Taking a day off of being "a stay at home mom"

So after a day of complete chaos yesterday I decided today I was going to take the day off and just be "mom". I'm not sure where this overwhelming sense of 100% completed tasks, spotless houses, perfect children, Pinterest like life came to be, but I give up. Yesterday I spent the entire day doing laundry, cleaning and recleaning, raising my voice at the girls to get off the furniture, stay out of my room, take your toys downstairs, and finally spent nap time cleaning a poop filled basement--thank you Lilly. My newborn son cried almost all day just wanting to be held. Last night I said enough is enough and I told my husband I was just going to play with the girls today. And that is what we did :) all morning!

We made some "magic jello" they still think it's incredible that the powder turns orange when you add the water :))

We built a sweet fort…

We painted get well paintings for their cousins. I even painted a little something--don't be jealous of my art skills ;)

The girls showed me how to properly build a couch jumping pad and insisted that I jumped with them. So I did!! They thought it was absolutely hilarious!

I even tried being crafty and made them octopus hotdogs...they were a complete fail in my eyes, but you should have seen their faces light up with excitement when they saw them. And it was even okay to play with our food for lunch today!

They also built a "slide house" in the living room while we watched frozen.

I learned something today...my kids need me. They need me to be engaged in what they are doing. They need to see me laugh and have fun. They need to see that I'm not perfect and things arent perfect and that's ok. They need me to sit down and snuggle them while we watch a movie together instead of me looking at my phone while they watch a cartoon.



 They even helped me do a little cleaning. I wasn't about to let my house get completely out of order, but they helped with the dishes. They helped changed poopy diapers--don't forget about little man who poops every 5 seconds!
I don't want my kids growing up thinking that I'm always stressed out about the house being perfect, or that I always raise my voice, or that I just need them to go downstairs and play by themselves. I'm not a perfect mom, and I know I have responsibilities to keep my house in order, but I have decided that my first priority as a stay at home mom is to be just that- a mom. Not a house keeper. They are only little for so long and this crazy, messy season of life will be over in a blink of an eye. There is always laundry to be done, there is always dishes to be put away, but my littles will not be little forever. So for the mom who feels like she has to have it all together- since the common question for us stay at home moms is "what do you do all day?", take some time to just be mom and have fun playing with your kids :)