The kids summarized

Miss Addison. My 31-month-old master bedtime staller, "pam-cake" lover, baby doll obsessed, kiss-giving, don't-even-think-of-giving-me-meat, hide in the closet to sneak candy little rascal. 

Mr. Carter. My awfully close to 5-year-old, helpful, affectionate, pick-on-his-sister-constantly, yogurt loving love bug. Who, while being disciplined last night said to me "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" (as shown in the photo above)

I might be the only 30-year-old with gray hair! :) 

Plan B: Build-a-Bear Workshop

The weekend after my sister watched Carter and Addison, we planned for Seth and I to have their kids for a night so they could go for their overnight date night. But the day before, Owen started getting sick. The morning they were to come confirmed that Owen was too sick to sleep over...and McKenna came home from school sick too! The problem was that we both told our kids about the sleepover already (ROOKIE MISTAKE!!) so we knew they were all going to be devastated when we told them.

Which they were. Eli cried and so did Carter. And Carter didn't just a little bit cry; he sobbed and sobbed and was trying to come up with ways that Eli could still come even though his siblings were sick. 

We told him we'd have to reschedule and went out for dinner. On the way home, my sister called me and said that her and Eli had to get out of the house for a little and they were heading down toward our area to do something fun for a mommy/son date. They asked if Carter and I wanted to go too. We couldn't really think of anything creative to do because it was already 7 p.m. and a lot of the things like Monkey Joe's (the inflatable place) closed in an hour. 

I had an idea about Build-a-Bear so we decided to go for that. The fun part was that I didn't tell Carter what we were doing or that Michelle and Eli were meeting us. We went to the mall and casually waited for a minute for them to get in from the parking lot. When Carter noticed Eli, he was definitely confused and said "Eli?? Why are you here??" 

(filling them up with stuffing)

Carter had never been to Build-a-Bear, so he was really excited! I discreetly directed him to the bears that just cost an arm rather than an arm and a leg. But once he chose an outfit, it didn't matter anyway--we were in deep. :) 

(making a wish on the heart that goes in the bears...well actually, Eli got a turtle and Carter got a dog)

(bathing their animals)

I missed some pics in here, but he had a puppy dressed like a ninja turtle (you can see it a bit below). When it came time to make the birth certificate for the puppy, I asked him for a name and he said "Ruff, Ruff." Creative, no? 

We took them to Dairy Queen for blizzards and then told them we would go ride the virtual reality rides at the mall, which they got a kick out of. 

Michelle and I wanted to go to Old Navy to see if we could find any deals, but alas, we walked out with many superhero hats for the kids and nothing for us!

Despite the change in plans, the kids had a blast and thought it was pretty cool they got mommy/son dates while still seeing each other! 

Overnight date night

Hallelujah! A few weeks ago, my sister and I talked about reinstating the date night babysitting exchanges we used to go before the Addison and Owen were born. And two weekends ago, Seth and I cashed in already! We went up to their house on Saturday to spend the day so Seth could help Jason get the basement ready for the remodel project. Then later in the afternoon, we headed out leaving these five hooligans in my sister's hands. :) 

(Beautiful sunset on the way out!)

One of my favorite restaurants is Bonefish Grill, so that's where we went. They have the BEST sangrias and dumplings and I never pass up a chance to go there. Plus, it's not somewhere we'd typically go with kids. Afterwards, we went right past the movie theater so we pulled over and looked up what was showing. Of course there were a million and one things I wanted to see but the lobby was insanely crowded and most of the movies started in 4 or 5 minutes. So, we decided to just rent one and hang out at home instead. We changed into sweats and cuddled up for a movie....in peace. :) 

Of course my stinkers slept like champs for my sister, ate well, and behaved, which is good!