This is the first year that "Spring Break" actually seemed like a thing instead of just another random week. I think that is because Kenzie is in school 4 days a week this year so it is more like "real" school rather than the 2 days a week that was preschool last year. So, I wanted to try to make Spring Break fun and something different instead of just spending it like another week. We were limited in what we could do because Steven has been super busy at work and couldn't take any additional time off. We already have his days planned out for the entire year so that he can take a few days here and there for specific things but keep a good balance of days in case something comes up and we need them. So, I had to come up with some things that we don't typically do every day but that were easy enough for me to handle two small children during and that were inexpensive/free.
Side note: We turned in all the paperwork to enroll Will in preschool next year this last week! Eek! He will be in the 2-year-old class (due to his birthday being in October) for 2 mornings a week. I am mostly excited to have some time to do cleaning and work as necessary without someone hanging on me or otherwise occupying my time. Extra added bonus? I will get to go to the grocery store ALONE! That hasn't happened more than a few times here and there probably since Kenzie was born almost 5 years ago. Haha!! Spring Break is going to have even more meaning next year.
We started Spring Break by going to the "Seeing Green" program at the library on Friday. Then in the afternoon we went to the open rehearsal at Cirque Du Soleil which you can read about HERE if you would like. I will save everyone the additional recap. (You can also read about the rest of our fun weekend including going to Epcot in that post.)
Monday started a the full week of Spring Break for us. We didn't have a ton planned because we still have every day things we need to get done like our Monday stop at Winn Dixie. We also had to work around Jack getting his teeth cleaned so we were limited on things we could do that weren't close to home in case we needed to get to the vet earlier than expected after his cleaning (then he ended up taking the ENTIRE day and we had to pick him up less than an hour before they closed.) We did end up running to Target for a few things and picking up Kenzie some new shorts to start practicing her running. Or "training" as we are calling it. She is going to run a kids' race likely in July at a race that we are going to do with Nana (Nana and I will walk and push the stroller, Steven will either run or walk) so we want her to be ready. Likely her race will be 200 meters which is just over a tenth of a mile and something she can handle but we want her to be comfortable. Plus, in just about a month I will be registering for the Princess 10k at Disney and registering her for the Kids' Race there which she is so crazy excited about! (I'm totally getting us both Rapunzel themed shirts to wear.) We wanted to make it a big-ish deal for now to see how she takes to it because we want her to stay excited for next February. We don't want to push her too far though. We shall see.
We didn't have dance because Kenzie's studio runs in conjunction with OCPS's school schedule so they were on Spring Break this week too. Instead we had an early dinner and decided to partake in the annual First Day of Spring at Rita's. We have done this a few years running now and really enjoy it. Rita's isn't something we treat ourselves to very often. We don't do a lot of "dessert" stops and rarely actually eat desserts even at home so going out for Italian ice as a family is always fun. This was the first year that everyone got their own Italian ice too. Last year we might have gotten one for Kenzie but Will definitely would have shared mine. This year was so much fun. We headed over after dinner. There were a lot of people taking part but it wasn't crowded. We were able to order right away. Steven got lemon, both kids decided on tropical punch, and I chose blue raspberry. We were able to get a table outside because the night was so amazing. Perfect weather for the evening of the first day of spring. The kids LOVED their Italian ice. Both of them kept trying to steal bites of mine, too. Steven was smart and chose a slightly less sweet option so they were less into it. Every time I turned away, Kenzie would steal a bite of mine. They both ate almost their entire ices. They were WIRED afterwards. By the time we made it home, it was almost time for bed and both kids took a bit to settle down and fall asleep.
Tuesday we didn't do too much. I took the kids to the mall in the morning which let them play at the indoor play area. They both made some new friends pretty quickly and were running around, jumping and playing with them. We had to go to Gymboree because Will needed an Easter outfit still. Kenzie has hers but we just needed something for Will to wear to church. We made a few other random stops in the mall and then the rest of the day was spent playing around the house and outside while I raked leaves. Steven was supposed to have an eye appointment and get home early but his doc ended up taking forever because they were behind so we didn't get to see him early. At least he was home for dinner though. We have been missing some Daddy time lately. We know though that his work will eventually slow down some though and we will have more time with him. He works really hard. The kids had some fun while I was making dinner by coloring on the back porch. When Kenzie asks me to clean the pollen off the back porch table so they can do "art", I can't say no. Eventually Will brought them out a tea party but then Daddy got home and it was time for dinner. For the first time in almost a week we had them in bed at a normal time.
