no school day

the kids didn't have school today (for columbus day) so i made plans to get together with two other families. we were going to go to the park for lunch but decided that it was too cold. i invited everyone over to our house (i needed some motivation to bust through some cleaning). i failed to take any pictures. the kids played downstairs. we made a few pans of "smash balls". while they were in the oven we had a hot dog lunch. there were seven kids and i had seven hot dogs. my friend and i had pb&j. this was a little last minute so i didn't have much for 'grown-up food' (although we discussed loving pb&js).

the smash balls were a hit with the kids (literally). thankfully, we have a crazy amount of toy hammers and almost had one for each kid to use (seriously, why do we have so many hammers?).

everyone left around 1 for naps. since our kids don't nap i decided on a whim to take them out for cupcakes! it was a surprise and when we pulled up madelyn kept insisting it was ice cream. she couldn't even wrap her head around a store that only sold cupcakes!

the kids were great (and relatively neat). some ladies at another table asked if they were all mine and then said that i was brave feeding them all so much sugar. manning was having a very difficult time settling to sleep so i had to hold him (it is a small place and he was being super loud). as i was buckling him back in (while he screamed like i dismembering him) the boys were climbing a cupcake display. oops. we almost had a successful outing. the guy behind the counter asked me to keep them off. that was embarrassing. maybe we will wait a while before going back...and we will bring daddy. the cupcakes were really good. love.