Friday we kicked off our weekend by watching Gnomeo and Juliet before my friend Cande and her daughters came over for dinner and a wild and crazy playdate. I would have gotten pictures but really? No one stood still (or said a single word in another below a full on scream) for more than a second, except at dinner when I think they were stationary for five whole minutes. At one point Cande and I were sitting next to each other at the breakfast counter and we seriously could not hear each other. But....the kids had a blast together so what's a little short term hearing loss? :)
The next day was Saturday and I was itching to do something fun with the kids that got us out of the house. I finally settled on taking them to Big Al's, a bowling alley with a really great arcade. If you know anything about Kelton and Kaylen, you know it wasn't bowling they were after. :) I loaded their game cards with some money and set them free in the arcade while I sat nearby with a good book. I'm grateful they are old enough that I don't need to follow them around the whole time. They stay together, work together, pool their tickets and then share them when it's time to trade in tickets for prizes. It's great! I love how they run over to me to excitedly tell me that Kaylen hit the jackpot and the game spit out 1000 tickets. Being their mom is great!
After spending a couple hours out and about and having fun, we headed home and just kicked back and relaxed. Stephanie was here by then so the four of us watched TV together and just hung out.
Sunday was a big, big day. Stephanie left us to return back to her home office to get some more work done and the kids talked me into taking them to the Dollar Tree. After we went on our "shopping spree", we headed out to Stephanie's to spend the day in the country. Make no mistake about it - there is big fun to be found in the country.
Kelton was itching to try to drive the riding lawn mower so Stephanie pulled herself away from her work and gave him a lesson on driving the mower. Went over all the safety rules and then....Kelton was off! He was having such a great time - singing loudly as he drove around the property (the mower deck was up and disengaged so he was just driving it around, not mowing). I followed on his heels for a good long while and then, when I felt he was ready, I dropped back and then just stood in the field and watched him driving back and forth. One of those moments I will never forget.
While Kelton was driving around, Kaylen was earning money by pulling weeds for Stephanie. For some reason, it is Kaylen's preferred activity when we are out there and I have to say, she might be on to something. She earned a decent amount of dollars pulling bucket after bucket after bucket of weeds. Soon, she was wanting to drive the mower as well. The problem there is she is too short to reach all the pedals so Stephanie left her work again and came out to drive around with Kaylen for a while. Those were two very happy kids!
We left Stephanie to do more work and headed home for our evening and left Stephanie behond to work some more. The kids settled in to play a computer game together and I just vegged for a while. 9:00pm came soon enough and off to bed we all went.
Yesterday the kids had arts and crafts morning. Boxes were found and cut into robot outfits, cups were magically transformed into plant people and other things were created. The kitchen area was a big happy mess!
After lunch we headed back over to Stephanie's for more country fun. Kelton took a tour around in the mower again but I guess he had had his fill the day before because he was done within five minutes. I took Kaylen around the field and then went and parked it in the garage. We had a scavenger hunt, more weed pulling, coloring, snacks, the kids and a neighborhood dog went on an adventure together and then we just hung out and had kicked back fun. A while later, some friends of Stephanie's who had borrowed her excavator brought it back. The kids begged for a ride in it so one of the guys happily obliged. They both did great driving it with direction and had a great time!
I took them back home for dinner and baths (and I mowed the front lawn which I could finally do since the sun had been out and the grass was dry. I had mowed the back on Friday before the rain came back full force). The kids and I settled in to watch a Disney movie and then, at 8, it was off to bed for them. None of us wanted to weekend to be over but over it was.
Stephanie arrived around 10 and we spent a little time together before heading to bed ourselves. The alarm went off way too early and before I knew it, Stephanie was heading off to work and the kids were heading off to school. By 8:09am the house was silent. A strange feeling after such a crazy fun weekend. I got myself ready and started in on my To Do list.
Only two and a half weeks left of the school year. Amazing.
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