Spring.

Confession- Lately, I have no clue what I'm doing as a mother. It seems like once I have a stage down another one comes around and I become completely clueless. We are going through the fighting stage and the back-talk-to-mom stage right now.

Can someone please just come up with a parenting guide with all the answers? I don't need one with a bazillion steps, just one or two steps would make me happy.

Like say some kind of chant and my kids become these perfect little angels.

That would be nice!

They really are good little children, but man they have been fighting non-stop (it's a love-hate relationship) I guess, you would call it a normal sibling relationship...I was talking to a friend and she suggested a "repentance chair". I liked the idea...I chose a "repentance corner"...they both have to sit there and think of what they did wrong and then tell me what they did wrong, not what their sibling did wrong but what each of them individually did wrong. I come back a few minutes later and surprisingly, very few times have they started to blame each other but they recognize what each of them did wrong.

It has helped some.

Even though, I have been feeling clueless...

...the other day I became the coolest mom on earth.

I fed my kids the unhealthiest lunch ever...Lunchables, otherwise known as extremely processed cheese and lunch meat and a processed drink called capri sun.

We have been trying to stay away from food that is 'too processed'.

But for one day, they thought I was the coolest for feeding them a lunchable...

and what made it even better is that we took our lunchables to Frying Pan Farm and had a picnic there.

Brielle was not too fond of the mama goat, because she had a 'goatie' and she insisted it couldn't be the mom, it 'had' to be the dad because it had a goatie.

They had a bunch of babies at the farm, they were so cute!

That mama pig was HUGE! and the little piglets so stinky but adorable!

We walked around for a while. The ducks were very friendly. We found some of our favorite people, Alisha, Geneveive and Emory at the farm.

I LOVE your smile Alisha!:)

The kids had a fun time with the tractors as always.

The weather was perfect and the little baby animals were adorable!

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We have been enjoying some beautiful spring days around here. It makes me so happy to be outside...and my kids love it too. One day, Braden took his car track and played and played forever.

We watched our little friend Lilly twice last week.

My kids always have such a fun time with Lilly, she is the sweetest little girl.

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Scottie got done with his Pediatrics rotation on Friday! Woo hoo!

One more rotation and he will be a fourth year!

It's always so nice to have my husband home and mostly stress-free...

although...here comes confession #2:

He was on-call like 4 times the last 3 weeks. He hadn't been on-call for a while and I had forgotten how much I DO NOT like it when he's on-call because that means we don't see him for over 24 hours.

It made me so scared for what is to come during his first year of residency!

I guess, for now, I just have to enjoy the moment...and that means that I will have him for a whole week this coming week for spring break!

I love how much laughter there is when Scott is around...he's always teasing or tickling the kids...and they both LOVE it! They call him the Tickle Monster!

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This little girl is becoming such a good helper. I love it that she and Braden can clean their bedrooms all by themselves. Brielle's is the one that is usually a wreck! But now, all I have to do is ask her to clean it and she will!

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...this photo is just a random one from last week, that I just have to post because that tree in the background is just amazing!

A few more confessions:

confession #3- I bought my very first pair of maternity jeans the other day! and can I just say how comfortable they are! I don't know what I was thinking when I was pregnant with Brielle and Braden.

confession#4-I have been eating way too much candy lately! All of these holidays, become just an excuse to eat all of that refined sugar...but it just all tastes so good.

I discovered Peeps dipped in chocolate...so good! Talk about refined sugar at its best!:)

Spring is here!