Today was just one of those days...

Take a look at this artwork.

Isn't it gorge???

I hope you sensed my sarcasm.

Ian climbed out of bed during nap time and snuck into the office, 

rummaged through some drawers

and found a roll of 24 cent stamps.

I suppose he thought the front of the drawer needed to be spruced up a bit

so he plastered $15 worth of stamps onto it.

How kind of him.

Don't you think???

What ev.

Just his luck, 
I was already considering junking the piece of furniture when we move in March.

He already pulled one of the front drawers off about a year ago.

It was cheap anyhow, IKEA.

I'm just a little perturbed because I needed those stamps this week to mail off the rent check.

Today was just one of those days...

this past week has been a bit tough.

All 4 of the boys were sick;

(keep in mind that we've been sick on and off since New Years).

even I fell ill earlier in the week.

Noah had a fever for nearly 3 days that hovered around 103 degrees.

The doctor told me he just needed lots of liquids & sleep,

with Tylenol or Motrin to keep the fever down...

Easy enough, right???

Wrong.

He slept a lot the first day but after that he stayed up extra hours in the evening

begging me for popsicles.

I was on the phone last night with Trish after I put the boys to bed,

and while I chatted I saw Noah come down stairs

4 TIMES

to grab a popsicle!!!

All with in half an hour.

He thinks now, any time he tells me his tummy is HOT,

whether it truthfully is or NOT,

I'm going to give him a popsicle.

OHHHH, that kid!

Spencer had a business convention
he had to attend in Vegas this weekend;

he left Thursday and won't be back till LATE LATE LATE tonight.

That means,

I've been on my own with the kids.

Normally, this isn't a problem.

I never panic and I try not to complain about it.

Friday, we stayed home.

I worked on giving the blog a face lift and the kids napped, ate and played.

Friday was a good day.

It SNOWED like crazy Friday night into Saturday morning.

I was up early on Saturday with the boys,

getting them bathed, dressed (back in jammies since they were all still sick) and fed

before heading off to my in laws house in Orem where I dropped them off,

picked up my niece Tori

and together, we went and watched AVATAR.

We were getting low on baby formula and milk back at the house,

so after the movie 
we skipped over to Costco to stock up.

4 hours later and I was back at my in laws to drop Tori off and pack the boys into the car.

I brought them home, they napped, after naps we watched a movie, we ate dinner then it was time for bed.

Simple enough.

Good day.

They all behaved really well.

But TODAY was just another story entirely of its own.

Today was just one of those days...

...the problems began early.

Really early.

I didn't go to bed until 2:30.

I can't blame anyone but myself for going to sleep so darn late;

I stayed up late watching a Lifetime movie

(yeah, I'm a sucker for a good Lifetime movie with a catchy plot)...

when I finally DID go to bed,

I crashed!!!

but my sleep was interrupted around 4 a.m. when I heard the baby stirring;

Bentley wanted a bottle.

I jumped out of bed to grab a bottle

and that's when
I saw Noah, 
sitting at the foot of our bed next to his sleeping bag

(he's been sleeping in our room this week while he's been sick)

trying to hide something.

I went over to take look at his stash

and discovered it was a bag of caramels I use for baking!

I snatched the bag away from him,

stashed them in my bedside drawer till I could put them back in the pantry by morning,

Noah made a fuss about it for a bit;

I ignored him,

grabbed the baby a bottle

and hit the sack again.

I woke up around 8 to find Ian beside me in bed 
with a soaking wet diaper 
that leaked all over the bedsheets!

G.R.E.A.T.!

Cohen was already having "one of those mornings" 
by the time I got up and went into his room

to lift him out of his crib.

It's never a good sign for what's to become of the day
when he's already cranky in the morning.

I undressed the 3 older boys and put all of them in the shower together;

after which I proceeded to bathe Bentley in the tub.

In just a matter of minutes,

all hell broke loose in the shower.

Noah and Ian were fighting because Ian refused to share the bath toys;

they were hitting, yelling and crying...

at which the same time,

Cohen had decided he'd enough of the squabble and started to cry too!

It's loud when just one kid is crying,

but imagine 3!

