date night

rich has been pulling some long hours trying to wrap up a deadline at work and so last night i took my kids to dinner. one, because i hate to cook nice dinners that my husband doesn't eat (i know that's stupid but whatever), and two, i thought it would be fun to have a date with my kids in the middle of the week for no real reason. we chose sizzler because there's something for everyone. we had a ton of fun, the boys especially couldn't stop laughing at each other, i'm sure the people sitting near us...oh wait, there wasn't anyone near us. ethan loved getting a plate from the salad bar with little piles of all of his favorite things...fresh peas (although he prefers them frozen), sliced olives, mandarin oranges and cantalope. when we were almost done with dinner we tried to get a self portait with the kids sort of standing/kneeling around me. we were laughing at the bad ones and finally decided that this one would do. our very gay waiter asked if he could take a picture for us (noticing our difficulty) and i said, "no way, we're having way too much fun!" i've noticed this is people's reaction when they see you taking a self portait anywhere. is it rude to say that i can take a better picture of myself than they could? by the time we got home it was straight to bed which was a very good thing for the mother after such a long long fun, but long day.

**do you hate obnoxious people in restaurants?

*do you love going out to dinner in the middle of the week for no good reason?**

oreo magic

The kids and I all sat down together for lunch the other day, which is unusual for us because we're always going different directions during the day. Dinner we're pretty good to all be together but lunch is a different story. Anyway, after lunch Allie asked if she could have some Oreos so we all poured a glass of milk and opened a fresh package and put it in the middle of the table. Something magic happened after that, we all sat around the table talking and laughing while we dunked and ate our chocolate goodness. It was such a fun little twenty minutes and I remember having one of those moments where you look around and see your kids for who they really are, fun little people and feeling joy at seeing their oreo-teeth smiles. Then comes that moment when you feel your heart flutter a little and you fight back ridiculously sappy tears because you are flooded with gratitude for the opportunity to be a mother, especially to these darling faces. Way high on the cheese factor I'm sure but true. Unfortunately I only took pictures of Ethan, I wished I would've taken more but I wouldn't have been able to capture that moment anyway so it's probably just as well. Ethan pictures came easily because he was enjoying his first Oreo experience so much. He somehow knew, just like all humans who've ever eaten an Oreo, that you twist of one side and lick the side with the frosting.Then he saw the other kids dunking and of course had to try it. Although we lost a few cookies at the bottom his cup because he insisted on dunking way too long, he's officially an Oreo fan.

I think that the milk mustache and oreo-teeth grin pretty much sum it all up don't they?