Date Night and Playground.

Another weekend here and gone.  How is it that they fly by so fast?

About mid-week last week, I decided that I was desperate for a date night.  It's kind of a rare thing that I recognize I'd like to have a date night and then have the foresight to arrange for a babysitter ahead of time.  But last week, I did.  

Wouldn't you know it, though, that both of the girls we normally use to babysit were busy and couldn't do it?  RATS.

But, Aunt Ree came through for us.  God bless her.  

Saturday afternoon, we headed to the inside playground because Lily has been begging for two weeks to go and I pretty much ran out of excuses ("it's warm outside, just play outside;"  "It's bath night and we don't have time to go to the playground;" "You have a jumpy house in the backyard, we're not going to the inside playground!").

So, three revelations about the inside playground on this trip:

#1)  Tyler wanted to climb the Lucky Climber and Joel was with Lily (who had passed out in the car on the way to the playground) so it was all me climbing up there with him.  I did not want to.  I don't have good memories of climbing this thing.  See, the last time I climbed this, I was probably 80+ pounds heavier than I am right now.  And it was hard.  And I was scared the whole time that I would be the straw that broke it's back and the whole thing would come crashing down and there would be some headline like, "Obese Mom climbs jungle gym intended for 5-12 year-olds.  Tragic toppling takes lives." But this time..... up and up and up and up we went.  And it wasn't hard (well it wasn't THAT hard, but I was wearing platform wedge sandals which significantly added to the degree of difficulty).  I almost cried tears of joy (instead of tears of panic) when we got to the part where you have like a 15" space to wriggle through and I did it with no problem. 

#2)  The kids are old enough that we don't have to be glued to their sides the whole time!  What!?  The kids could just run around and we could sit one spot and just keep an eye on them.  It.  Was.  Awesome.  I might (MIGHT) be more inclined to take them more often now that it's so easy for me.  Ha!

#3)  These kids are freakin cute.  For some goofball reason, Lily starting running around with "dog ears."  No clue why.  But then Tyler followed suit.  He was following right behind her, doing whatever she was doing.  When she gets a little older and can understand the kind of influence she can have on her brother, I will have to show her this picture.  "See Lily.  Tyler watches you.  He does what you do.  You have to set a good example.  No partying all night!"

With all the running around at the playground, the kiddos were thirsty and Lily was begging for an icee.  But I thought it best not to get the kiddos hyped up on sugar and then leave them with their Aunt.  So instead, I asked Lily if she wanted a smoothie.  It was dinner time anyway so I figured a smoothie and some french fries should about do the trick.  Fruits.  Vegetables.  Covered.

 

When we dropped the kiddos off at Josh and Marie's, Joel handed Tyler to Kjestine and told her to hang on tight cause Tyler was going to scream.  And he did, but we're told that only lasted about 30 seconds before he was distracted and on to having a grand old time.  

Joel and I proceeded to head to Buffalo Wild Wings for our date night dinner.  We had a $50 gift certificate and managed to eat ourselves stupid trying to use it all up.  We haven't been to BW3s since I went on the diet so there wasn't a very good chance we'd be going back any time soon.  

After dinner, we headed on over to Walmart.  Cause that's what parents do when they have a babysitter.  We then proceeded to review and discuss various electric toothbrush choices for like 20 minutes.  We've been talking about getting new ones for probably 6 months.  Yeah, we still didn't buy any.  I have commitment issues.  

After that we went ahead and picked up the kids cause we pretty much had no where else to go and nothing else to do.  We are that kind of exciting.  When we picked them up, they were sufficiently spoiled by their Aunt and cousins and rotten as can be.  And they were clean!  Bonus bath night.  

Both kiddos were passed out not long after we got them in the car.  As we pulled in to the neighborhood, I was commenting to Joel that I wished we had the kind of kids that would sleep through being taken out of their car seats and just go straight to bed.  Do not read a story.  Do not brush teeth.  Usually they wake up enough when getting out of the car that we don't get around completing the entire routine. 

Well my wish was granted because both kids went straight to bed!  Bonus BONUS!

Saturday, with the help of some friends, we put a playset in the backyard.  One of my previous coworkers, who lives down the road, had a playset in his back yard that hasn't gotten much use in a while.  His daughter is like a sophomore or junior in college.  So we loaded it up and moved it on over.   The kiddos were pretty excited.