Monday, June 30, 2014

Road trips

There is nothing better to me than a long road trip with good music. I have always loved to drive. Not riding; I have to be behind the wheel with control of my spotify playlists. I don't need anyone to keep me company and I don't need a plan. All I need is an hour notice to pack and I'm ready to go. 

Throw in an air-drum playing husband and three movie-loving kids and my road trip dynamic changes. My spotify gets hijacked and I find myself listening (and reciting every word) to a Disney movie. Again. It doesn't make me love road trips any less but it does make me come up with a plan.

A couple of years ago I would roll my eyes at the thought of planning a vacation. Who wants to schedule every minute of their vacation?! With two kids that need to nap, a baby that eats every four hours, and a pumping mama; I do! It makes the trip so much more enjoyable when everyone is rested and we don't sit around saying, "Well, what do you want to do next? I don't know, what do you want to do?" Because that's what happens with us. 

Every summer we go somewhere. It doesn't have to be far away or fancy, we are just trying to make fun memories as a family. We've been to Seattle with Addie (when she was 3 months old), Colorado, Florida and Chattanooga so far on our little summer adventures. We've planned a trip for this summer so get ready for those stories. 

Elle has a nasty habit of pulling Addie's hair if she gets too close to her in the car. Of course Addie has to pass Elle's car seat everytime she gets in and out so she's an easy target. I think Elle likes the dramatic reaction that she gets from Addie. She usually makes this crazy screaming sound but if she cries Elle (sometimes) feels bad because she knows that she pulled it too hard. 

You know when your buckle gets too tight and you try to loosen it but it just gets tighter? This happens to Addie often. She gets frustrated and no one can get to her to help because she is in the very back. A jammed seatbelt does not fall into the emergency category so she has to quickly figure it out. 

Bentley Claire only chimes in if her paci falls out or if she's hungry. Babies are the best travelers. The interesting part of a long road trip with diaper wearing babies is where to change them. I always carve out a little space in the car to avoid getting some rare disease from a gas station changing table. 

We will be one of the minivans that's so crammed full of stuff that when those sliding doors open, things fall out. And yes, it will ruin the next hour of the trip if something precious gets left next to the gas pump in the middle of nowhere! 


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Groundhog Day

You know when you can tell that your brakes are messed up but you keep driving anyway because you can't imagine a day without your minivan? Well that happened and I finally arranged to borrow my mom's suburban and take mine in. Turns out, I should have taken it about a month ago. Lesson learned. We dropped it off and instead of going back home we decided to run errands. 

Most of these errands are pretty small like picking up a present or something like that. Sometimes I might make errands up just to get out of the house. I have to. I need my errands. 

When you have a personal chauffeur...errands are so much easier! Well I had an errand to run in Jackson and we thought it would be a good idea to eat lunch somewhere fun with the kids. Brents was closed, Babalu was too busy, it was too hot to sit outside anywhere. This pattern continued until someone finally suggested Whole Foods. I will pretend like I don't remember who suggested it. 

Whole Foods is amazing. We love it. Just maybe not during a busy weekday lunch hour with a newborn, an unruly toddler, and a 4 year old that will not leave your side. With the carrier on one arm, Addie looking VERY closely at all of her food options, and Elle ready to sprint away at any given moment, we got a buggy and tried to figure out how everyone would get their plates fixed, paid for, and seated. The only feasible solution was to put Elle and Bentley Claire in the buggy and enlist Addie for help. Sounds easy but Elle decided to go all crazy pants and made a huge scene while we forced her into the buggy. At the same time I run into a friend about to have a business lunch. (So sorry!) 2 adults, 3 kids, 4 plates, 4 drinks. 

You can imagine that the rest of our time at Whole Foods was equally unpleasant. Bentley Claire did us all a favor and ended our lunch early with her hungry cry. Rest assured the Edwards children will not be occupying Whole Foods anytime soon. We loaded up to high tail it home and lo and behold we see Jim from The Office (John Krasinski) walking down the street. He is in town filming a movie. Of course it made our horrid lunch experience all worth it and I spent the car ride home researching his project.

