Date Night: Time to Kinect

Our Sixth Date

November 12, 2010

I was in charge

This date was and unplanned date.  

I had a date planned but Monday night Dustin was talking with his friend about the Kinect.  Our friends the Pettingill's had gotten an early Christmas present of the XBOX 360 Kinect.  They liked playing and invited us over for dinner and to play games.  We were in charge of bringing dessert.

Dinner was good, dessert was good, games were great!

We rafted down the river together as friends and couples.  We ran obstacle courses against each other as friends and couples.  The next day we were sore, well our calves were sore.  Those games are quite the work out!  We had so much fun playing the games together and spending time with our friends.  Our kids also had fun playing together and even got in on some of the games.

It was lots of fun to be active together inside since it's getting cold outside.  I was fun to work together in a game and also to compete against each other.

Happy Birthday David!

Hard to believe, but this kid turns 5 today!

I can't believe how quickly the time went by.

He is our little Calvin, in every way.

We love him and we don't know what life would be like without him around.

Birthday Party Fun!

This past Saturday, we had David's birthday party.  He helped me with every part of the party that he could.  He decided the theme of the party - Mario Kart; he decided who to invite - and was very firm about his decisions; he decided what kind of cake he wanted; he helped me make the birthday invites and birthday banner.  David had a great time and I think the other kids did too.

Our Party:

Food:  Bagel pizzas, fruit/vegetables trays including red & yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, apples, oranges and grapes.  Ranch and caramel dips.  Fruitables to drink for the kids and V-8 V-fusion for the adults.

Games:  Pin Mario in the Kart, Coloring Mario Kart pages and Mario Kart Balloon obstacle course - I had the kids collect different combinations of balloons in bags instead of trying to pop each others balloons.

Don't they look like they are having fun?

Matthew LOVED his balloon.

After the party was over the kids popped all the balloons, torn down the streamers and ribbons.  They were really good at destroying everything I had spent so much time setting up.  It was helpful in cleaning up though.  For some reason I never did get pictures of the room all set up, sorry.  There are snippets here and there for you though.

Date Night: Magic is in the Air

Our Fifth Date

November 5, 2010

I was in charge

This was a lucky date for me.  Our stake had planned a Harvest Ball for all the married wards here.  (I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The words stake, ward  and additional information can be found here.)  Nursery was provided for kids of all ages.  The 'Ball' changed several times from the first announcement of it and ended up being a Harvest dinner with speaker and a magician for entertainment.  The food was good, the company was good and the entertainment was good. 

Dustin & I really enjoyed being able to eat a meal without having to care for our children at the same time.  The last time Dustin & I had a childless meal was for our anniversary dinner back in June.  Five months - that's a long time!  We enjoyed sitting next to each other, there were no children between us at the table.  Dustin & I could talk to each other without being interrupted every 30 seconds.  We were able to sit in our chairs the entire time, talk and get to know our tablemates better.  We enjoyed sharing stories with the two other couples at the table with us - we knew both couples, both are in our ward and really enjoyed conversing with them.

The last 10 minutes of the show the kids came in to watch and get balloon animals.  Everyone left happy.  It was a great evening and so nice that close to home, free and fun.

A Lovely Fall

David & Matthew were caught outside with some friends.  The kids had a great time collecting "garbage".

The kids had a great time!  Oh the joys of fall.

Favorite Things

These are a few of Matthew's favorite things....

Eating dirt

Not just any dirt, potting soil.  If I'm not super watchful he will just grab handfuls out of the pots on the porch.  He picks up small pieces between his thumb and forefinger and puts them in his mouth like he's having a snack of cheerios or puffs.

Croissants

He can't get enough of them.  He will make growling sounds if Dustin eats a bite without putting a bite in his mouth.  Last night Matthew was getting bites from both Dustin & David.  Like father, like sons I guess.  