Actually, 4!

Bentley just wasn't enjoying his bath either, so he started bawling too!

I couldn't do anything to quiet down the 3 older boys until I finished bathing and dressing Bentley.

I hurried as fast as I could 
but there was still a good solid 5 minutes of madness 
coming from our Master bath.

GREAT.

I'm pretty sure our neighbors heard all of it

and maybe even considered calling the police.

One by one,

I took each boy out of the shower, dried them off and got them dressed.

Oh mornings,

how I HATE thee!

Things started to settle down a little;

it helped a bit that after giving each of them something to drink and breakfast

I put them all back to bed for a nap.

Noah fell asleep immediately.

Bentley slept too.

Ian and Cohen were NOT compliant.

Keep in mind,

it was during this nap that Ian snuck out of his room to decoupage my little storage drawers in the office.

Eventually Cohen fell asleep

and Ian...

well...

I made him sleep downstairs in the Luv Sac where I could keep an eye on him while I did other things.

He never did fall asleep on the Luv Sac.

For nearly 2 hours he drove me nuts by slithering off of it; jumping on it; flipping off of it...

he just wouldn't sit still and fall asleep!

Before I knew it,

Noah was awake...

Ian was still burning fuel

and I was desperate and needed a minute to myself.

I dug a box of Crayola Window Crayons out of our art box

and let the boys have at it on our back sliding doors.

(Thanks for getting us those crayons Mom!)

The boys LOVED coloring with them

and quite frankly I like them coloring on glass more than paper.

Not because I'm a "tree hugger" but because usually when the boys color

they end up coloring not only on the paper but also on the counter tops,

the floor and sometimes the wall.

With the window crayons, I didn't have to worry about them coloring on walls

because they understood these crayons were only for use on things they could see through.
Hence, the glass doors.

They complained at first about it being to bright 
to color with the sun shining through

but we nixed that problem with sunglasses!

Ian accidentally bumped Noah in the head with his blue crayon;

the wax got stuck in Noah's hair

and colored it blue!

Hopefully it washes out during tomorrows shower.

By the time the boys were done coloring,

Cohen had woken up.

They decided to play swords for a bit,

then build with their blocks,

then I popped some popcorn and we sat down and watched "Snow White".

About 30 minutes into the movie I crashed,

after which,

31 minutes into the movie all 3 boys decided to go upstairs,

grab a Christmas stocking hanging in the stairway,

recover a candy cane I forgot about

(btw, yes, it's true, I still have a few Christmas decorations hanging up around the house;

I don't have the heart to take them down, because I'll have to pack them away,

then replace them with the decorations and pictures I normally keep hung around the house;

and honestly,

I just don't want to do that when in just a couple more weeks I'm going to have to begin packing up the house for good for our move)...

they tried to break that candy cane into little pieces,

so all 3 of them could have some;

they succeeded but made a mess on my bedroom carpet;

36 minutes into the movie I woke up to find that all of the boys (minus Bentley) were up to no good upstairs.

While I was upstairs cleaning up their mess

I heard the fridge downstairs open

and 5 minutes later,

once I had finished cleaning up the candy cane mess,

Cohen climbed upstairs 
to greet me with a face and fistfull of chocolate frosting!

Noah and Ian had opened the fridge;

climbed to the top shelf

and recovered the can of chocolate frosting they had opened on their own the night before!!!

One of the two, got a plastic knife

and together, all 3 of the boys

had a pow wow with chocolate frosting 
behind the leather ottoman!!!

I may never had known about it if they hadn't had let Cohen eat some of the frosting.

There was only a tiny little smidgen of frosting on the top corner of Noah's lip

but Cohen...

THAT KID WAS A MESS!

He left a palmful of frosting smeared across our leather couches,

got it on the carpet,

the doorknobs,

the tile

and the stairs!!!

REALLY.

What a day!

Today was REALLY just "one of those days".

I can't even begin to explain just how excited I am for Spencer's return.

It may not be the kind of homecoming he wanted,

but trust me,

he'll be keeping an eye on the boys tomorrow

so I can have a bit of "ME TIME" to regain my sanity and wits. ;-)