"Something New and Special"

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I forgot to take Luke's car seat out of Jeff's car before he left for work on Monday so I didn't have enough car seats to take all three kids to Bethany's music class and Menchie's. We were all ready and on our way out the door before I noticed so the kids were pretty disappointed when we didn't get to go. They were all just staring at me confused and let down, so I quickly grabbed the stroller and asked them if they wanted to go for a walk and promised we would have fun. 

As soon as we got out the door, Bethany started saying, "We're going on a walk to find something new and special." I have no idea where she got that, but I started feeling the pressure. Apparently, I owed them for missing our usual activities. The only problem was, there is nothing but houses and our regular (definitely not "new") little park within the neighborhood and as soon as you leave the neighborhood, the sidewalks disappear. In their place are strips of thick, uneven grass on the sides of the road. But as Bethany continued to tell Luke and Becca that we were going to find something new and special to play with, I decided I had no choice, but to brave it, in hopes that we would find something "new and special" (and hopefully some sidewalks) soon.

I got my workout pushing the kids through the grass, which was soggy in some places due to the rain the day before. We cut through parking lots where we could to make the journey easier and about 1/3 mile down the road, we ended up at a donut shop. There were still no sidewalks in sight so I decided that this would have to be "new and special enough."

Bethany got a donut covered in pink frosting and sprinkles, while Becca, Luke and I shared a chocolate one. As we left the shop, Bethany asked, "Are we going to find something new and special to play with now?" Crap. Then I remembered something I had seen on a morning run a while back: a nice big park and splash pad next to a lake in the neighborhood across from Ben and Caitlin's.

So we walked back through the grass, through the neighborhood, and to the park. Bethany was really excited to see the lake and park I had described along the way and when the park came into view, Bethany said, "I see it! It's so purple and pretty!" She decided it was "new and special" enough for her. Whew!

When we walked up to the park, a little family was playing on the splash pad. When Luke saw the water, he ran straight for it, giggling excitedly.

This kid loves to play in water!

Becca had no interest in getting wet.

Bethany took a break from the splash pad to make me nervous with a daring climb.

After a while, the water turned off and I wasn't sure how to turn it back on, so the kids made the most of the waning streams of water.

Bethany rocked the two little ones on the spring elephant.

Happy babies

Cute little climber

We walked home for lunch (Bethany wants chicken nuggets literally every day) and during story time, all of the kids wanted to get into Becca's crib while I read.

All three of them started playing peek-a-boo, crouching down low behind the bars and springing up over and over again. They all thought they were pretty funny. Then Luke started hug-tackling everyone and he had to come sit on Mommy's lap for the rest of story time to avoid further injury.