The Train Table, Shana's birthday and a very long(nice) weekend!

When I decided to purchase a train table for my kids I envisioned hrs of creative play.
What I've actually got here is another excuse for my children to:
make a huge mess(and not that kind of mess that follows good playtime)
hit, kick, pinch and push over who gets which train or who had which track
Obnoxious noise of all sorts, including but not limited to:
*banging the tracks against the top and sides or even just together
*crawling under and raising their backs up so the top raises up and then falls also displacing any scene previously or currently being created.
*crying, yelling and screaming from the child who was victim to the above act
I could go on, really I could but I think I've made my point.
******************************************************** Shana turned 30 on the 2nd. WooWooo! Happy birthday!
Anyone who knows Shana knows she's been "talking" about getting a new car for as long as anyone can remember. A few years ago she began telling everyone that she would buy a new car for her 30th birthday. But when your Shana buying a new car isn't as simple as going to a dealership driving a handful of cars you've been eyeing and you know, buying one. She's spent the past 2 years researching cars, creating spread sheets, and other odd charts listing the features and cross comparing them in every imaginable way. She narrowed it down to three cars....
Volvo S40
Acura TSX
Jetta TDI
and the winner is:
She can give us all her reasons, but those of you who know her know she really ONLY bought the TDI because it made it all so much more involved. Those of you who DO know her who are reading are laughing, and those of you who don't might think I sound bitchy. Here's the deal. She COULD have bought either the Volvo OR the TSX at any number of local dealers, brand new selecting any features she could dream of, stereo system paint color, etc. BUT with the TDI she had no choice but to find a preowned as here in California it needs to have a min of 7K miles on to pass emissions and they are very hard to come by. After combing the country she ended up finding about 16 cars that she could choose from. *I* yes *I* ended up deciding for her, I seriously couldn't live with her anymore until she just got it over with and picked one. She would talk about this one or that one but there was always a "but" I knew that initially she really wanted the blue one, and I noticed on her list there was ablue one in Arizona. I sent her an AIM online and told her she was going to Arizona to pick up her new car and asked her for our credit card #. BEFORE she had a chance to change her mind I booked her a flight and a hotel room for the *next* day, lol. The whole drive to the airport she was second guessing if this was "the one" and I told her it would be "the one" because it would be the one she was buying because I was DONE talking about CARS!
Well she went, and she got it and she LOVED it...Well she still loves it--but how SAD is it that she got rear ended before she even left the state? The assessor will be out tomorrow to give her an appraisal. It doesn't "look" too bad.....

hopefully it'll be fixed soon.
******************************************************** SO onto the rest of the weekend...
We live up a mountain pass(the 15N-Cajon Pass) and its been closed for construction from like Friday night to Monday morning for several weeks now. Saturday I had to take Shana to the airport. They were working on the north bound so it didn't affect our drive down so much, it just meant I couldn't get home. SO, I decided to take the kids to Disney Land. Crazy? Me? Nah... I did have Raechelle with me so I wasn't completely on my own with all 4kids, but enough that I now know I can go it alone with them(and plan to regularly as I got season passes, yay!) We had a blast and Raechelle took all the pictures so hopefully she'll blog about it soon.
Sunday I took the kids to get their Xmas pictures done at Picture People. I LOVE them and think they turned out SO great! Unfortunately T wasn't into the whole group photo idea, so I didn't get a single one with all 4 kids. I did however get an AWESOME picture of Olivia and J and that's the pic I used for the Christmas card, and Im including wallets of T and A with it.
Raechelle and Maggie had to leave before we were done, so me and the kids just hung out at Victoria Gardens. I changed them into some play clothes and we danced to the live music, had dinner at Mongolian BBQ and then played on the play structure for about an hr or so. I had promised the kids icecream during the photo session so we went over to McDonald's and got cones before attempting the drive home. I knew it would be bad, but really I had no idea HOW bad. It didn't take me too long to figure out just how bad, and it took me no time atall once I did to decide which hotel we would be staying at. I was nervous for about a split second(just about being a young mom going alone into a hotel with 4kids ages 3 and under at 10pm) but it worked out fine, and the thought of 4+hrs in the car with all of them was even more frightening to me. The hotel ended up being not so nice, but when your used to only staying in 4star hotels(thank you priceline) what could I expect? We watched a little TV and were asleep within a hr of arriving.
This morning all the kids were in such great moods I thought seriously about taking them to California Adventure for a few hrs, but decided to take them out to breakfast and then just head home. I really REALLY enjoy my time alone with my kids. When we are away from the house and its just me and them. Something about them changes, and I suspect that's ME. I think that when Im around other ppl, such as my mom or even Shana I expect that it will somehow be easier or that it wouldn't be stressful because the adult-to-kid ratio is somewhat more balanced. But really I think those expectations just lead to my frustration when things don't go how I *think* they should. When Im on my own and its just me and my kids I know I cant rely on anyone else and somehow I do it on my own with much more efficiency and less headache. We laugh more and really just enjoy our time more. I need to work on changing my attitude when its me and Shana and my mom and the kids. Its almost like the kids act out more because they don't know who's expectations or rules to follow, and while I know we all try to be consistent its not always possible to do everything the same way. Its like the difference between having one Alfa in a pack of wild dogs and having 3 alfa's. It creates chaos and stress. Again, I need to think about how I can change that. I would love for our family time to go as smoothly and stress-free as my solo time with them.