4 Kids and a Dad

Shantel has been planning a big trip to see her sister Jenna on her 30th birthday (as a super surprise). She was brave enough to leave me in charge of all four kids for the weekend. You can check out her post about her trip for details on that.

The kids were so sad to have her leave. They are use to me going out of town, but Shantel never has even a night without the kids except a rare time when we have a getaway with just the two of us.

Austin was especially going to miss her and she took pictures with the kids on the way to the airport that we printed out for them while she was gone.

That put me in charge for Friday morning through Sunday evening. We missed Shantel tremendously and love her so much. Everything for the weekend went really really well and the kids were so good. The only one I was a little worried about was Lucy, but she did fantastic. Shantel left breastmilk that I could use for each nap and then before bed. Lucy took most of her naps really well and sleep amazing at night and went right down. I was super busy taking care of kids, so there were not a lot of pictures, but we had a ton of fun. Some of the highlights:

Peanut butter toast for snack:

Melissa (who went too) left our car at our house. On Saturday a neighbor pointed out this flat tire. I was not sure I would end up with time to get it changed while taking care of the four kids, but was able to get it changed during one of Lucy's naps. So I was glad to be able to help so that Melissa did not have to worry about it when she got back. 

We built rocket launchers. The kids loved them so much and they turned out awesome. They also made kites. (Both thanks to Kiwi Crates).

One of the other favorite things for the kids was some candy treats. We did "candy bowls" one night. The next day I did fruit cups and they have little cherries so I added some Cherry sour candies that look just like the cherries. The kids loved it. In fact, when Shantel got home (and over the last 3 weeks) it has been clear that their favorite thing about the weekend was the candy. 

 

We also made a giant fort. Lydia had her room first on the far side and then we added a spot for Austin the next day.

This Lucy girl is so sweet. I loved getting to put her down to bed and spend some extra time with her. She has been crawling for a while, but she has never even tried to climb up the stairs. One evening I went up to get her some jammies and when I started walking down the stairs I came across this girl and she was already climbing up the 2nd set of stairs after the landing! She had never even tried and then suddenly she could crawl all the way up the stairs. 

Other things from the weekend: We played outside and played sharks and minnows. We played games and read books.

Three thoughts on the weekend:
1) It was our 11 year anniversary this weekend. The trip worked out best for this weekend and I missed Shantel, but she as always took good care of me. See a separate anniversary post about how much I love her.
-I really did love so much the time with the kids. It is definitely so much work to handle all four the entire day and night, but getting the chance to have just me and them really helps grow our relationships. They are fun and make me laugh and we had a great time. I loved seeing how happy candy in their fruit bowl made them or how much they enjoyed sleeping in their forts. The important thing was just slowing down and recognizing I had the whole weekend set apart for them with nothing I needed to do except spend time with them.
-I'm so glad that Shantel was able to do this trip with her sisters. She has wanted to do this for a long time and with the pandemic, we did not know if it would happen. She deserved to have this nice trip and I'm glad it worked out.