up.
ellie: i'm just trying to keep annie from touching it.
me: don't move it!
ellie: annie's touching it again.
so after that went on for 15 minutes, we try handprints. it doesn't work. they just filled right back in. so we tried to find something to do outside for a bit longer. we couldn't go inside since we were all covered in cement dust. after another 15 minutes we tried again. nope. an hour later it still wouldn't work! maybe we used too much water, but seriously, i followed the instructions! i gave up. maybe she can put her hand prints on it with paint in a couple of days, i don't know. i had to get them inside for nap and rest time or i was going to go insane. so at 3:15, i put ellie in the bath and annie down for a nap. i finally sat down at 4:00, just in time to get a phone call from my darling hubby wondering what was for dinner. i can't get too upset though, he took the girls shopping tonight for my mother's day gift. i love you honey! so, that was my relaxing afternoon!