A Date With a Crazy Driver

Sorry for so much blah blah blah the last few days.  Time for some silent photos soon.

So....my kids are keeping me honest now that they have discovered I scheduled dates with them on my calendar (back when I worked on organization...I have one child scheduled for a date each month, so they'll get one every 4 months-ish).  Friday I was able to go out with my oldest son to a local boy heaven-- it had laser tag, arcades, go karts, and bowling under one roof (I happened to have some credits there from a couple of years ago, oops).  We did a couple of arcade games first; he had a good laugh at my terrible target shooting and I was duly impressed by his.  We also sat in some kind of motion simulator (only for him, let me tell you, I usually hate those things) and got our brains jiggled out against the jittery yellow vinyl backed seats, as we catapulted through a "haunted" mine.

Then he decided we should earn some tickets.  So we tried shooting some hoops, whereupon I introduced him to some good old fashioned "Skee-ball."  (best way to earn tickets, in my mind)  He liked it so much we used up the rest of the allowance on our cards and disappointedly tried to push the yellow button even though we knew we had no money left (just in case?).  He did eventually redeem our tickets for a couple super cheap plastic spiders to give his sisters when we got home.

Next up, laser tag.  Who knew how fun laser tag could be?  It was the two of us, a middle aged couple and their princess daughters (probably 5 and 7?), their son, and the acne-ridden guy who worked there (without him, lets just say....we'd have been annihilated  against a whole big group of twelve year-old boys.  It was so fun sneaking through the neon black darkness, hiding behind pillars, running, dodging, and trying to shoot the glowing vests of the deviously evil boys on the other team.  :) 

Then we visited the bowling alley.  On the way there, we laughed about my adventures in bowling as a twenty something, when I got three strikes in a row, impressing all the boys in the process (no one more surprised than myself), and then proceeded to bowl nearly straight gutter balls the rest of the game.  Lol.  I had a near repeat of this experience, in different sequence, as I'd bowl a strike and then a couple of gutter balls, etc.  He had a good laugh about that, though he often remained good naturedly concerned as he watched some of my shots veer toward the gutter, right until my ball was sucked silently into the bowling abyss.  He did pretty well himself, and we had a good laugh in a virtually empty bowling alley filled with eighties music.

Last of all, we went outside in stinging winter air to try out the go-karts, my son's favorite.  He offered to drive, and I got to be the giddy passenger.  He had been sharing his go kart driving exploits from a friends birthday party all weekend, so I was all prepared for some crazy driving.  And boy was it crazy!  He is normally pretty mild mannered, but he was aggressive in that machine, keeping the pedal to the metal all the way around the tight corners (I noticed his neck had some purplish marks from the seat belt for a couple of days afterward), and as I white knuckled a bit when he tried to pass some other swerving cars driven by boys of similar age.  I think I laughed most the way.  It was pretty fun, minus breathing in some heavy fumes between breath holding.

I love letting the outer adult go in times like these and remembering how it felt to be a kid.  Especially since my kids just seem to eat it up when I act like a kid with them for a bit.  And also letting the child I'm with lead the play.  Fun for both of us.

He thanked me a lot of times for our little "date."  That night, he curled up on my bed and said "Mom, I want to ask you something."  We ended up having a heart to heart conversation.

Have a wonderful weekend!  I will miss you, friends!  Goals next week, because I'm feeling lazy right now.  :)  Love to all.

Hodgepodge Weekend

Here is a patchwork of random photos from our weekend.  One week before this, I had been so sick and miserable and had a lot to do as part of my new responsibilities with our local children's group.  I was operating in survival mode on just two hours sleep one night and four the next, with no naps in between, thanks to a nasty cough and sinus infection.  So this weekend seemed heavenly!  My husband and I missed my cousin's wedding because of some crazy weather, but it also meant that an opportunity opened up for us to attend his fancy work party, held in the ballroom of my favorite hotel of all time.  I've had a dress for years now (I wore it the night we got engaged, if that tells you something...speaking of fashion, check out this cute swimming suit, I'm in love I tell you) that I've wanted an opportunity to wear to something!  And I finally got a chance. Even if it is probably a little old-fashioned by now.   And even if I could. Not. Zip it up.

And, miracle of miracles, we didn't take the baby!  He stayed with a babysitter -- whom my son announced received "5 stars" --when we got home. :)

 I love watching the older siblings love on the little ones.  This boy is especially cute with little ones!  Lets hope he didn't hear me say that-- he is starting to reject words like "cute."

We got a TON of snow.  But I love how the world looks after a fresh snow.  Especially the way the snow clings in delicate lacy white clusters to all the branches of the trees.

On Sunday night, a few of the kids filled my tub so full it was like a swimming pool.  In honor of the occasion they wore their suits, broke out the goggles, and left swimming pool-like trails of water in my bathroom.  On the other side of the room, the two who were not "swimming" were having a pillow fight.  Only one of the pillow fighters was pretending to be a pony.

 Half church and half to bed.

 And we practiced some spelling bee words.

 The baby tub I just can't bring myself to put into storage in our basement.

 I heard a pitter-patter of feet late one night.  After a few minutes I went to check on those little feet and found this.  Snuggled up under the new blanket I made.  Thanks to some surprise help from my sister, my house was actually clean!  It was so nice!  On Saturday I was able to go to the basement and finish some projects and put away the sewing machine after a few weeks of not being able to get to it.

 Project number one is the pillow case in black.  Not as hard as I thought!  Project number two-- the blanket.

Thanks for being patient with my Photoshop ADD today. :)

What a great weekend.  

Date Night

We've been enjoying our twice monthly dates since the first month of my project (idea is to work on collateral areas that affect our parenting and give us a little breather here and there so we can work harder on being good parents when we are around).  Only, we still take the baby.  See what we did on this date:



Ha ha.  Maybe we should consider starting to leave him home.  He is just in that separation anxiety phase, which I don't want to do to anyone, and he is so easy to bring along. 

  (Sorry... I couldn't resist....this ad made me laugh!  All the models announcing the coming of a new store really look enthusiastic-- as the sign says  "we can't wait either!"  -- I'd hate to see them when they weren't excited.  Ha ha)

Anything special you like to do on dates with your significant other?