Spring Break Part V: Dyeing Eggs & Driving Home
After 4 fun-filled days, this foursome was finally ready to head home. (like my alliteration there??) Since it was the week before Easter I thought it would be fun to have the kids decorate Easter eggs and maybe have an egg hunt together. Since we'd been so busy, we had to try and squeeze it in on the last morning. It was not necessarily successful.
I hard-boiled about 2 dozen eggs, so each kid would have at least 3-4 eggs to dye. We even gave eggs to the 2 year olds, which probably wasn't necessary! Sho-Di immediately wanted to bang his into the table, and Miss N successively put all of hers into the purple dye, pulled them all out, and was done.
The 4-6 year olds had a little more success. I think maybe as they get older they will get more into it. We had stickers, a glitter pen, and the white crayon to make resist designs, but the plain ol' dye in the cup was the biggest hit. That is, when it wasn't getting spilt across the table.
With that excitement being over, there was not much left to do except pack up the car and eat lunch. The kids were really patient with me as I packed and the kids mostly entertained themselves. Needless to say, they were really sad to go and kept asking me why we had to leave. I had to remind them that their Papa was waiting for us at home!!
But the fun didn't stop when we left Southern California. No, this foursome still had about 4 more hours to survive before reaching the haven of home. Supermom here thought that certainly my kids would sleep most of the way home. We left after lunch, right at nap time, diapers were changed, kids were wiped out from all the fun & late bedtimes (& night wakings!), of course they'd sleep when sitting in a moving car with nothing else to do? How sad that I was SO wrong!
I hard-boiled about 2 dozen eggs, so each kid would have at least 3-4 eggs to dye. We even gave eggs to the 2 year olds, which probably wasn't necessary! Sho-Di immediately wanted to bang his into the table, and Miss N successively put all of hers into the purple dye, pulled them all out, and was done.
The 4-6 year olds had a little more success. I think maybe as they get older they will get more into it. We had stickers, a glitter pen, and the white crayon to make resist designs, but the plain ol' dye in the cup was the biggest hit. That is, when it wasn't getting spilt across the table.
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| This little Sho-Di was so interested in Baby A. He took particular notice and care of her whenever he could! |
With that excitement being over, there was not much left to do except pack up the car and eat lunch. The kids were really patient with me as I packed and the kids mostly entertained themselves. Needless to say, they were really sad to go and kept asking me why we had to leave. I had to remind them that their Papa was waiting for us at home!!
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| Squeezing in a last few games together |
After 30 min. my oldest daughter was done sleeping, and after an hour my baby was done. (Whaaat? The baby slept almost 3 hours when we drove down on Saturday...) My son never did sleep. So we are about halfway through the journey and baby needs to eat, and I need a break from the older kids bugging each other in the backseat. I saw a billboard for a free bug museum and veered off the highway to check it out.
Coincidentally this the bug museum ended up being the exact place that distributes the caterpillars which Kidspace Museum raised into the butterflies that they released. So, after some nursing, potty breaks, bug observing and gift store shopping, guess what we headed home with? Yep, our very own Painted Lady Monarch caterpillars to raise at home. (More on that later...)
But we still had an hour and a half left to drive home. I will be honest. It was very challenging! I have not been so annoyed with my kids in a very LONG time! It was SO loud in our car, first of all because the baby cried all the way. I am not exaggerating. She cried the whole time, only to fall asleep right after we exited the freeway less than 10 minutes from home. Secondly, my other two kids were just at each other's throats the whole time, probably aggravated themselves by all the baby's noise. I definitely wished we had a bigger car and could separate the kids...maybe we are headed to mini-van land after all!
The one (& only!) bright spot of that final leg of the journey was that my son lost his first tooth. This thing had been wiggling for a long time, and I know he was fearful that it might hurt when it came out. In fact, he already had two permanent teeth that had already cut through the gums and were growing right behind the loose ones. So it was definitely time. He was so excited, declaring, "It didn't even hurt at all! Not even one little bit!"
I was so happy when we finally pulled into our driveway at home. My hubby had gotten dinner and it was all ready for us. If anything, this trip made me really grateful for my husband, and how involved he is in caring for our kids. Thankfully we all had a few days left of spring break to enjoy when we got home. We had a great time down south, but I definitely don't want to be solo mom on a trip again for awhile!
Coincidentally this the bug museum ended up being the exact place that distributes the caterpillars which Kidspace Museum raised into the butterflies that they released. So, after some nursing, potty breaks, bug observing and gift store shopping, guess what we headed home with? Yep, our very own Painted Lady Monarch caterpillars to raise at home. (More on that later...)
But we still had an hour and a half left to drive home. I will be honest. It was very challenging! I have not been so annoyed with my kids in a very LONG time! It was SO loud in our car, first of all because the baby cried all the way. I am not exaggerating. She cried the whole time, only to fall asleep right after we exited the freeway less than 10 minutes from home. Secondly, my other two kids were just at each other's throats the whole time, probably aggravated themselves by all the baby's noise. I definitely wished we had a bigger car and could separate the kids...maybe we are headed to mini-van land after all!
The one (& only!) bright spot of that final leg of the journey was that my son lost his first tooth. This thing had been wiggling for a long time, and I know he was fearful that it might hurt when it came out. In fact, he already had two permanent teeth that had already cut through the gums and were growing right behind the loose ones. So it was definitely time. He was so excited, declaring, "It didn't even hurt at all! Not even one little bit!"
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| Here it is! |
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| I love his new grin... (& how did we get such a good picture while driving down the freeway?) |
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