Daddyless weekend

Matt, 2 of his brothers, his dad, uncle and 2 cousins left on Thursday morning for a Jamieson fishing/camping weekend, they won't be back until Monday evening. That is 5 long days to fill all by myself. Sadly Matt travelled and worked nights a lot at ATB so being alone for a long period of time isn't completely new to me. I decided that to make the days go faster I would jam pack as much fun into those 5 days as possible!

Here is the run down on our 5 daddy-less days

Thursday
The guys pulled out around 8 that morning with Max coming around 8:30. It was pretty gross for most of the day so we filled it playing with cars and the always a favourite finger painting. I decided to get the grocery shopping out of the way and headed out as soon as Max left on Thursday. It was actually a perfect way to fill the evening, we ate supper and then off to bed. After the kids went to bed, I caught up on all my PVR'd shows while eating some super yummy ice cream. Day 1 down

Friday
The gorgeous weekend weather began, so we headed outside and enjoyed it! Lots of playing outside that day and even a few fun crafts in the afternoon. At 4:30 I loaded up the kids and headed to Ryan and Ashley's house for supper and then swimming in Leduc with Beau, Kristen and Avery. It was sooooo much fun and the perfect end to the day. After I managed to get the kids into bed I watched Julie and Julia. Such a cute movie and one Matt would never watch with me.

Saturday
This was our busiest day, we woke up and headed to the church for 9, made a quick stop at Costco for 10 and then headed off to Beaumont by 10:15 to watch the Beaumont days parade. Here is what I learned about the Beaumont parade, it goes around the entire ring road and takes almost an hour to reach Ryan and Ashley's house. I wasn't entirely prepared for the long wait and forgot to put sunscreen on Greta, whoops, now she has a giant sun burn on her legs. And the bad Mommy award goes to . . . . Luckily the parade was a HUGE hit with Vaughn, they had monster trucks and candy, what more can a kid ask for. We were home in time for naps and then after nap time we headed to PA and Ingrid's house for a bbq with some old friends. It was a great end to a great day!

Sunday
It started out as a pretty typical Sunday for us, up and at the church by 8:30 to do the Age 2& 3 class for both services. Luckily my kids don't mind being at the church and Greta will even have decent naps in the sleeper room. Taco Bell was definitely on the menu for Sunday lunch which we picked up on the way home. Glorious lunch was followed by even more glorious nap time!

After nap time I decided that the kids needed more sand in their sandbox, which meant a trip to Home depot. Not a big deal, right? Normally no it's not a big deal but 1/2 way home Vaughn informed me that Greta threw Teddy out of the cart at the 'sandbox' store. Honestly I didn't even remember Teddy being in 'the sandbox store'. I frantically high tail it back to Home Depot and proceed to search the stupid store like a crazy lady looking for Teddy.

When we were there the first time we got to use one of the special kid carts that looks like a car. Picture it, if you will, me with 2 kids, crying (me not the kids) and stalking all the kid carts asking people if there was a bear in the cart. I scoured the ENTIRE store to no avail. I cried at the customer service counter trying to explain how essential it is that I find this stupid bear. This is me and I quote at the customer service counter "I know that I look like a crazy lady. I'm a grown woman crying over a lost Teddy bear but you don't understand how IMPORTANT this bear is" sniffle, sniffle. They called in extra helpers and helped me look, after 1/2 an hour I thanked them, left my name and number and headed out to the car. By this point Vaughn has declared that he is going to go home and be sad because Teddy is gone and I am praying "God if you really love my kid how can you let him lose this bear twice". Vaughn then asks if I'm sad because I lost Teddy . . . no kid I'm sad because YOU lost Teddy.

I decide to search the car one more time (please note I've already done this 2 times) and I reach down in the front passenger seat by the floor and there is Teddy. The only way he could have got there would have been for me to put him there when I was loading the sand onto the driver passenger seat when we left the first time. I have NO memory of putting Teddy in the car. I burst into tears in the parking lot, sniffling and crying, again, like a crazy lady. I show the dumb bear to Vaughn and he says 'are you so happy Mommy? Is your nose broken?" (because of the sniffling). I don't know how Teddy got in the car but I am just so happy he got in the car. I'm going to give this one to Jesus because I have no other explanation (well besides the obvious that I'm an exhausted Mom who forgets what she's doing 1/2 the time anyway)

To wrap up the trauma of Sunday with bbq hot dogs, eating outside, watering the flowers, going for a walk, having a bath and off to bed. We've also ended Sunday with a new house rule . . . the dumb bear never leaves the house again!!


That is almost the end of the Daddyless weekend. Tomorrow I am using my coupon to get 1 free 8x10 picture of the kids taken at Walmart, hopefully I can withstand the pressure and not buy any extra pictures! On top of all the crazyness of being alone for 5 days I also decided I would use these days to break Greta of her 11:00 bottle habit . . . so far so good, she's already been squawking a bit tonight already so who knows what the night holds, but I think we are well on our way to being done with that feeding.

So that's the summary I was going to post some pictures but my computer isn't cooperating . . . maybe it'll work later.