tea party | winter break | surprises

Sarah’s littles were out of school this past week and since I am at home anyway, they hung out with me for a few days so their mom could go to work.

Wednesday we played games…Phase 10 has got to be one of the best games on the planet! We also rocked a little Battleship, although it was not as much fun because it was travel size and we kept knocking our tiny little missiles all over the place. The littles thought the travel games were cute, but by the end of the game I wished we had purchased the regular size. Oh well, live & learn.

The real fun stuff happened on Friday. The littles didn’t know it, but I had a great surprised planned for them…first they just had to sit patiently and entertain themselves while I took pictures at one of my Besties daughter’s birthday party. It was a Mommy/Daughter Tea Party and I just have to share some of my most favorite photos…these girls were so stinking cute!

This is Bestie Jennifer's daughter Rylie at the end of the photo shoot.
She was all tuckered out from the attention and believe it or not, this is one of the only pictures she would let me take of her by herself. OK, technically she didn't "let" me take it, I just did.

Here is Rylie with the other birthday girl, Kelsey. This was taken when we had the entire group of girls together.
I just love the looks on their faces.

Birthday girl Kelsey in her Tea Party attire.
That hat is far funnier in the pictures than it was in real life.

Birthday girl Rylie and her sister Kenidee.

And the rest of the ladies in Jennifer's family...

After I finished at the Tea Party the littles and I met up with Aunt Kelly and Charley for lunch at Stevi B’s. I know, all the pizza tastes exactly the same no matter what is on it, but it’s cheap and the littles can get their own food. It’s such a casual place, and the one we went to was not crowded at all so it was no biggie to let the kids get up and do whatever because we could see everyone from where we sat.

Now for the most fun and the surprise of the day: DACKids! The littles had never been there before and Kelly had been wanting to take Charley for a while so we thought it was perfect. We found some coupons online for $2 off – which brought the price down to $6 each – free is still better, especially for the unemployed, but whatever.

I took a couple of photos and used the program Huggin to merge them together for a panorama shot of the room.
Obviously a pirate them and all in all I think there were five (or maybe six) air-jumpy things, including one for toddlers.
I secured home base by sitting on our bench putting stupid gems on stupid stickers for stupid yellow shirts.

Kelly however did a lot of running around with Charley.
Before...

After...

The other littles ran and played and ran and played and wore themselves out!
That's Riah below... scaling the ropes course on the pirate ship.

And here's T...nursing his battle wounds...

Those air guns are dangerous. Kelly got shot in the back (by some random mean kid) and I saw a number of kids get wacked in the face. T however got hit in the neck/face/jaw by the actual gun.
The cold Capri Sun did the trick (thanks for the rescue pirate guy) and then T got a cold drink too.

Guess who got to walk the plank for inflicting battle wounds...

Yeah, she looks guilty!

Charley liked this one particular jumpy house.
She climbed up the ladder and slid down the slide with Mads close by...

And of course Mommy Kelly down below ready to catch...

Kelly got to go inside the jumpy house with Charley too.
And yes, I run the risk of death by posting this picture, but I think it is too funny not to share.
I mean...look at that face.
I'm sure I don't need to tell you that she is telling me NOT to take the picture.
Oops, sorry.

The girls on top of the playground.
Yes, that is one of the air guns mentioned previously.

All three of the rug rats...

Sorry the color is so bad in some of these.
The ceiling of the room was painted yellow and no matter what I did some shots just look horrible.
(In my play place a ceiling would be blue...for the sky. Or dark...for the night.)

There are a million little soft Nerf type balls around the room.
You stick them in the top of these air guns and they shoot out the end.
They really don't go that far and then just sort of float to the ground.
The part where kids get hurt is if they are standing within about 7 feet of the guns.
I saw one kid get wacked in the face with a ball and he was literally inches away from the gun as he walked by.
It was not pretty.

When we first got there Charley walked around gathering balls.
Then she learned how to use the gun!

Charley liked being up on top of the playground...

Aunt Kelly had had enough of getting her picture taken so she took one of all of us.
Here we all are at the end...only about an hour and a half.
Everyone was worn out and tired.
Charley kept saying "bye bye" and "night night"...she was ready to go home!

I think we all had a nice time, maybe next time we can come for longer and pack a lunch.

I wonder if they will let us bring food in.

Kelly and I also decided we could do this MUCH better. We would have a different theme too...I can't give away our secrets, but you will definitely want to bring your littles to our play place!

good times...now back to the job search

and those #@!%* yellow shirts!