While Daddy's Away, the Kids Will Play

And by kids I mean my two kids plus me and my sister, Tammy.

Rob has a yearly canoe/dudes camping weekend. Because in my mind camping in July is batshit crazy not my idea of fun, I gladly sent him on his way for some time with his guy friends and made a list of air conditioned things to do here in LR..

Rob's always afraid of leaving us, we do live a crazy life with these two sleep hating crazy boys, but all was well. I mean, not one load of laundry got done, the vacuum didn't run, and I'm pretty sure I gained 6 lbs in onion ring induced bloating. But we had a fun weekend too!

First of all, Aunt Tam came to hang out, which is always a fun time. We took her out for Purple Cow her first night in town, aka Child Friendly (and Dairy Free friendly) eating. We recently discovered that Purple Cow has milkshakes with soy ice cream and soy milk. Yay for Rylan and Max. Tammy and I shared a Dreamsicle shake full of the devil's milk.

Saturday morning we went to Wonder Place. Rylan was invited to his very first classmate birthday party. It was for this completely adorable girl, Emily, or if you are Rylan, "Emerhee". I ok'd it with the mom paying for the awesome Wonder Place Party that I bring Maxerton, since they have a certain number of kids they are allowed. Yay for some no-shows, Max got to come too. And I'd say he enjoyed himself completely.

My boys spent a good deal of time in the doll house area. I would be a little nervous, but it was something new to them.

Not only did Rylan's awesome teacher show up, but she played with the kids more than their own parents. That is her hand doing a puppet show for Rylan.

Max preferred his shirt wet to the point of being see thru and no shoes.

I finally got to meet Kate that we'd heard so much about. 

Birthday girl. She was so completely precious and]

Max might have had a pink cupcake. I'm not sure.

This is 3 year old for "putting the moves on". You blow the party blower directly in the girl's face.

After the party we went to the Rivermarket to enjoy the Farmer's Market and then get Tammy one of her favorite Little Rock lunches: BLVD Bread Company. After we ate our lunch, we noticed a new establishment in the Rivermarket hall called Gourmet Lollies. Oh holy moly. So Freakin Good. Tam and I had salted caramel, Max had strawberry, and Rylan had watermelon. Now Tammy has a new favorite place to visit.

Gourmet Lolly coma

Gourmet Lolly Yosemite Same Stache

Gourmet Lolly inspired happiness

Rivermarket Hall. Love.

After we got all our produce, and our bellies full, we decided to take our sticky, tired kids to the library. Cause where else would you take kids that are sticky and tired but to a place where they need to be quiet. They still did pretty good. And we got all new books, which is always nice. I love Main Library. They are so child friendly.

This is Rylan pretty much sleeping standing up inside the tent.

On Sunday we bid our precious Tammy** farewell and got ready for church. Except Max was a pistol and threw dogfood and water everywhere and Rylan badgered me so many times "where are we going, where are we going, where are we going, where are we going?" that it took my eight times as long to get us in the car and we left the house wayyyyy too late to attend that church service. We were in the car with no where to go, and what would any rational mom who had to wayward children do in this situation? I chose Chuck E. Cheez. I am batshit crazy a little nutty like that.

Let me just tell you, I had heard rumors that Sunday morning is the best time to go to Chuck E. Cheez. Prior to Sunday morning I thought NEVER was the best time for Chuck E. Cheez. I stand corrected. Sunday morning at Chuck E. Cheez is AWESOME. There was like 2 other families there. Chuck E. himself came out and did a little dance with the kids and at the end he threw like 500 tickets in the air. My kids didn't GET it that they should be excited about all the tickets, but we were able to score quite a few from nice workers that felt sorry for the mom wearing a Sunday Mass skirt at Chuck E. Cheez on a Sunday morn. I would definitely suggest going at this time!  This was our weekend in a nutshell. We did good with no Rob but we are glad to have him back!

High fives prior to Max deciding Chuck E. was the devil

This Chuck E. was okay. He got a hug.

Best day of Max's life. He got to ride a "hearse"

**I realize there is not one picture of Aunt Tammy in this post. I'll try to do better?