Howe's Life: A dad free weekend

Matt had the fun of attending a bachelor party over the weekend. He left after dinner on Thursday and returned (earlier than I expected) on Sunday evening. The girls and I had a packed itinerary while Matt was gone. Somehow I didn't take pictures of anything we did. Maybe I was too tired to remember or I enjoyed the relaxation of the kids being busy during our activity time too much to take pictures. Thursday night took forever to get the girls to sleep. No tears, just no eye closing and lots of mom hair pulling. I woke up at 11:30 in their bed, so I have no idea how long it actually took.

Friday, the girls had school and we met the Johnson family for dinner and ice cream in Kensington. Three adults and three kids is quite the entertaining dinner out, but the girls all did so well at dinner. Ice cream was a hilarious mess, including the expected whole scoop falling off Madi's cone onto the floor (the ice cream store replaced it for her - so no tears). I took Madeline and Eleanor to the park after ice cream to try to exhaust them. We had a great time at the park but the girls still took forever to go to sleep. Bleh.

Saturday started with a bounce house party at the park. It was Eleanor's first invitation to a party for her own school friend. Madi bounced for the majority of the party time. Ella, had a run in with another kid within seconds of entering the bounce house and didn't want to go back in until Mama went in. Once she had a pleasant experience, she was willing to bounce with her friends and no Mama (yay). After the party, Ella took a nap while Madeline snuggled with me on the couch for a little while. In the afternoon, we went to the Kelly house to have a playdate with the Kelly and Lam kids. Naomi cooked us an awesome dinner and the kids ran wild in the pool and yard. I love how easy our kids are together now. They need very little adult oversight and they are generally really good working their play out together. Again, I expected the kids to be completely exhausted (I was). But again, they proved me wrong. Instead of fighting through bedtime, I brought the mat out to the living room and put on Frozen. Madeline fell asleep within a half hour and Eleanor decided to stay up for the whole movie and then another 30 minutes of laying-on-mom time.

Sunday, we drove to Carlsbad to buy some new shoes for Ella's flintstone feet and lunch with Grandpa Dave. The girls got to have lunch at their favorite lunch spot - Rubys - home of train watching and paper cars to play with. They both fell asleep on the way home! Ella managed to get a full two hour nap after we got home, but Madi was good with her 20 minute cap nap. Madeline spent some time helping me clean up the house which was a total disaster of toys since I had not had any time after bed to actually pick anything up. Amelia and Jocelyn came over to play in the afternoon. Amelia brought two bottles of wine, so she wins all of my mom hero awards! The girls did great after a half hour of shy interaction. I am impressed with how patient Jocelyn is playing with Madi when I feel like she must be frustrated at dealing with someone 3 years younger than her. Matt came home halfway through our first bottle of wine and was immediately attacked by his children. Putting the girls to bed one-on-one was so much easier and I am so glad that most nights we can do bedtime together!

Monday and Tuesday after school has been painting time for the girls and I while Matt has been trying to catch up on some work. Grandpa Dave had a bunch of blank canvases for us to play with. On Monday we used all of my leftover house painting cans to paint background colors on our canvases. It was awesome seeing Madi trying carefully to cover every inch of the canvas while Ella just glopped and spread and spilled paint everywhere. Needless to say, Eleanor had a bath before dinner. Tuesday we used acrylics to actually paint on the backgrounds. Madi explored some splatter techniques and tried to make a flower. Eleanor went with dabbing the brush on the canvas and using lots of handprints. Everything devolved into fingerpainting until both girls and I were basically covered in paint from chin to toe. While I ran in to check on dinner, Ella decided to start putting blue handprints all over the concrete and back fence - agh! I tried to clean the handprints and capture her at the same time, but I was pretty unsuccessful until Matt cam home. He ran a bath and managed to toss both girls in for cleaning. Once I had the yard cleaned up, I ended up in the tub with the girls (which Madi thought was "very silly"). I am loving the finished art that the kids made. We'll be bringing them to Grandpa Dave soon for his house. I am hoping that maybe next summer we can do some more canvases and see how the girls art is changing as they get bigger.