The Children Go on a Field Trip

Not having my husband for two days is not fun, but having the van for those same two days almost makes up for it. Yesterday we ran some errands--bought Ben's new church shoes only 2 1/2 sizes bigger than the ones we were forcing him to wear, bought Grace's pj's since hers were 9-12 months, returned the library books checked out some new ones, and made a bank deposit. A full day for us, to be sure.

Today, however, I wanted to do something a little more fun for the kids, so we used our free guest passes to Young At Art Children's Museum. The boys made Japanese carp kites, origami cats, and they painted. Grace played with the hole punch, ran circles around us, and painted herself and the paper. All in all it was a good time, and certainly worth every penny I didn't pay. I did buy some colored pencils and crayons in the gift shop that work on that black gel paper.

For lunch we went to McDonald's and used the rest of Ben's coupons, and a lot of Mark's hard-earned money besides. No longer does one 10-piece box of nuggets feed the crew! And the kids know that when we go out to eat when daddy isn't here, they can have drinks other than water as a consolation.

Now Grace is napping and the boys are busily working on art projects at the table while listening to "Freddy and the Baseball Team from Mars." Freddy is a pig detective, and he's trying to find a missing Martian. Bradford asked yesterday if this was a true story. Uhhhhh, no.

I'm trying to decide if I need to go out today to get pet "food", or if my rats can wait until tomorrow. Last night I saw one on our patio table, and when I opened the door, he ran up into our grill. Yuck. I threw out some bait for them last night and this morning, and I'm praying they don't die too close to my house, because it stinks for about 3 days. Maybe I should just get some old-fashioned rat traps, but then who would throw them away?! Or just leave them for the next owners?