Wednesday is our normal story time at the library which Kenzie was so excited about. We decided to go to her story time. There is one for birth-18 months, one for 18-36 months (Will's age group), and one for 3-5 years. Will is good in either of the upper two. Kenzie likes the toddler version but loves her own. Her age group focuses more on the actual reading aspect and does less movement type songs. There is also usually a craft after her age group's story time so I knew that we could go to hers and then do the craft which would definitely be a hit. Kenzie is super into anything artistic right now. Will's attention span isn't as long as he is at the age that he doesn't care too much for art. Kenzie was a lot like this at this age. I know some kids love to color but our kids don't seem to like it at this age. They seem to get bored or something. We had to get Will a haircut on Wednesday too because I couldn't stand not being able to see his little ears anymore or being distracted from those sparkling blue eyes and sweet smile (the same reason I love when Kenzie lets me put her hair in a ponytail which is her new go-to hairstyle lately.) He did great! We got the same woman we had last time that he really seems to like and he smiled and giggled through the entire cut. Thankfully. Those first few haircuts after his first were torture. He screamed and cried through most of them. Now he is a pro. We didn't do much else until Daddy got home. He missed dinner with us but we made it to Lowes to buy our picnic table. We are so excited about getting a picnic table for the backyard. We paid the extra money to have them put it together to save us the time and stress (and it was only $10) so we didn't get to take it home right then but we were still excited. That night we had some crazy hail and rain come through. I got a little excited and had to take a few pictures. Thankfully although it was a lot of hail, it was fairly small pieces. About the size of marbles so there was no damage done to Steven's truck that was outside.
Thursday was a much more fun day than a lot of our others. We decided to go visit Daddy at work. Really, I think they kids were more interested in visiting Ms. Yvonne. She works with Steven and the kids love her. She is super sweet and she really wanted to head over to the main library downtown with the kids to help them pick out some books. First though we headed over to Hobby Lobby because every couple of weeks we are picking out one thing for Kenzie's big girl room. We are working on her gallery wall right now. She chose a wood decor thing and we also picked out the fabric she wants for her curtains. Then we went down to see Daddy. We ended up going to the library with Ms. Yvonne and Ms. Jessica. The kids ran around like crazy people picking out books, CDs, and movies. Then Ms. Yvonne read them a book before we left the library. The walk back was fast paced because we were trying to beat the rain but we had to stop to check out the swan who stood up from her nest to rotate her eggs. We were able to see her eggs. It was pretty cool. We found out later that the eggs actually hatched overnight so we caught them right before the little baby swans decided to come out. After we stopped by Daddy's office to say goodbye to Ms. Yvonne and Ms. Jessica, we stole Steven away to have lunch with us. We feel like we rarely get time to see him during the week often because his work schedule has been so nutty for the last couple of months so it was nice to have some time with him. Even if we were rushing slightly to make sure he got back in time as we had already taken him away from work to go to the library. The kids love spending time with him though and getting to go to Chick Fil A made it even more exciting. They were slightly upset that they didn't have time to play on the play area but we just didn't have time. Plus, we are going to Kids' Night next week so they will get to play then. That evening we met Grandma and Grandaddy at High Tide Harry's for dinner. We were planning on carsitting for them while they go to Atlanta for Evie's birthday party so Steven was taking them to their hotel by the airport so that we could keep their car while they are gone. We had a great dinner. Steven took his parents to their hotel afterwards and I brought the kids home and got them in bed. It was a LONG day.
Friday was the start of our weekend. Well, in the afternoon at least. Even with Steven taking a few hours on Thursday, he worked so much earlier in the week that he was able to take a half day off. In the morning we ran a few errands before heading over to the library for the Artsy Toddler program. This is a weekly program that does arts and crafts and caters to 1-3 year olds. Kenzie is a little old, but she just likes doing anything at the library. We read a few books about weather and then the kids used q-tips to make raindrops on an umbrella picture. Super easy but it was perfect for Will's age and Kenzie even enjoyed it. Steven came home shortly after lunch and once Will woke up from his nap, we headed over to Lowe's to pick up our new picnic table. We had to be fairly quick though because we had plans to go to UCF to see a baseball game as part of our Spring Happenings list. Saturday and Sunday were fun, as usual, and you can read about them HERE (along with that baseball game) in the Spring Happenings list.
