Reason #1 and #2...

...why I love being a teacher--Spring Break week 1 and Spring Break week 2!

At the beginning of the year, I always think, "Why do we have two weeks spring break?  Just keep it at one and get out a week earlier."  It isn't until Spring Break arrives that I realize the true beauty of a two week vacation from school--it's absolutely fabulous.  Last week was our first week back to the real world, but the memories of my break still linger in my mind to remind me that I can make it throught to summer time.

My spring break was a time to reflect needs vs wants.  I needed to clean my house, organized my life, seriously clean my car, plan what I'm going to teach my students, organize my classroom, clean my garage, etc...  Instead here are some pictures of the things that I wanted to do and did.

We went to a Easter Egg Hunt with some moms from church.  We each had to bring ten eggs so each kid would end of with ten.  By the looks of Bailey's basket, she made out with about three eggs.  She would open the egg, put the candy in her basket, and then throw the egg on the ground.  Why take the plastic, when all you want is the candy inside?

It was Brody's birthday party our first Friday of the break, so we went to help celebrate at Chuck E Cheese.  It was Bailey's first time, so I wasn't sure what expect.  I think her favorite part, besides seeing all of the Wilson Family, was hanging out on the stage with Chuck E Cheese.  She just wanted to stand up there and hold his hand.  Some kids think he's creepy, but I think Bailey has a crush on him.  I'm pretty sure she would have sat for hours on this ride with Kali; it moved around and jiggled a lot but she mostly loved sitting with Kali.

I went and got pedicures with my sistas!  I haven't had my toes painted in a really long time so it was nice to take a little time out from our day to hang out and do some girl stuff.

Sam and Tera (above) and Keri and Toni (below).

One day, my mom and I took Bailey on a tour of most of the parks in Vista.  We found, what we think, is the best one.  I think it's called the Optomist Park off of Lupine Hills.  It has good swings, two play areas, and a huge grass field.  When the twins came down, we took them to our new favorite park.

Bailey and Owen just swinging and making funny faces.

When Bailey had to share the swings, I took her on the big kid swings.  I thought it was fun to swing with her, but she just wanted to go back to the baby swings; she has a very one-track mind these days.

This is Bailey's happy place--the swings.

Keri made the girls' flower wreaths for their hair.  I think she was brainstorming ideas for her wedding--haha!

I love Kate's little tilt the head pose and Owen's crazy face!

I went to the Wild Animal Park with my friend Julie and her two kids one day.  We intended to see the butterflies, but the 90 minute line did not seem worth it.  Instead, Bailey tried to climb on the poor deer like it was a horse.

Their favorite part of the day was watching all of the birds and ducks eat.  Will showed Bailey how to stand up on the fence and I think her life was changed forever.  She now trieds to climb all fences to get a better look.

We also tried to feed the little birds, but they didn't want to eat much.  Instead Bailey just walked around holding the bird food and smiling.

One of the best parts of my break, was that it was sunny enough to go to the beach two days!  Bailey is a beach baby and we stayed five hours each day!  She loves the sand and this year she loves the water too.  Isn't her little bathing suit adorable?

It was so much fun to be a mom and have park dates and play dates and just hang out with Bailey.  We really did go the park almost every day. I also tried to catch up on Bailey's scrapbook--don't worry I'm only about a year behind.  I did make progress though and I'm almost done putting her first year of life into an album--I mean three albums.  It's a little out of control, but she's the first and she has an entire album of just her time in the hospital.  When all I could do was take pictures of her for two months while she was in there, I took a lot of pictures to fill the time.  One day I'll get it all done along with everything else on my To do list.  At the end of my two weeks of bliss, I decided that it is a lot more fun to do what you want to do instead of what you need to do.  Cleaning my house from top to bottom will eventually happen, but I won't always  be able to go to the beach with Bailey for five hours without a care in the world.  Goodbye Spring Break and hurry up summer!