December 30, 2013

(click here for today's pictures)

Mama, we won!

• My kids are sleeping so late these days and I love, love it.  Yet, I know that we have to grow up next week and start waking up at a decent time.  Robby and I are already starting to wonder if we can make our early morning flight in a few weeks.  We will need a wake up call-or even a few wake up calls.
• It was nine-ish when I was getting the kids breakfast. I urged anyone that wasn't eating waffles with syrup to go to the school room and start working.  School seemed to go quickly today and we were finished by 11:30-now, the kids are still doing review math, review spelling, review english and we are not doing history and science yet-still taking a break for the Christmas holidays.
• After school, I helped Reagan make a pretty complicated rainbow loom bracelet.  It would have been a tad bit easier but her silly loom had a crack in it and was broken by the time we finished.  (I wrote the company today-3rd company that I have had to contact since opening up Christmas presents)  Despite the broken loom, we were still able to produce a pretty cool bracelet and that child couldn't have been happier.
• Next up was lunch in the living room.  We ate in there because it was freezing in the rest of the house-yes, I could have turned up the heat but eating lunch on a blanket with the little heater blowing on us was much more fun.  We read a few stories and then we played one of Graham's new games-Race to the Treasure.  It was so much fun-able to play it right out of the box, not too hard for the kids and we all worked together not against each other.  We were whooping and hollering during the game and Whitman just laughed at us from his seat that we had pulled into the living room from the kitchen.
• Then the boys opened up their playdoh type dinosaur activity.  It was lots of molds to make a town and cars with some type of clay.  Then the dinosaur comes through and smashed everything that they made.  Perfect boy toy. 
• While the boys were doing this, I worked on trimming everyone's fingernails.  Then I painted the girls nails (that is one of my resolutions)  Graham decided that he wanted me to paint his toenails and since I had black out, I did.  And after I painted about 3 of his toenails, he wanted me to take it off.  He kept saying "I don't want to look like a girl."
• We had just finished up our nails, when Robby came home.  I was getting ready to put the little 2 into bed but Robby suggested that we take the kids out for the evening.  We didn't tell them where we were going so they had many guesses-Chick fil a, McDonalds, Burger King, Krispy Kreme.  We tried to suggest other places-library, dentist.  But they could tell that it was someplace special by the way we were acting about this surprise.  
• Where did we take them?  Vegas for Kids!  Playtime Pizza.  We were able to finance this trip with a small loan-ha!  It was so worth it-all of the kids had a blast.  When we turned into the parking lot, Graham started screaming "oh, oh, oh!"  We walked around the place to get the lay of the land.  And then we explained that everyone would get to do one big idea and a few little things.
• The first activity was eating supper.  We let the kids eat whatever they wanted from the buffet-most choosing croutons, peaches and pizza-the meal of champions.  This was after all the beginnings of our New Year's Eve celebrations.
• Next up was bowling for Keaton.  She was so worried about anyone else touching her bowling balls that she wouldn't even stick around to see where her ball went.  She would turn right around before her ball hit any pins trying to pick up the next ball.  Keaton did let everyone else have a turn and the boys were so sweet to try their best to help her out since most of her balls slowly, oh so slowly went down the lane. 
• Then it was laser tag time.  Anderson had said that he wanted to play laser tag for his birthday and this was such a delight for him.  Robby, Reagan, Anderson and Graham played.  The lady told Campbell, Keaton, Whitman and I that we could go inside and watch so I was thrilled to observe this.  It was quite the site-there was a height requirement but they were told that if they could wear the vests then they could play.  The vest and gun were pretty heavy but it was no problem for Anderson but little Reagan and Graham did have a harder time.
• Laser tag lasted for 10 minutes and they ran, shot and hid the entire time.  My boys were so sweaty when it was over and they had a blast.  The score said that Graham was in 3rd place but we do believe that his vest malfunctioned some time during the event so that probably froze his score.  His vest stopped lighting up but he kept running and playing.  Robby was 4th place and I am not sure about Reagan or Anderson.
• Then we went downstairs for Campbell's big activity-go carts.  We waited in line and she was so excited but as soon as we sat down in the double car, she started crying.  She desperately wanted to sit in the driver's seat.  I tried to explain that she couldn't reach the pedals and told her she could steer but by the time the man tightened her seat belt, she couldn't even reach the steering wheel.  When we first took off form the gate, she said "I wanted to go fast." But seconds later, we were zooming around the track.  I did crash into a girl twice but really she deserved it-getting in to my way and all.  We were speeding so quick that I felt like I had to put my arm around Campbell so she didn't just fly out of the car.  She loved it yet being 4, she didn't really understand that was her big thing and she wanted to do everything else.  
• Everyone then was able to play little games but some of those little games won us tickets-some lots of tickets (like when Anderson won 150 tickets on a spin) and some a few tickets (like when Reagan played the same game and only won 4)  Or when Robby won over 200 in Let's Make a Deal and then Reagan and I won 7!  We were combining everyone's tickets so a win for one was a win for all of them.  A few rounds of skeeball for everyone before we cashed in on all of those tickets.  
• So what does over 900 tickets by at Playtime Pizza?-a tiny doll, 2 balls, 3 pixie sticks, a ring, handcuffs, 5 lollipops and 4 sets of dracula teeth.  Graham told me that he had 2 things he could keep from the day-dracula teeth and a ball.  I then tried to tell him could take his memories with him as well.  That boy just started at me like I was speaking greek.
• We did finish off our almost 4 hour stay there with ice cream and some dessert before heading home.  As soon as we were home, we put on pjs and the kids watched a Let's Make a Deal while I worked on the never ending laundry.  Then it was bedtime but right before Reagan did pull a tooth that had been wiggling around for a month! We did write the tooth fairy a note asking for her to come tomorrow night instead of tonight.  I guess Reagan wanted for the tooth fairy to join our New Years Eve party tomorrow night.