A Weekend of Pretend Play, Naps and Movies

This will be a quick (well, probably not that quick!) recap of our weekend, yesterday and today.

No, I don't really tie my kids up! As you know, Jared loves Batman and all his villains right now. So, lately I've had to be Poison Ivy. He actually wants me to tie him up, drag him up the stairs to my "greenhouse," and then on Saturday, I picked herbs and other plants from my greenhouse, boiled them up, and then cooked up Batman for a Batman stew. Afterwards, we laid together and I told him a story of how I (Poison Ivy) became Poison Ivy, which I'm sure was quite different from the story made up in the comics.

So, Saturday, for the most part was a really nice lazy day. Steve made bacon and pancakes, the kids watched a Scooby Doo movie, Steve got caught with the budget, and I was able to do some reading. Steve took a nap and I feed the kids lunch, we read some more Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and then we played doctor. Alexa loved playing in the traditional way, taking temperatures, blood pressures, giving shots, and listening to heartbeats with her doctor set....

...while Jared played a little more unconventionally (he's using the injection needle as a missile below).

Later that afternoon, Steve took the kids to order storm windows for the upstairs while I took a much needed nap. For the past month, we've been constantly on the go on the weekends with family stuff, so it's been so nice this weekend to just do nothing scheduled. Later that evening we picked up some movies and a pizza, and watched Mulan. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I'm not a big animation fan at all, but it really was pretty good. Later that evening Steve and I watched The Young Victoria. Lately, I've been falling asleep in the middle of movies, but I stayed awake for this one.

Sunday was once again satisfyingly lazy. After coming home from church, we ate and took more naps (the adults, anyways!) I honestly can't remember much more that we did other than the kids watched Mulan again, and we picked up a chicken dinner from Jewel so I didn't have to cook.

Monday was a wonderful stay at home day. We didn't go anywhere. It was marvelous! I've forgotten how important it is for me to have days like this, frequent days like this, to feel sane. The kids excelled in pretend play this day.

First thing in the morning, the kids went upstairs to play music together, Jared on his drum set and Alexa on the guitar.

They haven't made concoctions lately, but Jared said he just had to make a new recipe today, so that's what he did. Here were some of the ingredients: turkey meat, water, juice, a very ripe banana, cereal, a little donut, chocolate sauce, and tied up Batman and Spiderman.

Jared's new villain costume. He calls this the Wizzar.

There was riding bikes in the sprinkling rain....

....hiding in their "cave" the sandbox...

...tracing letters (I bought her a Kumon My Alphabet Games book. She's also told me yesterday that she wants a maze book, too)

...showing me his rock collection...

...jumping on the bed...

...and giving their stuffed dog, which they named Bono, a bath.

Steve stopped home briefly to take a quick shower (he'd been playing golf all day with clients) and brought some co-workers with him. The kids were so hyper-talkative, it was funny. They usually are shy around strangers, so I don't know what brought this on. At one point, one of the men asked Alexa how old she was. "Four," she says. "Oh," he says, "so you'll be going to kindergarten next year then, right?" She thinks about this for a minute. "I don't think so," she says. "When I get older, I'm going to heaven. Heaven is a wonderful place because that's where Jesus is." 

I can't believe we did this, but we watched two movies in a row - Scooby Doo and the Samurai Sword, and the Wizard of Oz.

Today was our Junior Farmers program. We had a lot of baby holding from chicks, to ducks to bunnies.

And before we left, they asked to run up the stairs and across the bridge.

When we got home, we had lunch and I read two more chapters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Violet just turned into a blueberry. I checked some e-mails and blogs while I ate, and the kids got into a lot of mess. I thought they were just giving their pretend dog a bath again, which they were doing at first, and used a half bottle of conditioner to do it, but then they drifted into my bedroom, quickly got my nail polish and mascara and painted "masks" all over their bodies. While I cleaned them off and the mess in the bathroom, they watched a little of Arthur and Word Girl on PBS.

After that they painted two water color pictures a piece. Alexa is now using the hair dryer to dry her dog, and Jared is lining up all his weapons on his bed. And I need to sign out because I'm being called to play the Joker.