Lots of Whining and a Fallen Tree

Look at this face--

Who would ever think that this face could cause me mental exhaustion??

Today was just one of those days.  The older kids were great great great.  Evie, on the other hand, had her own agenda.  She's in a whiny/clingy phase right now....she wants things, but doesn't have all the words...she needs to have me around a lot, especially for bedtime.  (If you watched the most recent episode of Modern Family, I am Evie's "Cameron" and Evie is my "Lily.")  It's been pretty exhausting because she won't let anyone else put her to bed except for me.  She just screams and bawls about it until I show up.  It's weird because she does go off to play on her own when we're out and when we're at home, but once she's cranky or tired, then it's just magnified.  So today she decided to only nap for 1 hour and everything went downhill after that.  Evie was literally climbing all over me, pulling at my shorts, smashing her face into my shoulder and leg...and during all of this she was just whining and crying the WHOLE TIME.  I had to listen to this constant whine for over 2 1/2 hours before B finally walked in the door.  It was such a relief to have another hand! (I seriously almost tossed him Evie as he walked through that door.)  

But it really wasn't the worst day overall.  The kids had the day off from school for Rosh Hashanah so we had a PJ day at home.  We did lots of fun crafts, played games, read lots of books, and I even got to clean the kids' closets.  

One big (and random) thing that happened though was that we lost our tree in the backyard.  We've been having thunderstorms and strong winds, but we never thought it was so windy that our tree would get knocked down. What made it more strange was that it fell right when I happened to be looking toward the backyard for no apparent reason.  There was a big gust of wind and the tree...just...slowly....fell...to...the...ground.  The tree has definitely brought us grief because it attracts too many loud birds which leads to excessive amounts of bird poop that always needs to be cleaned off of our deck.  BUT it is one of the few large trees in the neighborhood, so we've cherished it for the shade it provides in our backyard and our living room.  So sad.  Elina was pretty devastated about it.  She asked me how we would ever find the same seed to grow this exact tree again.  Then she thought about it and realized it would take years and years to grow back.  Then she got sad because now she thinks no one will ever want to buy our house now that the big tree is gone.  Wow, talk about thinking things through, right??

This was definitely a day of random events!