This week has given me a new appreciation of just how much energy my kids have.

Seriously, WHAT am I going to do this summer? Having all three kids home all day was a little intense.  Granted, I’ve been sick and my in-laws are living here, which always ramps up the chaos a bit, but OH MY GOODNESS, its been nuts. I’ve learned a few important lessons.

1. The Easy Bake Oven, despite having the name “Easy” in its name, was not as easy as one might guess. It claims to be for ages 8 and up, but it took my mother-in-law and I a good 12 hours to figure out how to get it to actually bake things. Everything kept coming out raw and we couldn’t figure out why. We have it now, but we were very confused for awhile. And of course, the kids LOVE it. I’m so glad I buy organic so that they can chow down on Easy Bake Oven treats. *gag*

2. You’d think they would be busy with their new toys instead of driving me nuts. Humph.

3. Our cats are going to be seriously depressed when we put the Christmas tree away. It has been their chief source of entertainment for the last month. I suspect we’ll be finding Christmas ornaments in random places for the next six months, based on the number of empty hooks hanging on the tree now. Its super festive. Notice how there are almost no ornaments on the bottom third of the tree…

4. Always ask for the next size up in clothes. I requested size 3T for Colin for Christmas. And that little stinker outgrew of all of his clothes the week before Christmas, so now I have to go exchange everything he got for size 4T.

5. Last night we went out on a date. (Gotta love free babysitting!!) We haven’t been on a date in forever – we must do this more.

6. Cats hate dogs. Nick’s brother brought their dog over on Christmas day and our cats fuh-REAKED out. It was a little hilarious. I don’t think they’ve ever even seen dogs before, but they were not amused. They spent most of the day hiding under our bed. The few times they saw the dog they tried to be scary, but ended up running away.  They were a little stressed out the next day.