Farmhouse weekend {with two cranky kiddos}

E returned from Japan last week and decided to take a four day weekend to compensate for being away Memorial Day weekend. We had grand plans, a hike, a pool date, and an overnight stay at the farmhouse.

The pool didn't happen as the weekend started out quite chilly, and a hike wasn't in the cards either (soon though, I hope!). The farmhouse was something we really wanted to do after having so much luck on our previous two trips in March and April (Zion and Las Vegas).

However, luck was not with us on our little overnight jaunt.

Yes these pictures look happy enough. And there were plenty of wonderful moments, but there were lots of very difficult moments as well.

I won't go into details, but neither kiddo was well behaved at all. Sure, there are plenty of smiles above, but trust me when I say, E and I were about to lose our minds.

The majority of the overnight stay looked like this. Juliet crying out of frustration, not getting her way, and teething. James in the background playing it cool until he wasn't playing it cool and acted out.

But thank goodness I brought my camera, because looking back on these photos makes me forget how overwhelmed I was feeling.

Seriously, how could I possibly be mad at this face? (He was being a terror, I tell ya!)

We cooked on the BBQ outside and decided to eat on the front porch. I wanted a photo so badly. I remember we were both mad at James at this point, and I love that the only photo I have of dinner is E giving James a very stern "stay where we told you and eat your dinner" face.

I don't know what we were thinking, but I was hell bent on an after dinner drive to enjoy golden hour.

We drove a mile down the little curved dirt road and up onto a hillside with one of our favorite views.

We threw dirt balls into the irrigation ditch and tried to enjoy the moment.

It is just spectacular.

Finally, we loaded up the kids, brought them back to the farmhouse, had a disaster of a bath (and I so wanted a photo of both of them in the huge farmhouse tub) and put them to bed. James was up for quite some time more, but at least he wasn't crying.

The next morning everyone was tired. E "slept" next to James, while I "slept" next to Juliet. I was zombie like when both kids were awake at 6:15 am.

But, we made the best of it. We got some coffee, let the kids play in the dirt and talked about when we should head home. Originally our plan was to stay all day.

Juliet, however, wasn't feeling it. She was miserable. Canine teeth I think.

So we took a little morning walk, enjoyed the day before it got hot, Juliet alleviated some of the pain by chewing on some rocks and we discussed how we wanted the day to go.

We visited some horses and saw the barn.

Somehow Daddy eked another smile out of Fussy McGee here.

And then we packed up the car and headed home, still early in the day. When my sweet little happy snuggle bunny looks and feels like hell, and James is not showing kindness, we knew we'd been beat.

Farmhouse, we hope to see you soon.