First Day Freebie

We've survived Day 1 of Spring Break!  Barely.  Although, I guess I should wait to post that sentence until Ethan has finally settled down and gone to sleep.  You see, I decided to keep with recent tradition and make the first day of vacation be a "Freebie" day -- which basically means the kids can do whatever they want for the whole day so long as it didn't involve money and I don't have to take them anywhere.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Not a shabby way to kick off the week's festivities.  And for the majority of the day it worked rather swimmingly.  By the end, though, we were beginning to see that this idea works much better in theory than in actuality.  Because, unfortunately, there is no such thing as "free" in real life -- everything comes with a price.  And tonight's price was a 2 hour temper tantrum from son number one.  But first.  Here's a recap of our day!

 The above scene pretty much captures the essence of today.

• The gym was checked off the list first thing in the morning with the 3 youngers partying it up at the Kids Klub.

• TV was watched and Wii was played for the majority of the day.

• MANY a mess was made.

{Not pictured -- the kitchen, the front hall, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, and the trampoline.}

• Games were devised with ingenuity.

Alex and Jane have been using this piece of molding over and over again for the last few days as a race track for their cars.  No matter how many times I take it away and try to hide it {it needs to be reinstalled over the blinds in the computer room} they continue to find it and play with it.  Today they discovered that marbles roll down just it just as easily as cars.

• A successful shoe shopping trip was finally accomplished on my part.  And grocery trip was accomplished as well.

• Ethan periodically pounded it out on the piano and treated us to some new material playing his very own compositions.  They're kind of works in progress.

• I channeled my inner flapper.

• Grace spent most of the morning lounging in her bed watching a movie on the iPad.  She also wore me down into agreeing to possibly go and look for dogs at a rescue shelter tomorrow. 

• Dinner was improvised after realizing that the sloppy joe's I had planned would not be possible due to not having any meat in the freezer after all.  And since I didn't want to go to the store AGAIN this evening, I whipped up some homemade tortillas instead.  Canned black beans and shredded cheese comprised the filling.  Luckily, I had picked up more salsa when I was at the store earlier and we still had some sour cream left as well.  Crisis averted!

 {Recipe for "Best Ever Homemade Flour Tortillas" found via Pinterest.  They really are delicious.  The only change I make is to use whole wheat flour for 1 of the 3 cups in the recipe.  I've tried substituting more, but it makes them a LOT tougher to roll out.}

• Outside fun was had as well -- once the kids finally turned off the TV in the afternoon. 

 Diaper Glossner wanted to jump on the trampoline with the big kids as well.  When I told him it was too cold and he had to get dressed, pulling on his snow bibs was his solution.  Hahahaha.

Seriously, seriously hilarious looking.  Even funnier was when he came running in about 5 minutes later saying he was cold.  I told him he needed to put his coat on, but he refused while running past me and said he needed gloves instead.  Hahahaha.  That crazy little man found 2 mismatched gloves, put them on, and ran back outside to jump while still refusing the coat I tried to put on him.  {Don't worry, though, because he DID eventually come back in and let me put it on.}

• And finally, a third broom since we've moved here was broken by Ethan while trying to sweep Jane's flour off the trampoline.  Yes.  Flour.  She was jumping with it in a plastic baggie and gravity intervened. 

So there you have it.  A basic recap of the day.   By the end, though, everyone was beginning to unravel, and the extreme worst case disaster scenario of the house didn't help anyone's moods or tempers.  After getting all the little ones in bed, Ethan threw a knock down drag out fit {once again} about wanting a later bedtime and has since spent the last 2 hours steadily refusing to go to bed, sporadically banging on the piano to wake everyone up, and kicking and screaming at both Scott and I just for good measure.  Once he finally went up, he banged on Jane's door for a bit {although at least she was still awake} and then went and poured water on a sleeping Grace.  So yeah.  I'd say "Freebie Day" has participated in its last rodeo.  To end on a positive note, I think everyone's excited for "Kids Eat Free" day tomorrow at IKEA.  Happy Spring everyone!  :)