Weekend update and why I can't leave my house for even a few hours

Last week was one of those weeks.  I remember telling my girlfriends back in Feb. that yes, let's get together the first Wed. in March.  Then there was a postponed breakfast with a friend that we agreed to do on Tues. at my house. Then I remember trying to schedule a used book shopping trip with another friend and that got postponed until the first Thurs. in March.  Then, after procrastinating for months visiting with 2 other girlfriends, I ran into one of them at church and she said, "this is a good week for me!"  Alrighty then.  So in the blink of an eye we had 3 days back to back where I was out of the house for at least 2 hours and another where I was home, but was spending time with my sweet friend.  I loved my time with these ladies. They are all so much fun!  Some are in the youngin' stage like me, some are trying to start a family, and some are a bit ahead of me (I highly encourage you to find some friends like this, or just buy some if you have to:))  By Fri. afternoon, after spending 3 hours at Chick-fil-a with Will and Ryan and my 2 friends (Will was a SAINT by the way), I got home and was just overwhelmed with the amount of work that had to be accomplished.  I told Jeff later that when I am gone for even just an hour, the backlog that's created is sometimes a bit daunting.  I look around and am not sure which is more critical - the kids having no clean clothes or not having anything in que for dinner?  It is a blessing to be sure, to have such wonderful women in my life, but lesson learned, spread it out girl!!!  There are 30 days in a month!
We finally got some great weather here too, so that opened up some fun possibilities for the weekend.  We were going to head out to the battle reenactment, but chose to go to Hobbes state park instead.  It was great!  We packed a picnin lunch, hiked an "easy" trail, then sat in on a program about reptiles (yuck!) and toured the visitors center.  It really is a gorgeous place, new I think, and easy for the kids to handle.  Not too big, but interactive and engaging.  The joke was on us with the trail though. I had hopped on line to check out the trail difficulties before we left and found this one that was only 1 1/2 miles and designated as "easy, with some steep trail."  HA, HA!  Those state park tricksters. I'm sure they sat at control center looking at a wall of monitors which captured the hidden trail-cams and my beet-red face panting as I huff and puff up and down the cliffs of doom!  Ok, so it wasn't that bad, but we did end up putting Will in the backpack carrier because after letting him walk for the first quarter mile, we got to this part where literally one misstep and he would have been rolling down the ravine like a pinball, bouncing from boulder, to giant fallen tree, and into the stagnite creek 40 feet below! 
I had Ryan in the Moby and he did great of the first mile facing outward.  Then I turned him around to face me, and he basically hung his head off the side and laughed at Jack for the last 1/2 mile.  He was cracking me up, actually snorted he was laughing so hard at his goofy big brother.

I have a HUGE forehead and must get some bang of some sort, IMMEDIATELY!!!








He is such a happy boy:)

Jack and Ella-Kathryn enjoying the "skulls and skins" exhibit.  Sounds a bit like some S&M convention in Vegas, no?

Oh, Jack.  Please stop making that face/smile whenever I want to take your picture!  EK looks like she just tooted:)  Which, by the by, when Will toots and we say "what do you say?", instead of saying "excuse me," he says,"Simpson!"  I have no idea!

Right before I took this, Jack was standing there looking at the giant bat head and this old guy came up behind him and scared him to death.  It was funny, but Jack wasembarassedd and the guy laughed a bit too much.  Then we went into this simulated cave and the old coot tried to do it again.  It was all I could do to bite my tongue and tell him to find some other form of entertainment for his Sat. afternoon. 

This one's just because!  He is finally enjoying the exersaucer - helps me out a ton.  He has also started holding his bottle.  Again, a big help for me, but also makes me kind of sad!  It's just going by so fast this time.  I don't know if you can see, but after his bath last night, he fell asleep in the bouncy seat and somehow this one bit of hair ended up getting pushed up so that it was sticking straight up.  You can kind of see it against the printer in the background.  Too cute!