During spring break this year, we – the whole circus that is my family – got to spend a super fun day at Foxwoods. They always do a ton of kid activities for spring vacation and this year I was lucky enough to be invited to a special blogger day that included visiting the Treehouse Arcade, seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog on stage and a delicious meal at California Pizza Kitchen. And there were cupcakes.

For children who only discovered video games 4 months ago and have only been to Chuck E Cheese twice in their life, my kids have an unnatural love of arcade games. They are terrible at them. Really, really bad. If E didn’t “help” a little, we would end up with a total of about 17 tickets which works out to three-fourths of a bouncy ball in the prize store. But armed with a loaded card and pointed towards the games, all three had a great time in the Treehouse Arcade.

Things I don’t love: shooting games. Things my husband and son LOOOOOOVE: shooting games.

Look, it’s Evan’s first swag bag! He was so excited they gave him a free bag he didn’t even look in it until we needed to find out cupcake coupons several hours later.

This game simulated being attacked by giant spiders. Linc did not love the spiders.

I also stick out my tongue while I am concentrating very hard.

After we turned in our (virtual) tickets for prizes (including plenty of snacks), we headed over to the Fox Theater for the Clifford Show. It was a musical, which all the kids loved, and had just enough audience participation that they stayed interested the whole time. Since the theater was full of parents with small children I didn’t even feel bad when Linc started screeching in joy when Clifford grew from a hand puppet to a giant two-person sized dog, or when he wouldn’t stay in his seat and bounced back and forth between E and I pointing frantically at the stage like, “GUYS DO YOU EVEN SEE THIS? THAT DOG IS HUGE!”

After the show, we got to meet a medium-sized Clifford at the step and repeat in the lobby. I’ll admit Evan and Caroline were a little bummed they didn’t get to meet giant Clifford, but they still enjoyed their hugs and autographed cast pictures.

Linc wasn’t quiiiiiiite sure about Clifford (although I am writing this with him sitting next to me and he’s SO EXCITED about this picture, obviously it’s a happy memory instead of a nightmare) but he didn’t completely freak out. That’s success when you’re talking about people dresses as character.

After the meet and greet, we went straight over to California Pizza Kitchen for some dinner. Back when we first moved to Connecticut, long before we had kids, E and I lived in the town right next to the casino and used to go to CPK for dinner alllllllll the time. Their hummus and warm pita is the best, the free table bread is amazing, and if we each ordered a personal pizza we had enough to take home for leftovers. But we’ve only been maybe once in the last seven years so it was a special treat to be back.

Evan and Linc ordered mac and cheese and Caroline ordered a kid pizza. Only Linc had leftovers, which we took home and Evan at for breakfast the next day (because carbs + dairy is always an appropriate breakfast). E got his favorite club pizza and I got the Thai chicken, which is the best kind. CPK was very family friendly and our waitress was quick to refill the chocolate milks, which is almost all it takes for us to enjoy a fairly peaceful meal.

After dinner we walked over to Cake by Franck to pick up our Clifford cupcakes. I could have spent much, much longer in that shop, looking at the desserts and making up reasons I definitely needed to buy ALL of them right at that moment, but the kids wanted to grab and go so we took our cake home. Well, Evan did, Caroline’s was gone by the time we hit the parking garage.

It was a lovely way to spend the day together as a family, I’m so glad E was able to come and enjoy it with us. Big thanks to the team at Foxwoods for their generosity and the invitation. When we get to do fun stuff like this I’m always super grateful that the internet is still a fun place to hang out and my blog has stayed alive for as long as it has.

It was another very dark, very rainy week but according to my weather app the next few days should be GREAT. I am clinging to the promise of sunshine.

