I thought about so many options of what this day could entail, and finally settled on these ideas.
Bubbles, Welcome Home chalk sign, Ice cream, Squirt guns, Camping in the tent in the back yard, S'mores after dinner and HUGS!!!
Weston (my 6 year old, who I home schooled for Kindergarten) and I Planned this out and eagerly prepped everything to be as close to perfect as possible.
We mowed the lawn, watered it (so it would be dry for the tent going up in the evening) wrote out the welcome home message, shopped for the other items and eagerly awaited the kids arrival home from school.
Although the kids had many responsibility that they had neglected from yesterday and that morning, I didn't want to greet them with frustration or demands of what needed done. So I planned out to have 2 hours of Play with them, then we we focus on what needed to be taken care of and daily chores. We Play, Hugged, ate Ice Cream, Drew chalk pictures and Laughed together for about 30 minutes, then THINGS took a Down Turn Fast!!! :( 
My oldest son battles ADHD, Depression and Anxiety. Most of the time people don't see it from the outside looking in, as he is pretty well behaved in public settings. But when he is in his Safe, Comfortable zones he has bad flare ups and it's so awful to watch and try to help and NOT know how to. Something that may have worked 3 days ago doesn't this time. It's always a game of trial and error and sometimes what we try to calm him with sets him off worse.
He asked to do something that I had previously told him NO to. He became defiant and did it anyway.
At this point in my pregnancy I physically can't stop him any more from doing things. So I tried to just be calm about it and allowed him to do it, he said he would only do it for 15 minutes and then he would join the kids and I back playing outside.
Instead he broke what he was working on and got super angry and then refused to join us and became angry and saying hurtful things to his siblings and I.
When I asked him to stop and change his attitude because I didn't want this day to be ruined, it of course set him off and he became physical and throwing things and talking about wanting to die and the horrible mom I am and miserable life he lives, etc....
Honestly it Breaks my heart, to hear those words, see his actions and not understand WHY he can't see the goodness around him, and rather only the few negative things that are completely clouding his judgement.
So this went on for about an hour. He finally began to calm down, and just went back to trying to fix the thing he was working on that broke. Since I was out of energy I just let him do it.
Then as we had discussed our two hours of play time were up and we needed to move on to chores and other stuff.
Well he didn't want to do that AT ALL, and made it very clear to me that he didn't plan too. I asked him so kindly and tried to bribe him, and he finally did, very grudgingly.
Folks remember trying to handle Pregnancy Emotions and exhaustion on top of parenting two other kiddos through all this seriously takes a Toll on ones emotions and physically drive.
Any who, I wont' go on and on, but finally around 5 hours later (after we gave him his prescribed Anti-Anxiety emergency back up pill) he calmed down enough to eat dinner with us and then go outside and help in the yard a little getting the tent set up and things situated for wrapping up the evening. The meds ended up knocking him out around 8pm in the middle of the lawn last night, while the rest of us were sitting around talking.
But I wasn't going to let that mess up the plans we had made for the other two kiddos, so once he was out and we helped him to his bed we proceeded with our evening plans of s'mores and camping. (making S'mores in the oven on broil for 2 minutes, then adding chocolate and the top graham cracker, brilliant. you can get several done at once, and no smoke smell in your hair and clothes)
Over all we did make some Great memories and I know this kids will remember the day we had together, I just hope they remember more of the good than the bad.So why did I take the time to type this all up and share with YOU???
Because I am a huge Believer in Finding the Good in everything, in taking what could be Horrible and finding Joy through it.
And often times that makes my life come across to others as Simple, Fun, very few trials. But I want you to always Remember God provides us with Trials to help us Grow, Learn and Become Strong and I have plenty of them!!!
There will ALWAYS be Trials, if we look at our life from the negatives rather than the positives, we will be Depressed, Stressed, Unhappy and always Comparing ourselves to others "Perfect, Easy, Wonderful" lives. Which just isn't Realistic.
I challenge you (maybe even plead with you) to Search every day for the Positive things in life, no matter how small. Allow each day to be a WIN, and learn from the Trials that you are going through.
Don't get Crushed by them, that's no life to live at all.
