A SURPRISE Break!

My man comes home every day from a long workload, hoping for a good ten-minutes of peace and quiet to unwind. But is that what he gets?? Nope. Most of the time he comes in from the garage and walks right into...........a loud, crazy house, with kids jumping off the walls and ringing in his ears just to welcome him home. After all, they are bored with mom at this point and are extremely excited to get a chance to win over his attention. But don't you worry, I too, am fighting for a little of that attention. Which by the way, is usually accompanied by the longest "Hunny-do-list" you can imagine! After chasing these 5 kids of ours around all day, you bet I can think of 100 things that still need to be done!!

So one day, last week, I had an epiphany!!! He NEEDS a break!!! I literally woke up with this idea, called my sister to have her confirm my thoughts, and put it into action! With 5 kids, an idea as simple as this CAN and MAY take all day to prepare, in between juggling the 'normal' day-to-day stuff!

It was Wednesday, which happens to be the busiest day of our week. Dom knows that he CANNOT pick up any overtime at work that day because from the second he walks in the door, he has to take over the babies and I head out with the eldest in tow. I juggle the older girls between dance and gymnastics and he holds down the fort until our return! Needless to say, he probably has to mentally prepare for this day ALL WEEK!

This was the perfect day to surprise him!! The plan was to have his dinner ready for him to chow on from the moment he walked in the door. He wouldn't come home to a house full of his needy family because we would be gone. The movies would be set up along with his card, notifying him that the house would be his for the taking for at least the next 2 hours!

So during the morning I made time for a movie run! I am so happy for the newest form of vending machines: REDBOX! It was super easy to go to the website find a few flicks that were just his style and reserve them to be picked up by me, when I could find a minute! Thank You, Redbox!

Dominick's favorite drink is COKE, hands down! We usually have some on hand, but instead of storing it in the fridge (due to lack of space) we keep it in the pantry. So when he gets home he has to stick a bottle in the freezer to get it cold as quickly as possible. Well, today was not going to be that day..........I went ahead, made some space, and put one in the fridge early so that he could come home and quench his thirst right away!

I spent the afternoon preparing HIS favorite supper, Spaghetti with all the fixins'! I say that because he just LOVES my spaghetti sauce! It really is easy to make too! It is just a matter of simmering it for hours so that the flavor blends together perfectly!

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

1 lb of Ground Beef

1 16oz. can Tomato Sauce

1 16oz. can Italian Diced Tomatoes

1 clove Garlic

1 Tbls Sugar

1 tsp Basil

1 tsp Parsley

1 1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

A Dash Oregano

Red Pepper Flakes

Brown beef and garlic. Drain and return to pot. Add all other ingredients. Stir. Simmer for 2 hours. Wa-La and Bon Appetit!

On my way to pick up the kidlets from school is when I was able to pick the movies up. Let's face it, with three toddle-waddlers at home, it is a lot of work no matter what we're doing, so loading them up as least as possible is the goal! And since I needed to get them strapped in the car anyway, to pick up the older kids, this was my perfect opportunity!!!

Once we got home I had our two older girls help me come up with a poem for the inside of Dom's card. They also got really excited about what I was doing for Dad and created some fun things for him that we're personally from them. This is how the poem went:

I got everything done just in time........we sped out the door just minutes before he was due to arrive home!! Not 10 minutes later did my phone start ringing. I had my older girls answer it saying, "Surprise!" And quite the surprise it was. We had talked earlier that day, discussing how he needed to make sure he was home at 5 so we could do the usual Wednesday routine! Needless to say, it was everything but usual and he was very happy about having some unexpected downtime!