Monday was Kenzie's last day of Spring Break (though she technically has Monday off from school every week). This felt like a different type of Monday though because she had been off of school so long (11 long days in total).We still had all those things to do that we usually do and figured it was time to get back into the normal routine. The last week had already caught up with us. We missed our normal weekly shopping so it was pushed back which messing with my meal planning and everything else (I love routines) so I wanted to keep as much as possible going normally on Monday. To start, the kids graced me by sleeping in. Will woke up about 5 times during the night asking for help getting his covers back on. His room was pretty chilly so it wasn't a huge deal. I would cover him and then leave again and he would go back to sleep. At 7am, he woke up and I thought he would be up for the day but he ended up asking me to cover him again and went back to sleep. Both kids woke up at about the same time around 7:40. That. Is. Fabulous. It was so nice. I was awake but it was quiet in the house. If I had known there was going to be sleeping in going on, I would have gone to have my coffee alone, in peace. Oh well. We had breakfast and then went out to practice Kenzie's bike riding. She did pretty well. We went up and down the sidewalk a bit and a few times I let her go and she would go about 15 feet or so. She really just needs to build her confidence. She seems to understand the mechanics of how to ride her bike but she doesn't have the confidence to get it done. We have faith. We will just keep working. After nap time I decided to get outside and finish painting the new picnic table. We started the staining process over the weekend but I knew I would have to get under the table at some point to do some inside stuff. Then the kids helped me plant a few more lariope in our backyard bed area and start mulching the areas that were done. We still need a few more lariope so I hope to pick those up soon and finish the bed. It isn't anything major since our backyard is mostly in shadow. We can't grow a lot but we wanted to add a little something since we are trying to use our backyard more from now on. We have always loved the backyard but typically spend our outside time out front since the backyard has always sort of been Jack's domain. Anyway, we just did our normal afternoon stuff getting ready for dance. Kenzie was so excited to get back to dance this week. She really misses it when she doesn't get to go. Her dance class has been working on their recital dance and it is so cute! I'm always so excited to see what new 8 count her teacher adds each week until it is finished. We also finalized payments for her recital so we should be getting her costume soon. We are also thinking about actually purchasing the dance photo USB this year so I'm excited to see how that turns out. =)
We had a great Spring Break this year. I hope Kenzie enjoyed herself as much as we all did. I'm sort of happy to be sending her back to school tomorrow. I think we will miss having her around again as it's always a weird thing to have her around 24/7 and then send her back to school even if it isn't all day every day but at the same time, I can get more done with just one kid hanging around. We still have our Spring Happenings list going on but it's about time to start planning our summer vacation (which I will have a post coming about in the next week or two) and our Summer Bucket List. Fun!!
Side note: We turned in all the paperwork to enroll Will in preschool next year this last week! Eek! He will be in the 2-year-old class (due to his birthday being in October) for 2 mornings a week. I am mostly excited to have some time to do cleaning and work as necessary without someone hanging on me or otherwise occupying my time. Extra added bonus? I will get to go to the grocery store ALONE! That hasn't happened more than a few times here and there probably since Kenzie was born almost 5 years ago. Haha!! Spring Break is going to have even more meaning next year.
We started Spring Break by going to the "Seeing Green" program at the library on Friday. Then in the afternoon we went to the open rehearsal at Cirque Du Soleil which you can read about HERE if you would like. I will save everyone the additional recap. (You can also read about the rest of our fun weekend including going to Epcot in that post.)
Monday started a the full week of Spring Break for us. We didn't have a ton planned because we still have every day things we need to get done like our Monday stop at Winn Dixie. We also had to work around Jack getting his teeth cleaned so we were limited on things we could do that weren't close to home in case we needed to get to the vet earlier than expected after his cleaning (then he ended up taking the ENTIRE day and we had to pick him up less than an hour before they closed.) We did end up running to Target for a few things and picking up Kenzie some new shorts to start practicing her running. Or "training" as we are calling it. She is going to run a kids' race likely in July at a race that we are going to do with Nana (Nana and I will walk and push the stroller, Steven will either run or walk) so we want her to be ready. Likely her race will be 200 meters which is just over a tenth of a mile and something she can handle but we want her to be comfortable. Plus, in just about a month I will be registering for the Princess 10k at Disney and registering her for the Kids' Race there which she is so crazy excited about! (I'm totally getting us both Rapunzel themed shirts to wear.) We wanted to make it a big-ish deal for now to see how she takes to it because we want her to stay excited for next February. We don't want to push her too far though. We shall see.