Date Night: Straight No Chaser

Our Fourth Date

October 29, 2010

Dustin was in charge

This was a fun date that we did with Dustin's parents.  Straight No Chaser is an acapella men's group.  There are 10 men that sing together and are touring together in large and not so large cities.  Dustin was able to score us some free tickets after initially turning down his parents on the offer to join them.  We were a little skeptical about the group at first since we knew nothing about them.  I must say that we really enjoyed the show!  The songs were sung great and the show was like watching a bunch of really talented friends singing together but really just goofing around with each other in front of a large crowd of people.  I am so glad that we were able to go.  They did some mash up songs and one of my favorites was a Lady GaGa one - it was hilarious!

I'm glad that Cassie, my sister, was able to come down from Rexburg to watch the boys and spend the night so that we could go.  We had all spent the afternoon in Idaho Falls, where the concert was to be, and so it was just easier to get Cassie from Rexburg than to get to boys back to Pocatello just to go back to Idaho Falls.

Here are a few videos of Straight No Chaser - none of these were from our show but we heard them.

Date Night: Movie & Appetizers/Drinks

Our third date

October 22, 2010

Dustin was in charge

We recently started using Red Box - it's a great invention, I'm a big fan!  Dustin sneakily found out what movie I would like to see and Red Boxed it, secretly.  After the kids were in bed out came the champagne flutes, bottles of various sparkling juices, crackers, cheese, balsamic glaze and the movie.  We watched Letters to Juliet.  I know it's a chick flick but honestly Dustin & I very rarely watch a chick flick together.  I was very excited that he picked this to watch with me for our date.  I enjoyed to movie.  The drinks and snacks were fun to have during the movie instead of traditional popcorn - it's like we were being super fancy during our date!  After the movie we watched The Office and went to bed.  No kids woke up or needed anything during our date so it was nice to be together.

Date Night: a Couch, a Drink, a Book

Our Second Date.

October 15, 2010

Dustin was in charge.

We picked up the new book The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan.  It was just released on the 12th and we've been reading it together.  We pulled out the champagne flutes, a chilled bottle of sparkling orange juice from Ikea and cuddled on the couch.  We take turns reading the chapters; usually when we read together we alternate every chapter but since with book has the same character position for 2 chapters we are alternating every 2 chapters.  So far the book has been very fun to read and although we don't get much time to read together we have been enjoying it.  If you read the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series you will enjoy this new series, The Heros of Olympus.

Date Night: Mini Disc Golf

Our first date.

October 8, 2010.

Dustin was in charge.

We played a rousing game of mini disc golf..... in the house.  The big challenges came in not waking the boys.  We had obstacles of doors, walls, furniture, we went upstairs and back downstairs, outside and back in.  We playing 9 baskets.  It really was a lot of fun.  While playing it was decided that waking the boys would result in a 1 stroke penalty.  It was really hard to play quietly the entire time, neither of us woke the boys and we ended up in a tie score.  It was a great first date.  After our game we enjoyed each other's company in the living room and caught up on some of our weekly shows via Hulu since the shows we like come on at inconveinent times for us.

Costumes, Parties, and Candy Galore!

Meet Calvin & Hobbes 

David decided he wanted to be Calvin for Halloween this year - I was relieved that I didn't have to work as hard as last year!  All I had to do was figure out what we could use for a Hobbes doll and we remembered that a couple of months previous we had picked up this tiger costume for Matthew.  It was meant to be.

David's preschool hosted a Halloween party on Friday, October 29th.  David and his classmates had been working on this party for the entire month.  Their teacher, Mrs. Robinson, let them plan the games, activities, treats and decorations.  David talked about this party all month long and was so excited for the big day.  Parents were invited and the kids were allowed to wear their costumes for the party (but not before so they wouldn't be a distraction for the beginning of school).  Dustin's parents were in town and they joined in the fun also.  Here are some pictures from the party.

 .                 Decorating cupcakes                             David's scary spider                        .

David's cupcake

We all had lots of fun - there were lots more pictures but these were some of my favorites.  There was witch's brew root beer - complete with dry ice to drink, cheesecloth ghosts the kids had made, slime making and a pinata that refused to break until dropped from the second story of the house.

