dates with the boys..

Chandler planned:

*lunch @ Red Lobster (fish is his favorite)

*shopping @ the mall for some cool new clothes (he chose a hat he's been wanting forever.. a pair of sunglasses and a vest).

Marcus planned:

*a trip to our favorite toy & candy store

*bowling

*lunch @ Olive Garden (noodles are his favorite)

 (Those little powdered sugar donuts are to die for...)

It's been a while since these last dates.. things got really busy with end of the school year activities, the kitchen re-do and my sister and her kids here for the summer. Now with our 4th of July family reunion over with, I think we'll be able to work in some summertime mom-n-me dates! 


Both of the boys already have their next dates planned... I can't wait!

if you haven't spent one-on-one time with your kids lately..

Stop everything. Do it now. It's so worth it!

I've always tried to spend some quality time with each of my kids but our mom-n-me dates started this past summer and it's been so much fun getting to know them by themselves.. in a setting where their true personalities have the chance to shine through. The conversations I have when I'm alone with them are different than those that we have when we're all together as a family. I get to know the things they like to do as an individual since I let them help plan what we're going to do.

Once school started mixed with the mass amounts of family birthday celebrations and holidays... things got kinda crazy & we took a little break for a while. The kids kept asking "When are we gonna start doing mom-n-me dates again???" Finding the time can be hard sometimes... but it's so important. I know that by making time for these little mom-n-me dates with them right now, I'm creating a monumental conglomeration of memories between us that will last a life time. I can totally see us having 'remember when' conversations about our little dates when they're all grown and married with kids. Smiles & laughter we'll share for sure. 

 
Today was Marcus' turn. He planned the whole thing. First we went to Nickel City and played games together. He found out that Skee Ball was my favorite game to play at places like Nickel City when I was little. We played game after game, competing to see who could finish the game first with the most points & tickets. We were laughing and having so much fun! When we were done playing all of our nickels.. he traded in all of our tickets for a stash of giant sized lemon heads just because he knew I liked them. They aren't his favorite but he wanted to get something for me. How considerate..

Afterward he chose to have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Mableby's! I didn't object. We both ordered our regular choices, sweet shrimp tacos for Marcus, their yummy house salad for me, Mmmm.... and of course their endless bread sticks that are to. die. for. good! Their desserts are delicious too. Our waiter told us one of his favorites and we decided to give it a try, it was the chocolate chip cookie pie with two scoops of vanilla ice cream drizzled with hot fudge. Now it's one of our favorites too!

(thank goodness for cellphone pictures, I was able to capture all the fun we had)

what we did on Tanner's birthday-

Tanner's birthday fell on the first day of Fall break, so no school! We had the whole day open to go and do whatever we wanted...


It was so nice, we all slept in.. then I took Tanner up to Sundance for some Mom-n-Me time. I was going to take him on the tram ride up the mountain to see the gorgeous colored leaves but when we got there we found out that they had just barely shut down the tram rides for the season the Sunday before. It's okay though, the weather was perfect, the drive up the canyon was just as gorgeous as the tram ride would've been, and we still got some fresh pastries & fruit with a drink and a spiced apple cider sucker to eat out on the covered porch! 

Tanner chose the glass bottle of Orange Crush because when he saw it he remembered it being what Santa left him in his stocking for Christmas last year!

Tanner's so cute.. I just love hangin' out with him! He told me on the way up the canyon, "Mom. I like your earrings! They're pretty." 

When we got home from Sundance, Tanner got to open his presents!!!

I think I was looking forward to Tanner's birthday just as much as he was... he's been begging me to let him look through the toy section of the store and pointing out things that he wants for his birthday for months! Thank goodness we won't have to do that anymore.. Oh wait! Now he's gonna want to do it for Christmas! 


Here we go again...


A little while later Andres met up with us & we went to see the movie Alpha & Omega. It was fun going to a movie with the family but the movie was not that great, I wish it would've been better, the kids were fine with it though.