We didn't have dance because Kenzie's studio runs in conjunction with OCPS's school schedule so they were on Spring Break this week too. Instead we had an early dinner and decided to partake in the annual First Day of Spring at Rita's. We have done this a few years running now and really enjoy it. Rita's isn't something we treat ourselves to very often. We don't do a lot of "dessert" stops and rarely actually eat desserts even at home so going out for Italian ice as a family is always fun. This was the first year that everyone got their own Italian ice too. Last year we might have gotten one for Kenzie but Will definitely would have shared mine. This year was so much fun. We headed over after dinner. There were a lot of people taking part but it wasn't crowded. We were able to order right away. Steven got lemon, both kids decided on tropical punch, and I chose blue raspberry. We were able to get a table outside because the night was so amazing. Perfect weather for the evening of the first day of spring. The kids LOVED their Italian ice. Both of them kept trying to steal bites of mine, too. Steven was smart and chose a slightly less sweet option so they were less into it. Every time I turned away, Kenzie would steal a bite of mine. They both ate almost their entire ices. They were WIRED afterwards. By the time we made it home, it was almost time for bed and both kids took a bit to settle down and fall asleep.
Tuesday we didn't do too much. I took the kids to the mall in the morning which let them play at the indoor play area. They both made some new friends pretty quickly and were running around, jumping and playing with them. We had to go to Gymboree because Will needed an Easter outfit still. Kenzie has hers but we just needed something for Will to wear to church. We made a few other random stops in the mall and then the rest of the day was spent playing around the house and outside while I raked leaves. Steven was supposed to have an eye appointment and get home early but his doc ended up taking forever because they were behind so we didn't get to see him early. At least he was home for dinner though. We have been missing some Daddy time lately. We know though that his work will eventually slow down some though and we will have more time with him. He works really hard. The kids had some fun while I was making dinner by coloring on the back porch. When Kenzie asks me to clean the pollen off the back porch table so they can do "art", I can't say no. Eventually Will brought them out a tea party but then Daddy got home and it was time for dinner. For the first time in almost a week we had them in bed at a normal time.
Wednesday is our normal story time at the library which Kenzie was so excited about. We decided to go to her story time. There is one for birth-18 months, one for 18-36 months (Will's age group), and one for 3-5 years. Will is good in either of the upper two. Kenzie likes the toddler version but loves her own. Her age group focuses more on the actual reading aspect and does less movement type songs. There is also usually a craft after her age group's story time so I knew that we could go to hers and then do the craft which would definitely be a hit. Kenzie is super into anything artistic right now. Will's attention span isn't as long as he is at the age that he doesn't care too much for art. Kenzie was a lot like this at this age. I know some kids love to color but our kids don't seem to like it at this age. They seem to get bored or something. We had to get Will a haircut on Wednesday too because I couldn't stand not being able to see his little ears anymore or being distracted from those sparkling blue eyes and sweet smile (the same reason I love when Kenzie lets me put her hair in a ponytail which is her new go-to hairstyle lately.) He did great! We got the same woman we had last time that he really seems to like and he smiled and giggled through the entire cut. Thankfully. Those first few haircuts after his first were torture. He screamed and cried through most of them. Now he is a pro. We didn't do much else until Daddy got home. He missed dinner with us but we made it to Lowes to buy our picnic table. We are so excited about getting a picnic table for the backyard. We paid the extra money to have them put it together to save us the time and stress (and it was only $10) so we didn't get to take it home right then but we were still excited. That night we had some crazy hail and rain come through. I got a little excited and had to take a few pictures. Thankfully although it was a lot of hail, it was fairly small pieces. About the size of marbles so there was no damage done to Steven's truck that was outside.
