hello monday

Hello frost.  Hello sunshine.  Hello kids off school today.  Hello major laundry day.  Hello taking it easy and hanging around and looking after a puppy who's had some mean, explosive diarrhea (throughout the nights as well... at least she lets us know and gets outside in time, but it was like a night with a newborn again!).  Hello nap later.

We had a really good weekend.
Friday evening Ryan was out (playing ping pong!) with friends and the kids went to bed relatively early (fighting off colds) and I had a nice, quiet night watching repeat episodes of Portlandia and prepping some yummies (this, this and these) for a shin-dig the next day.

Saturday was full of the kids' early basketball/cheer games, going out for donuts, dog walking and housecleaning.  Then we hosted a Game Night at our place that evening... a friend had emailed a group of us from church earlier in the week saying she had a babysitter for sat. evening and wanted to wrangle up some fun, I offered up our house for games as an option, and so it began.  Funny thing was, I only knew a handful of the people she invited.  I knew of a few more, but seriously Ryan and I had only actually previously met about four of the nineteen people that showed up at our house that evening!  Essentially, a friend was having a party and we were providing the house. ;)  But it was so fun.  Ryan kept giving me a hard time going into it; "now, who's coming over?  And will I even know anybody?"... but my response was, this is how we get to know them!  And it was so fun.
Our kids were phenomenally good (shooed upstairs with a movie, they were seriously not seen or heard the whole evening and went to bed without a peep!) and our puppy was incredibly sweet and well behaved (and gushed over about her sweetness and well-behavior all night!) and we had a ton of good food and desserts and some fabulous drinks and a huge group that actually got around to playing a few organized games.  The pool table was in almost constant use of course, but we did manage a few large rounds of Catch Phrase and then later, a hilarious game of What's Yours Like in between all the snacking and laughing and meeting and greeting and chatting.  Loved.  It.
Loved it.

Church Sunday am and then after lunch, to reward/thank the kids for being so good the previous evening, we asked them what fun they'd like to spend the afternoon doing.  They chose bowling.  So we hit up our local bowling alley (where my six year old proceeded to out score me) and the kids had a blast.  We followed it up with more spoiling rewarding and treated them -at their request- to a quick, early dinner at McDonalds before heading home.
Heading home and finding that Tiny's angry bowels were not finished acting out as we had thought.  Oh the smell.  And oh the poor puppy trapped in her crate with that pile puddle.  So Ryan and I spent the next hour washing a dog, dog bedding, wiping down the floor and the walls (I mentioned this was explosive, yes?) and hosing down her crate.  Fun times.
We finally got that all cleaned up (and windows opened, a layer of Frebreeze on everything and candles burning everywhere!) and settled in for a night of tv:  two-hour season finale of Downton Abbey last night... *sigh*.  Not sure what we're going to do with ourselves 'til the new season starts?!  We watched the whole two seasons in the past two and half weeks, to catch up just in time for the final episode.  So Downton's basically been our life for the past few weeks and now there will be a gaping hole in our evenings. ;)  So addicted to that show!  I may have withdrawls.  Or have to find a new, substitute addiction.  Must watch show anyone??