Snow, Dinner, & Funplex

Cold weather is here! And the little boys are ready for it.

I am not. I'm not much of a winter person and don't think I will be unless someday all my babies and toddlers are grown and I actually go skiing or something. But today was good - I was able to made a good dent in cleaning in the basement. I've been reading "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. I've suffered from a messy basement before, and had help in getting it in order, only to have it once again fall in to disarray. You can't organize junk, I need to get rid of the stuff. Let it go. I'm hoping this might be the final time I have to clean it. Simplify simplify simplify...

So, I'm working on organizing the house and family habits. We had a sit down dinner tonight, yay I did it! Having a "sit down" dinner is one of the things that I usually fail at. Usually it is because I don't have a meal ready, so the kids all start to fend for themselves with pb and jelly sandwiches or top ramen. Other times I will have a meal ready but they are not hungry from their after school eating frenzy. (I haven't been keeping the pantries locked) Tonight I had a meal ready with ample provisions - spaghetti, salad, and a good hearty 3 bean chili. Corey brought home bread rolls. So the food was ready this time, but it wasn't much of a "sit down" dinner for a different reason...

It was cute though. So we let them have fun and dance and stand on the bench and talk with food in their mouths. We've about given up trying to enforce table manners... One good thing about tonight was that we were going out for an activity - and we had cookies. Corey held the cookies captive until they helped clean up dinner! So that worked out great - everyone ate, and the kitchen got cleaned. And then we drove up to The Rush Funplex. When we got there, it had been reserved for a private event, doh! We drove 45 minutes for nothing... But then a guy who saw us about to walk away, and who seemed to have some authority, told us we were welcome to stay. He said they are from a LDS Stake and they rent it out once a year for a Young Single Adults Activity, but they had plenty of room for us to stay. So we stayed! And he told us to help ourselves to the pizza too. So we got in for free and got to stay longer than the 90 mins the Get Out Pass allowed, AND it also means we get to go back again to use the Get Out Pass another time! So that was pretty sweet.

And since it was mostly adults that where there, I felt like it was okay for me to take a swing on the trapeze. No picture of me in action, but here's Lily falling through the air

I did the trapeze swing 4 times, it was fun! The hard part was climbing out of the foam cubes, as Abi is demonstrating below.

That was a real workout! Sophi remembered to take off her glasses this time, so that they would not be accidentally eaten by the foam pit monster this time.

Ethan and kids bowled. 

This cute dino bowl ramp doubled as a slide for Daniel!

Wes, Abi, and Lily did the go carts. A great time was had by all.

So we played outside this morning, played inside tonight, we cleaned and we had dinner together... it was a good day.