Some days you have to treat like Bill Murray's role in Groundhog Day. Just pretend like it never happened and you get another shot at it tomorrow. 






Monday, June 23, 2014

You've been Elled

In the summer, I love to sleep late. That's one of the perks of being a teacher. Andrew, on the other hand, physically cannot sleep late. He wakes up around 4:00 or 4:30 and feeds BC before he goes to his running club. Then he comes back home, eats breakfast and gets ready for work. Through all of this I am snoring. Addie usually wakes me up around 7:30 and is ready for her 4 course breakfast. Just kidding- eggs, fruit, and cereal is about the extent of it. If I'm lucky I can buy some more snooze time with a "K bar" aka a Special K bar.

But this morning Addie was not home so Andrew and I sat at a table together and ate breakfast. It was quiet and we only cleaned up our two cereal bowls. I'm not sure that we even talked. It was glorious.

Apparently our house doesn't run well when Addie is away. I fuss at her daily for "parenting" Elle. Elle gets herself into a lot of sticky situations. For instance, all of the bathroom doors must stay closed at all times. She may have only been out of sight for 30 seconds but she will enter the room drenched from head to toe in toilet water yelling "Uh oh." That habit is really gross.

Another Elle rule is always keep the dishwasher closed. I like to crack it open a little bit after I run a cycle to let them air dry a little bit but if Elle is awake, this cannot happen. She will find a sharp utensil and run around with it...

A very important rule and one that I forgot to abide by today is to always keep the lock on the snack cabinet. She's sneaky and quiet and will strike right when I am changing BC's diaper or doing something with Addie. After breakfast I must have forgotten to put the latch back on. Big mistake. I had just gotten off the phone (with Elle beside me) and I ran into the other room to put Bentley Claire's paci back in. For the TWO SECONDS that it took me to do that I hear a huge crash followed by a cry. Naturally I run into the kitchen to find Elle frozen and screaming with pickles and glass everywhere. Who buys a giant jar of pickles anyway?! She had three little cuts on her foot that were bleeding so I threw her in the high chair, ran to grab peroxide and bandaids and left the pickle juice flowing like a river down the hallway towards the garage. During this whole comedic event Bentley Claire was screaming crying because it was time for her to eat. I got everyone calmed down and stable so I could clean up. It was quite the debacle.



While I was on the floor cleaning up pickles and glass I could not help but laugh out loud at God's sense of humor. When Andrew and I have had conversations about how many kids we want to have, my response has always been 3 or 4. Here is my reasoning. I want a house where something is always going on. I like the action and the chaos that large families come with. I had that growing up and I want that for our family. God has certainly given us that! Andrew looked at me the other day while all three kids were going nuts and asked if this was crazy enough. I would say it's just the perfect amount of chaos.

And this my friends, is why I still work.

Let me reintroduce myself

It's time to try this blogging thing again. It's been two years and A LOT has happened. I laughed out loud at reading my last post on the blog. I was pregnant and nervous about having a second child. HA!

Let me backtrack for a second. I love my family. I have a wonderful husband who gives a lot. He listens to all of my insane ideas and (most of the time) lets me act on my creative projects. Without him, I wouldn't have my three beautiful girls who were each a blessing from God. I know this for a fact and I would be lost without them.

I am blogging for several reasons. The main reason is to keep track of my life. I had the best intentions of scrapbooking and keeping baby books but...it's been 4 years and Addie still doesn't have a book. So here we are.

Surface level is not my deal. This blog is going to be very real. I'm not going to sugar coat parenthood or make it look like we have it all together because let me tell you, we don't. My minivan is really my home-on-wheels (and I love it although I swore I would NEVER EVER drive a minivan), Addie (4) is so girly that I am sometimes at a loss, Elle (1) is my energizer bunny, and Bentley Claire (2 months) isn't fully awake yet so we will find out her personality later.