We had a ward Dinner and Trunk or Treat on Saturday, October 30th.  It was fun.  Every trunk was asked to have a game so the kids could enjoy some carnival-ness of Halloween, not many trunks did.  We had mini-disc golf in the back of our trunk.  The kids were given three discs and for each disc they got in they would receive and extra piece of candy.  Some kids played the game, some kids didn't, some parents needed to play a couple of times.  It was great.  There was a good turnout and the weather was nice too.  Here we all are in our costumes.

Grandpa David as a pumpkin, Grandma Sharon as a bag of leaves, Matthew as Hobbes, Dustin as a Soccer Hooligan, Christy as Sam Sparks (from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) & David as Calvin.

We got rid of most of the Halloween candy we bought but not all of it.  We had some trick or treaters on Saturday night after the trunk or treat but only a few groups before I locked the gate so I could put the kids to bed.  Very few came on Sunday - maybe 5 or so.

Sunday and Monday David was able to enjoy Halloween candy to his hearts content.

Dustin & I have started a new tradition - The Great Pumpkin

The Great Pumpkin comes on November 1st.

David is given a quart sized baggie to fill with a designated number of candies.  The remaining halloween candy is placed in a large baggie and put outside at the front door next to the carved pumpkin.  In the morning David is left with a small toy.

This is a great way to get rid of all that Halloween candy with the sugar rush.  David gets to keep some pieces and in exchange for his candy he gets a toy, this year the Great Pumpkin brought him a lego truck  to build and combine with one of his lego cars.

I think this is definitely a tradition that will stick around.  I can only handle the candy in the house for so long!

13 Days of Halloween

David was really excited for Halloween this year.  My sister Kelly told me about her Halloween craft night with a couple of girls and I caught an idea from Studio 5 for a Halloween advent.  I didn't get my act together early enough to make a full month advent so we did the 13 Days of Halloween.  We started on October 19th with decorating the house with our current Halloween decorations.

Over the course of our 13 days we made: pumpkin bats which I called bat-o-lanterns, salt dough ghosts with brown paper bag trees, foam Halloween picture cards, we played Halloween tic-tac-toe (from My Computer is My Canvas it was a free printable), we went to the pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins, went to Halloween parties, we collected and read Halloween stories, worked on our costumes, and some other things.  It was a fun time and just a little something for me to do with David one on one while Matthew napped in the afternoons.  Most afternoons a couple of neighbor kids would join us and it was great fun.

I will totally do this activity again with David & Matthew next year.  Maybe I will even splurge and go for the full 31 days of the month.  I keep thinking of things that would be good for next year so we'll see what happens.  Maybe I'll just leave it at 13 days and change out the activities every year.  Most of our crafts from this year came from Family Fun.  I might even change the way our 13 days is displayed.  I don't know.  I now have a whole year to work things out again.

Date Night: The Pledge

Despite my/our best efforts Dustin and I haven't been that great at dating.  I became aware of the blog Simply Modern Mom through another blog I follow and I fell in love.  At the beginning of 2010 she and her husband began their Project 52: Date Nights.  I loved how they made a contract with each other, both signing the document and setting the rules for the dates they would have each week.  Now Dustin and I have had a date every week for the past 4 weeks but I haven't linked up with her on Tuesdays yet, maybe someday.  The point is that we are getting started.  So far so good.

I didn't get a picture of our contract, just know that it was downloaded from Simply Modern Mom, signed by both of us and a few rules added.  One of the rules we added is that both computers are to remain off unless use of the computer is important for the date.

I'm excited to see what this will do for our relationship.  I'm excited to see what creative things we come up with to do for dates.  Our dates need to be as free as possible, so they will almost always be at home except for a few instances which will be posted here shortly.

I would encourage any of you to join the project and link up at Simply Modern Mom or not.  I will post our dates here because I know you are all dying to know what Dustin and I will do to date eachother.