Thursday was a much more fun day than a lot of our others. We decided to go visit Daddy at work. Really, I think they kids were more interested in visiting Ms. Yvonne. She works with Steven and the kids love her. She is super sweet and she really wanted to head over to the main library downtown with the kids to help them pick out some books. First though we headed over to Hobby Lobby because every couple of weeks we are picking out one thing for Kenzie's big girl room. We are working on her gallery wall right now. She chose a wood decor thing and we also picked out the fabric she wants for her curtains. Then we went down to see Daddy. We ended up going to the library with Ms. Yvonne and Ms. Jessica. The kids ran around like crazy people picking out books, CDs, and movies. Then Ms. Yvonne read them a book before we left the library. The walk back was fast paced because we were trying to beat the rain but we had to stop to check out the swan who stood up from her nest to rotate her eggs. We were able to see her eggs. It was pretty cool. We found out later that the eggs actually hatched overnight so we caught them right before the little baby swans decided to come out. After we stopped by Daddy's office to say goodbye to Ms. Yvonne and Ms. Jessica, we stole Steven away to have lunch with us. We feel like we rarely get time to see him during the week often because his work schedule has been so nutty for the last couple of months so it was nice to have some time with him. Even if we were rushing slightly to make sure he got back in time as we had already taken him away from work to go to the library. The kids love spending time with him though and getting to go to Chick Fil A made it even more exciting. They were slightly upset that they didn't have time to play on the play area but we just didn't have time. Plus, we are going to Kids' Night next week so they will get to play then. That evening we met Grandma and Grandaddy at High Tide Harry's for dinner. We were planning on carsitting for them while they go to Atlanta for Evie's birthday party so Steven was taking them to their hotel by the airport so that we could keep their car while they are gone. We had a great dinner. Steven took his parents to their hotel afterwards and I brought the kids home and got them in bed. It was a LONG day.
Friday was the start of our weekend. Well, in the afternoon at least. Even with Steven taking a few hours on Thursday, he worked so much earlier in the week that he was able to take a half day off. In the morning we ran a few errands before heading over to the library for the Artsy Toddler program. This is a weekly program that does arts and crafts and caters to 1-3 year olds. Kenzie is a little old, but she just likes doing anything at the library. We read a few books about weather and then the kids used q-tips to make raindrops on an umbrella picture. Super easy but it was perfect for Will's age and Kenzie even enjoyed it. Steven came home shortly after lunch and once Will woke up from his nap, we headed over to Lowe's to pick up our new picnic table. We had to be fairly quick though because we had plans to go to UCF to see a baseball game as part of our Spring Happenings list. Saturday and Sunday were fun, as usual, and you can read about them HERE (along with that baseball game) in the Spring Happenings list.
Monday was Kenzie's last day of Spring Break (though she technically has Monday off from school every week). This felt like a different type of Monday though because she had been off of school so long (11 long days in total).We still had all those things to do that we usually do and figured it was time to get back into the normal routine. The last week had already caught up with us. We missed our normal weekly shopping so it was pushed back which messing with my meal planning and everything else (I love routines) so I wanted to keep as much as possible going normally on Monday. To start, the kids graced me by sleeping in. Will woke up about 5 times during the night asking for help getting his covers back on. His room was pretty chilly so it wasn't a huge deal. I would cover him and then leave again and he would go back to sleep. At 7am, he woke up and I thought he would be up for the day but he ended up asking me to cover him again and went back to sleep. Both kids woke up at about the same time around 7:40. That. Is. Fabulous. It was so nice. I was awake but it was quiet in the house. If I had known there was going to be sleeping in going on, I would have gone to have my coffee alone, in peace. Oh well. We had breakfast and then went out to practice Kenzie's bike riding. She did pretty well. We went up and down the sidewalk a bit and a few times I let her go and she would go about 15 feet or so. She really just needs to build her confidence. She seems to understand the mechanics of how to ride her bike but she doesn't have the confidence to get it done. We have faith. We will just keep working. After nap time I decided to get outside and finish painting the new picnic table. We started the staining process over the weekend but I knew I would have to get under the table at some point to do some inside stuff. Then the kids helped me plant a few more lariope in our backyard bed area and start mulching the areas that were done. We still need a few more lariope so I hope to pick those up soon and finish the bed. It isn't anything major since our backyard is mostly in shadow. We can't grow a lot but we wanted to add a little something since we are trying to use our backyard more from now on. We have always loved the backyard but typically spend our outside time out front since the backyard has always sort of been Jack's domain. Anyway, we just did our normal afternoon stuff getting ready for dance. Kenzie was so excited to get back to dance this week. She really misses it when she doesn't get to go. Her dance class has been working on their recital dance and it is so cute! I'm always so excited to see what new 8 count her teacher adds each week until it is finished. We also finalized payments for her recital so we should be getting her costume soon. We are also thinking about actually purchasing the dance photo USB this year so I'm excited to see how that turns out. =)
We had a great Spring Break this year. I hope Kenzie enjoyed herself as much as we all did. I'm sort of happy to be sending her back to school tomorrow. I think we will miss having her around again as it's always a weird thing to have her around 24/7 and then send her back to school even if it isn't all day every day but at the same time, I can get more done with just one kid hanging around. We still have our Spring Happenings list going on but it's about time to start planning our summer vacation (which I will have a post coming about in the next week or two) and our Summer Bucket List. Fun!!
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