Just me and the boys

A second weekend in a row with Taylor out of town called for some serious planning of activities (so I wouldn't go crazy and the kids wouldn't tear the house apart). Friday afternoon we dropped Taylor off at the airport so he could fly back to Hershey, PA for the wedding of one of his Business School friends (Taylor was partnered with 4 other people for every class and every assignment for the 2 years so they got to be really close and he felt like he needed to be there. I'm glad he went and might have joined him if we hadn't just gotten back from our crazy trip).
So we dropped him off and headed south to Provo where we did some shopping and then met up with my brother for dinner. We just went to Jason's deli, but it met Ethan's requirement that our restaurant "must have mac and cheese". Not too hard to please that one. As a fun surprise, we discovered they give out free ice cream cones. Isaac licked his for a while and then decided that he'd eat it the way he eats bread- by taking a huge bite out of the middle. Works for bread- ice cream cones not so much. He was very upset that the ice cream started leaking out and he couldn't make it stay in. Ahh, life lessons.
Saturday morning we painted little bird houses that we found at JoAnn's.
The boys loved it. I guess they like anything that's messy and new and since I rarely let them paint, this was a hit. I put on their little Home Depot aprons which were a life savor as lots of paint got dripped. I tried to convince Isaac to just paint one color on the roof but he thought it needed more so now it looks like there's already bird poo on the brand newly painted roof.
They were both very intense in their painting as you can tell by their expressions. And maybe next time I'll relax more (or just use water-based paint instead) and I'll have more fun.
After painting, we headed off to the dollar store. My mom sent the boys $3 each for Easter. You would not believe how excited Ethan and Isaac got when I set them loose in the store and said "pick 3 things". Ethan literally kept saying to himself "oh, this is so awesome, no this is more awesome." Score 1 for my mother. Especially because even after the excitement of getting to pick out new toys, they spent hours playing with them. Who knew plastic bats, balls, swords, puzzles, and crayons could bring such joy?
I decided to be brave Saturday afternoon and I attempted taking all 3 boys to a movie solo. It actually went really smoothly. Miles sat in his stroller most of the time eating his toys and only occasionally did I have to try to keep him quiet. It helped that it was a kids movie and that their were only 4 other people in the theater with us. Ethan and Isaac ate popcorn and watched like zombies.
They were all so worn out from the day that I put them to bed 45 minutes early and they passed out. Yeah!