Due for a Little Fun

These poor kids...with me feeling so crappy so much of the time we've been stuck doing a whole lot of nothing lately. I've felt bad about it, we used to do so much more fun stuff together. When I feel like I can deal we've made a few trips to the mall to play, things like that. But for the most part we've watched more TV than normal and Mommy's laid around a lot more than usual.

But yesterday I had it in me to take the boys to play at the indoor play area at the rec center. We hadn't been there in awhile. Only problem was, we were waiting on the painter. I was told he'd be here "Thursday afternoon". At 4:10 I decided to call the contractor and be all, "What time does 'afternoon' mean?" 'cause we wanted to go. Never heard back so at 4:45 I put a note on the door and the boys and I took off. Well, of course I passed the painter on the road so I had to make a U-turn, leave the boys sitting in the car in the garage and come let the dude in. He was like, "Perfect timing!" Uhhhh, no.

Then, finally, we were able to go to the rec center for a bit. We didn't get to play too long but the boys were great sports about it all. I've been really proud of them and how they're handling my recent sluggishness. The reason we didn't have too long to play is that we were meeting Jason for dinner later. I joined a bunch of restaurant email and birthday clubs with my junk mail account recently and we got a coupon for "come in with this email and who knows what you'll win..." So we did.

We went to Famous Dave's and handed over the coupon...apparently we got a big ol' platter of ribs for free. It would've cost $23!!! Now, I don't eat meat on a bone because I don't know how...so I wasn't going to do the ribs but Jason was willing...heck, it was free. So we dug in to our meals, most of the meat was quite fatty for our tastes so I don't know that we'll go back but it was okay while we were there. I don't know why we ordered the boys anything. They ate all our sides instead: cornbread, corn on the cob...and just a few measly bites of their shared french fries and macaroni. Goobers. We were pleased to see Easton trying and enjoying the various barbeque sauces.

There was a giant costumed pig walking around. Easton loved it and was excited anytime it came by. Dalton, not as much, however at one point he even high-fived it all on his own, we were paying attention to our meat! We were so excited though. He told us, "I did it!!! I brave." He's getting bigger.

This morning the boys and I had more fun on our agenda. We quickly ran to the grocery store for breakfast food (in their jammies). They each brought along a K'nex creation Easton made each of them this morning while I was getting ready. He made Dalton a magic wand:

Apparently D turned his brother into a cow and Easton kept mooing and asking us to switch him back.

Then when he was Easton again he showed off his fancy water hose thing:


We came home to eat and then I told them about the fun morning plans we had: The Children's Museum!!! We hadn't been there in a long time. Our membership expired at the beginning of the year and we hadn't been since sometime before that. So they were excited. Easton packed up his Curious George with a bottle of milk to have on the way:

For the record, my car seat savvy friends, Easton was not allowed to keep George like that. :)

We got to the museum and first stop was the fire truck:






Till the fire truck got slammed with a gigantic crowd of way too old field trippers rudely pushing my kids all out of the way...sitting on Easton in the driver's seat! He was mad. I wasn't my happiest either but I suggested loudly that we move on to somewhere where there was less big kids.

We headed upstairs for a bit to the "ant hill" area where Easton likes to wear costumes and Dalton decided to sit and color instead:


However, I quickly realized we'd lost Curious George somewhere. We went right back to the fire truck and Easton looked to no avail. So we checked with the desk, looked around upstairs, and then I sent E back to the fire truck and told him where to look specifically. He found George. Whew. He was pretty upset for a bit and scolded George for hiding from him.

I let Dalton pick what to do next and he picked basketball and so they did that for a bit and then D sat to color again:


E joined him after a bit:


It has always amused us that Easton prefers to hold his writing utensils like this, even at age 4 (he'll fix it if you tell him to):


While Dalton has always preferred to hold things correctly already:

(And heck no, Dalton didn't color in those spots himself. He found the paper that way.)

Next we moved on to the train tables:




Some painting:


Easton's was a true self-portrait, he painted himself holding a paintbrush:


No idea what Dalton made:


Then it was on to the puppet theatre:








And the dress-up area nearby:


E had me dress up too...Dalton was playing at the magnet wall nearby:


Our last stop was the grocery store/kitchen. I think Dalton is trying to tell me something with his cart overflowing with groceries:

That's how badly I need to go to the store...we plan for this afternoon after quiet time and nap.

While Diddles shopped, Easton busied himself in the kitchen cooking up a fantastic strawberry soup:


Then we called it a day. As we were leaving Easton volunteered, "I had so much fun at the museum today" and later, "I'm sorry I lost George". Awwww. My sweet boy. I hope I continue to feel up to taking them to do fun stuff again and again. They're my little guys.

That was our fun evening yesterday and morning today. Thanks for tuning in!