HIDE AND SEEK

Bedtime is always a little bit of the best and worst in our family.  For some reason some nights it is all roses and the kids listen and obey with absolute clarity.  Then other nights I am questioning if they EVER listen and wonder if maybe I need to get their ears checked or maybe I need to yell....not that I would EVER raise my voice.   We usually turn on a little music and work together until the kitchen is clean.  Each of the kids has a special job.  Kaden is the best loader in the west.  Taylor is queen of the counters, table and putting away all the food.  Tanner is the water bottle man - he refills the water bottles that we go through every day.  Alexis is the "Jill of all trades".  She runs things back and forth and cleans the family room.  Once that is all done (it could be 15 minutes or 2 hours depending on the night and the open ears) then the kids go back and shower.  While they are back showering there is blessed silence for a few minutes.  Well, this particular night the silence I was waiting for didn't come.  I kept hearing giggling back and forth and wondered if anyone was getting clean.  I finally went back there to see what the commotion was about and Kaden quickly stopped me before I hit the playroom and told me that they wanted to play hide and seek.  He said that Tanner was hiding somewhere in the playroom.  I checked all around and stalled a little bit to make it more fun but then after a few minutes I couldn't find him in all the obvious places.  Then I started looking in the least likely places and started to get a little confused.  Maybe they were tricking me....maybe he was really in his room.  Then from the corner of my eye I saw some movement from the corner stuffed animal bucket and I saw what you will see below.....

SURPRISE!

He had such a blast tricking me

Then they had me leave a room and Kaden hid.  I did take a few minutes to "try" to find him until I checked the stuffed animal bucket again.

Big surprise!

Then Callen wanted to get into the action.  He loves to hug Kaden.  He isn't as free with his hugs to the rest of us.  He mostly saves his hugs for Trav and Kaden.  He loves to say "awwwww" and lay his head down.  As soon as I put Callen on top of the boys he immediately hugged Kaden and kept doing it over and over again.

My boys...

All in all, the kitchen did end up being clean, the boys did get showered and finally ended up in bed.  It was a lot later than I planned and not as clean as I would like in my perfect world but it was a great moment worth capturing as I saw my boys being creative, funny,  silly, and adorable - not that I am in any way biased.  :)