Spring Break in review.

It's the Monday after spring break here and my family--adults and children alike--are an irritable, whining bunch today. The reasons for our collective surliness are easy to surmise: An Easter celebration that ran too late last night, and a lax sleep schedule for the last week has left us exhausted. Busy schedules this week full of joyless tasks like standardized tests and tagging clothes. The weather, as if echoing our funk, is rainy and peppered with fierce gusts of wind. (I sat at my kitchen table over coffee and watched our outdoor furniture and toys roll across our deck like tumbleweeds--good thing it's all cheap tacky plastic stuff.) But mostly I think we're just grumpy because we had a really great spring break. Happiness hangovers; the surefire way to get the blues.

So, in an effort to concentrate on the positive of the week that passed and not the drudgery--dramatic, much?--of the week to come, here's an overview.

The first part of the week we traveled a couple hours away to see our cousins. To say that The Littles love their cousins would be putting it mildly. Undying devotion would be closer to the truth.


Here they are altogether. (cousins are in the middle. Boo & Pepper on the outside) I find this picture absurdly cute.

While there, we went to the zoo.

Boo liked the creepy crawly things and the giraffes.



Pepper's favorite animal seemed to be the goats.


And Anne liked the Flamingos. Anne also declined to be photographed will all her wee cousins.



My favorite animal was, by far, this baby gorilla, Bob.

How adorably ugly is he? By the end of our trip I was seriously contemplating exchanging Bob for one of my children. The one that wouldn't stop pitching fits. I'll give you a hint: She's not potty trained either.

After we returned home our week was a whirlwind of playdates, sleepovers, jumpy places, dyeing eggs, birthday parties, Sunday School Parties, movies, parks and Easter egg hunts. In short, I took every activity I normally deprive my children of and squeezed them into, like, four days. I figure I am good on special outings/activities for months now.

Then yesterday was, as you know, Easter. Which is a whole other slew of pictures. And since obviously I need all the blog fodder I can get, I am saving those for a separate post.

It turns out this post was a pretty decent cure for my happiness hangover, after all. Blogging and the nap I am about to go take means I have officially returned to my regular schedule of sloth and procrastination.

No wonder the kids are depressed.