whew.... we made it!

Weekends are tough when I'm single-parenting it, but long, holiday weekends are even worse! But, it's Sunday night and the kids are in bed, so it looks like we've made it!

I forgot to post this the other day....
Jeff felt bad about having to be out of town (ummmm... country) over the 4th, so he sent us this package. It had candy, popcorn, blockbuster gift card and some little "popper" type firecrackers. The kids loved it!

We didn't do much of anything on the 4th. I asked the kids the open ended question of "what do you want to do today" and they both agreed that what they wanted to do was to get their science project kits out and play with them on the back deck. Well.... sure. I had thought we might join our friends at the beach for a barbecue but apparently, they just wanted to stay home and experiment. They experimented for FOUR hours! I no longer have any white vinegar nor any baking soda.... but I'm not complaining.

Yesterday we decided to use our gift certificate so we walked to the closest Blockbuster. It was Clara's movie pick and she was dead set on getting Barbie as the Island Princess not my first pick, nor Alex's but it was what she wanted. I also let them pick out a wii game to rent as well. After Blockbuster, we grabbed lunch and headed home. We passed the park on our way, so I asked if they wanted to stop and play.... they did and they lasted about 2 hours which was great! Once back home they exhausted my stash of craft projects... then it was dinner and movie time. Honestly, the movie really wasn't bad. I actually managed to sit through the whole thing which doesn't happen often.

Today was cleaning day. We needed to pick up the house plus fold and put away a bunch of laundry. I told them that we needed to clean, put away laundry, and play outside before we could play the wii game we rented. They agreed to this arrangement :-)

Here are some pics from our trip to the park...
Let me just give you some background on Clara's outfit. We have had both the shirt and shorts since March when I did some shopping for our Hawaii trip while visiting my parents in Missouri. They were not purchased as an outfit. The shorts did not go to Hawaii because we had no shirt to match. I loved the shorts and hated to see them left to rot in her dresser drawer, so while in Missouri last month my mom and I went on a mission one day to find Clara a shirt to match the shorts. We ended up finding two that we really liked, and that Clara really liked. When we got home from Missouri, Clara tries on her new outfit and declares the shorts too small and puts them in the give-away pile. I was sad, but the shirts we got were really cute and went well with other shorts and skirts. Fast-forward to yesterday.... while walking to Blockbuster, we pass a girl on a bike who was about Clara's age and guess what she was wearing? Yep.... the same pink striped tank top and pink print shorts that Clara has on in the pic above. So, this morning she miraculously discovered that the pink shorts do still fit and wore them, not with the shirts my mom and I bought, but with the pink tank top we have had all along... sigh.

Okay... back to the park pics! Clara brought her bitty baby, Lauren along...
They also decided to play a game they called "Queen/King of the Licorice Tower"....
... which got ugly at times...
Apparently the whole point was for the King or Queen to block the path of the other person so they could not get through... I thought there was going to be a brawl at one point.

Then they discovered the big map of the USA...
and asked me to call out the names of states so they could find them.

Here they've found Oklahoma!
It was hot and since we had been out over an hour and they were beginning to turn quite red, we came home and played our game. After that... dinner and bed.

And tomorrow is Monday.... and back to our usual routine! :-)

'nite!