A very good day

A day worth remembering for sure so I've got to make sure I write about it. I took the day off from work because Wifey had volunteered to go with JAM on a field trip with his class. Being responsible for entertaining or planning a day for the two little ones is not something I'm really used to doing by myself but I wanted to make sure it didn't end up being just a sit around the house during a rainy day-type day. As I'm not the expert on such days I called in the experience, the big guns. Thank god for my boy D, he came up with a plan. At first we were thinking of taking a drive up to Baltimore to visit Port Discovery but after a lateish morning (I was trying to get some work done from home at the same time) the 40 minute drive up there didn't sound like a great idea. Neither did the huge price tag that would have come with it.

D's solution? Never would have thought of it myself but we went bowling. And had a blast. He and I and the four little ones.

Witness...

Red doing it all by her big self with her pink ball (of course!!!).

*yes, I know the vids are too big for this space. I've got to figure out a way to make the space bigger without screwing up the rounded corners!

The kids cheering for the littlest member of our group.

Some pics of the general merriment-
- My big girl

- Little Pudge was fantastic in sitting and waiting his turn really well.

- C refused to smile - he was a focused kid on that bowling. :)

- He's a computer genius! Even if this one is only a bowling scoring machine.

- Yeah, little J's gonna' be taller than Daddy real soon.

After one game we paid and went to find some lunch. I was so pleased that we spent well over an hour bowling (yes, one game for four little ones took over an hour :) ) and it only cost us $4 each. For lunch we took advantage of some certificates for free kid's meals at Chik Fil-A and had a blast catching up while we let the kids play in the play area. Thanks to the free meals lunch only cost us about $6. So, we had an entire morning out and a lot of fun and it only cost me $10. NICE! :) I could get used to this stay at home thing.

Who am I kidding, I'd pull my hair out after two days. lol

After the regular nap/working from the couch/JAM home from school/homework (finally got some valve oil for his newly acquired baritone so he could practice)/dinner routine we had a real family moment... I had uploaded the vids from my phone for this post and sat back down on the couch to watch them for a moment. There's something really funny about my kids - as soon as they hear sound coming from a computer they instantly run over and want to watch - without having the slightest idea of what it will be. Even Pudge. I think it started way back when as we used to show him videos of himself and laughing babies on YouTube...

And...

But anyhow, as I was checking out the uploaded vids they all came running over and we spent the next 45 (!!!) minutes watching old videos of them that we had uploaded. It was fantastic. Pudge just couldn't get it into his head that the little baby we were watching was really him only about a year ago. It's old hat to JAM to watch those old vids but even Red was funny while we listened to her talk, ride her scooter or sing for us as a smaller version of herself.

Then, to top it all off, after I finally had to call it quits on the videos we somehow all found ourselves in a tickle fight on the couch that lasted for a good 15 minutes WITHOUT ANYONE GETTING HURT OR CRYING!!!! I don't know if this is normal for other families or not but it seems whenever we try to do something like that someone always takes it too far (read - JAM) or gets hurt by a flying elbow or cries for some random reason. I'm so happy to say that none of that happened tonight and we all had a really great time.

So there I have it - a fantastic day that I just had to write down so I couldn't forget. Back to the grind tomorrow.