When Daddy is away ...

A couple of weeks ago, Matt had to go out of town for three days for an administrators' retreat. We really missed him and were really glad to have him return!

While he was away, we planned a few fun things to help the time pass more quickly for all of us.

On Thursday night, I took the boys to a build-your-own fro yo sundae place to celebrate the great parent-teacher conference that we had with Ian's teacher about Ian.  The boys LOVED picking their own toppings and eating their sundaes almost as much as crawling through the holes on the bottoms of the funky orange chairs.

On Friday, Ian didn't have school due to parent-teacher conferences. We met some friends at a nearby park for some playtime. The weather was gorgeous!

Paul, Caleb, Ian (fellow kindergartners)

Ian (jumping off the camel), Elise (in pink), Ryan (in black), Paul (in yellow)

Caleb, Sammy, Paul, Ian

the bench swings were fun!

Sammy and Ryan slid down this slide many, many times. It was cute that Sammy would wait patiently for Ryan to come up the stairs so they could slide down at the same time.

Ian and Paul riding a dinosaur

On Friday afternoon, before we hosted small group that evening, I took the boys to Kroger to choose some pumpkins for our family. Of course, each boy wanted his own shopping cart. Each boy chose two small pumpkins and worked together to choose one big pumpkin as our family pumpkin.

When we got home, we were able to decorate our small pumpkins. Ian wanted to replicate some decorating ideas we had tried out last year. First, the boys hammered some buttons onto their pumpkins with tiny nails.

The boys chose to paint their second pumpkin with tempera paint.

On Saturday, I must've been too tired to remember to use the camera. :) We went to a friend's birthday party in the morning and enjoyed some time with Aunt Chelsea and her dogs in the evening. By late, late Saturday night, Daddy was home so we could all attend church together on Sunday morning! :)