Weekend Top Five 7/24/09

Like happens so often on the weekends, our plans changed a few times. We were planning to go spend the day with my MIL and some of the cousins, but it got cancelled first thing in the morning when one of my nieces ended up with strep throat. Unfortunately, It left Aaron asking ALL DAY why we weren't going to his grandparent's house.

The weekend was unseasonably cold, which was a welcome change for me. I was ready for cooler weather to tell you the truth.

Here's what kept us busy this weekend.

5. Robot Boy
Like I mentioned above, we were supposed to go north for the day on Friday. When that got cancelled, we were kind of scrounging for something fun to do. Noah figured out something in his own anyway.

Earlier in the week I had to buy a new booster seat, since my MIL drive back home with ours in her car when she visited. The box had been hanging around in the car ever since. Noah went out to bring it in to turn it into a robot.

Sometimes this kid amazes me. He found scissors and all by himself, cut out arms and face. He spent all day Friday, and most of the rest of the weekend "modifying" it, to include silver duct tape, extra holes in front and side to pass things through, drawings for buttons, and trying to figure out a way to attach a paper tube to the top for an antenna.

He even took legos and duct tape to make a mask.






The funniest part was that he was determined to have Aaron play with him. So I went and found another box in the basement in order to make one for Aaron. Although Aaron played a little bit, he really wasn't nearly as Gung Ho and Noah spent much of his weekend BEGGING Aaron to put his robot on and play.

Even when they weren't being worn, much of the weekend was spent in the boys speaking "robot talk"




4. Bowling
We got a flyer on our door advertising $1.00 bowling this weekend and 50 cent food and shoe rental at a local alley. So Saturday we decided to go.

I like bowling, but I can't stand bowling alleys most of the time because of the cigarette smoke. I end up feeling so gross when I leave, both from the smell and the general icky feeling. (I'm sorry for offending any of you out there...it's just a personal opinion) That's the reason we usually don't go. But I decided that maybe if we got there right when they opened, it might be okay. Which is what we did.

It ended up being a pretty nice little place. We bowled the first game with all four of us having our own game.

After stopping in the middle for some hot dogs to eat, we decided that the kids weren't up for another full four game set, so we teamed up the second time around.

Aaron and I played one and Steve and Noah played the other. Kids threw the first ball of each frame and parents threw the second. I think it was the most fun bowling we have ever had with the kids. The game went MUCH faster and the kids got to throw balls much more often. Definitely the way we'll play from now on.

Side Note: After playing Wii bowling so often, the real thing seemed much harder than it used to.











3. Baking a Cake
I will be writing an entire post about this later this week because it was very memorable. But in short, when we got home from the bowling alley, Noah decided that he wanted to bake a cake "all by himself". After sending Steve to the store for a couple of ingredients, we spent the majority of the day mixing, measuring, pouring, baking, frosting, and finally eating the cake. That which takes me about 20 minutes was an all day affair, but I think it was a great learning experience for Noah (and actually Aaron and myself as well)

As I sit here writing, there is still a lot of cake left and also about ten pounds of frosting in the refrigerator that I don't know what to do with. I guess we'll deal with that "problem" later :)






2. Hair Cuts
I have never known two little boys to LOVE hair cut as much as my two do. If you look at the picture above of Noah with the cake, you can see just how badly they were needed. I had been holding off since Noah's school pictures aren't until the end of September and I wanted to be sure it didn't grow back. But by the time we put them to bed Saturday night, I knew I wasn't going to make it. So after church on Sunday, we headed out to get the cuts before coming home for the afternoon.


I never got around to taking pictures of the cuts after we got home. So I decided that I still needed them for illustration, so the poor kids got subjected to pictures after they fell asleep. At least they're cute when they're sleeping :)

Can you believe how much my handsome little boys look alike when they sleep?





1. Game Night
It was so funny how all week long, the kids couldn't stop talking about Game Night. They actually looked forward to it all week.

While Deb and I were out wandering through stores on Friday night, I picked up a couple more games, as well as the one I had gotten through amazon with a gift card, resulting in three new games for Game Night Week 2.

Noah and I really like Apples To Apples. It was recommended by Deb and her family, and it is a great game. The only problem was that Aaron can't play it since he can't read, and Steve kept getting frustrated because he couldn't make good connections.

I also bought another game of Chutes and Ladders. I was sure we had it already, but couldn't find it anywhere and Noah had been asking for it.

The favorite of the night was an I Spy game I found at Meijers. This game is right up Aaron's alley. Each player gets an I Spy board and a card and has to find things from the card on the board. Surprisingly enough, a four year old, seven year, a mom and a dad seemed to be extremely evenly matched. Aaron actually beat all the rest of us in a lot of the rounds.

Yup, I'd say Game night Week 2 was a rousing success.



The Week Ahead
Steve is badly in need of some vacation time. So he has taken Thursday, Friday and Saturday off from work this week. We are hoping to figure out a way to get away for an overnight as a last hurrah for the summer. I guess I will have to let you know if that actually materializes or not. Other than that, only two weeks left until school starts, so we'll try to make the most of it. I started a new incentive chart, to keep the boys helping around the house, and to keep Steve and me more honest about keeping up with allowance. I hope it works.

Happy Monday!