Night 's Out With Josh & Emily At Olive Garden

Emily earned two free kid meals at Olive Garden at school for great attendance and we recently used them.

Both Emily & Josh chose to go with Daddy for a night out alone on two different nights (sorry Val).

They both had a great time!

Here's the pictures from Josh's night out which was last Saturday.



1- Arrive at Olive Garden and after waiting a 1/2 hour to be seated we got to color.

The menu's come with two crayons and a really cool set of puzzles, mazes, and coloring pages. He had a great time.

2- Breadsticks & salad arrive & we order our food

Josh really loved serving out his own salad and enjoyed the great tasting bread sticks. The Rasberry Lemonade in his own cup rocked too!

3- Next came the main course. Grilled chicken, broccoli, and pasta. 

He loved the chicken & broccoli! The salt shaker got well used on the breadsticks too

4- The nice waiter took a picture of both of us

I can highly recommend the mixed grill entree. Mmmm Mmmm...man that thing was good!

5- After a great meal, good times, and fun away from everyone else, what does a 4 year old do?

Yep! You guessed it! He crashed on the way home! (and promptly woke up when we got home just in time to tell mom about all the fun)

Emily's night out wasn't as well documented as it was a week earlier and all I had was my cell phone. So, you all get to look at my really crappy cell phone pictures.

It started out just like Josh's, except we spent a lot more time walking through Tuesday Morning with Emily than Josh waiting out our 1/2 hour wait. I guess girls like to shop more than boys do, eh? Josh lasted all of about 10 minutes in the store before it was "Dad....Let's go back!" "But we're going to have to wait for a long, long time...." "So, I want to go back...."

Emily took much more time looking at all the dolls, the toys, the furniture, you know, shopping....

Once back in the restaurant, we were seated and the meal began.

Here's a shot of the coloring & salad eating (more of coloring and less of salad eating)

Emily got Chocolate Milk in her cup and loved the coloring and games on her menu.

I didn't get any pictures of her food (that she honestly didn't eat a bite of), but we had a great time none-the-less.

Something that was interesting going out to eat was how observant both of them were of their surroundings.
We got to talk about wine (because of the wine glasses and the waiter bringing a bottle of wine that we got to turn down), then Emily asked about alcohol (because the waiter was serving beer to people across from us), and then we even had a chance to talk about coffee (because someone was having coffee).

Funny quote from the night from Emily. "So why do people like to drink stuff that's not good for them?" Made for some interesting conversation and a great Word of Wisdom teaching moment.

With Josh, while we were standing in the lobby, he saw someone with a big glass of beer at the bar. "Dad, look! That's alcohol!" "Yep, sure is" "Alcohol is bad for you" (mind you, this was in his really loud 4 year old voice too). "Yep. You're right! We don't drink that do we." "Nope! Cause that's gross!" "That's right Josh, it's gross."

It was also interesting to see the difference between the two on the ride to the restaurant. While Emily talked quite a bit more than Josh did (both on the way there and on the way home), the conversation was very different. Emily's was about dolls, events, and...well...girl stuff. Josh talked about cool tractors we saw along the way, trucks, freeways, and well...boy stuff. Guess they come that way, eh?

It was a lot of fun and both of them went on & on about it once we got home. Guess we'll have to do that more often! Oh yeah, and mom got to eat some great left-over's from the meal the next day. Half the fun of going to Olive Garden is lunch the next day! Double the meals for one price!

Big Tractors At Grandma Blairs

Grandma & Grandpa Blair invited us to come & visit them this week to check out the really cool tractors that were parked near their house.

One was a huge excavator and the other was a monstrous front end loader.

Check out how massive the excavator is! Josh & Emily were dwarfed by it's massive size!

The bucket could swallow both of them right up!

This is a picture of them on the front end loader.
They had a great time playing on the tractors, seeing how big they were and Josh especially liked seeing their "smokers" (a.k.a. Exhaust Pipes).

2-year-old Strikes Again

Well, I had decided to keep her in her big bed and I paid the price. This morning at 10 am I thought that she was just sleeping long. I peeked in and found a big mess. She had found some A&D ointment that I had no idea was even in her room. She had it all over clothes, hair, face, hands, and other random things like the window sill.

Immediately I prepared a bath and found out that cornstarch was good for removing vaseline so I tried it. Her hair is reasonably clean after two cornstarch applications and six shampoos.

I just might put her back in the crib

Laurie was seriously not happy at all today. She would follow me around the house screaming and crying for me to pick her up. My back was very sore, plus I didn't have time to hold her all day. She had room time about 10 times today. I tried leaving her in there long enough to fall asleep for a badly needed nap, but I found this instead.



Accomplice caught on camera





Afterward I tried a nap again and found that she had spread hydrocortizone cream on the crib. I am really rethinking the crib.

Night time issues

Here a quote from our pediatrician about 2-year-old bedtime.
"Certain sleep problems are common during this time, including refusing to go to bed, getting out of bed and wandering around the house at night, and nightmares."

Laurie is no longer in a crib so to keep her in her room we have put a guard on the doorknob. Last night Graydon was awoken by a loud thump. He entered the room to find Laurie standing in a sleepy daze having just fallen off the bed. Now before you start feeling sorry for her you need to know what the room looked like.

Her toys are kept in bins on a small bookshelf. He saw that ALL of her toys were scattered randomly all over her bed and the bins were all on the bookshelf...empty. Because her bed was completely covered in toys she had fallen asleep on a tiny sliver on the edge of the bed. It seems that the slightest move had made her fall. Graydon found the whole situation funny, and quickly removed all the toys and put her back to bed.

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a very relaxing day. The kids were surprised by balloons, lollipops, and paints. I knew I might regret giving them the lollipops. Laurie got so sticky and spread it onto everything she touched. Emily loved painting one picture after another, but Laurie had more fun painting her hands and face. I regret that I didn't get pictures of that.

We then had a family candle-lit dinner with heart-shaped hamburgers and jello. This will probably become a tradition.

Nine Wonderful Years

I can't believe that it has been nine years. These have been the most amazing years of my life and I am so grateful for such a wonderful man with which to share them. Now I look forward to many more fun times.

Happy Anniversary Graydon!