Sunday:

Very important food

Caroline might not have a career as an artist, but she sure LOVES painting

The cat is obsessed with my bump

Monday:

Jurassic World was on TV so we watched it for the 200th time

New RocksBox, my favorite kind of mail (if you want a free month, use: bebehblogxoxo)

His new selfie face

Tuesday:

He loved my dentist because of this fish

Shopping helper

Brother love

Wednesday:

Jack doesn’t judge me when I take naps

Go awaaaaaaaaaay

Suffocating your sister is hilarious

Thursday:

My orchard looks terrible in this photo, luckily it looked GREAT for my shoot

Normal

He’s ready to dance as soon as Nashville plays music

Friday:

Babies helping babies

No-nap baby loves coming to the bus stop

Piano lessons

Saturday:

Fishing tournaments are more fun if the fish show up

Linc doesn’t understand why we are standing in the rain

An excellent way to end the week

I had a very nice Mother’s Day today, with lots of sitting down and someone else doing all the baby work and children who regularly asked if I was having a good day. I didn’t get to plant any Mother’s Day flowers yet, but since this week should be warm and sunny I’ll fix that as soon as possible. I’ll also be able to FINALLY do the blue-or-pink reveal for this baby with the kids (we know what we’re having, they do not, so I want to tell them before I blog it). I’ve never bothered with a big gender reveal before, so I wanted to do it this last chance I had.

Fingers crossed for sunshine.

I am now at one full week of constant coughing, which is much worse at night, so I’m functioning at about a 3/10. My house is a disaster. Do not come over.

Sunday;

After the baby stage, my children are excellent sleepers

Face smash

Passed out

Monday:

Explorer

My children would have been excellent pioneers

Torturing the baby a.k.a. pajamas

Tuesday:

I don’t even know what that is

Thinks he’s a real person who can sleep in my bed

Brotherly love

Wednesday:

The prettiest

Waiting room waiting

Mmmmmm bath water

Thursday:

This face perfectly expressed my mood this week

Caroline’s favorite show: Fashion Runway

Helping stuff diapers

Friday:

She tolerates him very well

HAI HAI MOM HAI

Friday nights are crazy around here

Saturday:

We taught Caroline tic-tac-toe so now they are excellent in restaurants

Couldn’t even wait for the car to eat her raspberry cream pastry

It finally looks like spring

I am hopeful that the week of rain we’re expecting will wash away whatever I’m allergic to and I will finally be able to sleep somewhere besides sitting up on the couch. It’s really exhausting. All I want to do is lie down completely flat and pass out for 12 hours. That was so much easier to do before I had all these kids. So many kids.

Fingers crossed I don’t actually cough up a lung. I need both of them.

This week was SPRING BREAK WOOHOO! We did a ton of stuff, none of which involved keeping the house clean or doing regular up-keep things like grocery shopping. Tonight when I made up for it at the store, the cashier said “Did you have a good spring break?” and I said “Oh, yes, it was really fun.” Then she said “I bet, you look exhausted.” She was absolutely not wrong.

Sunday:

The Velvet Mill is a super cool place

Girl date for mani-pedis

Doing important baby work

Monday:

Our day at the zoo was more insane than these children

That used to be a really nice dress

Brothers are helpful

Tuesday:

Booties

Family game time at Foxwoods

What nice polite children these are at this exact second

Wednesday:

They would have just moved in here if I let them

First nap of the whole week

Caroline is REALLY sure her next pet should be a duck

Thursday:

We love our friends

Respect the style

I’m not sure WHY, but they carried her around for half the day

Friday:

Back for a second day because they loved it so much

That’s 2 out of 3 looking at the camera

Not sure about this knot tying nonsense

Saturday:

5:30 wake up pleases NO ONE

Linc is READY for the pool

Summer can’t come soon enough

I am both totally ready for the kids to go back to school tomorrow and not at all looking forward to our regular schedule. Waking up early is not my favorite, especially since the earlier I get up the worse my morning sickness is. This weekend was all early mornings so it was really rough.

The good news is if the big kids go to school Linc might actually take a nap so I can too. Or at least I can eat chips alone while I watch child-inappropriate television and finish editing my last photo session. Both of those would be a good Monday.