A Family Saturday

Saturday was a fun day.  We had zero plans and enjoyed the day together.  Since the calendar did not require us to be anywhere,  we let the day take us where it wanted to.  Turns out, the day wanted us to be lazy in the morning, paint in the afternoon and then go bowling and eat mini-tacos in the evening.

For Christmas, Santa brought Drew a canvas paint set complete with 4 individual canvases, 8 tubes of paint and an easel for the artist to perform his work.  It is nice when the Christmas gifts last longer than the week following Christmas.  I generally try to put several gifts away to be opened in the summer, but Drew has had his eye on this one for weeks and it felt like a good family activity for a Saturday.  Although I should clarify . . . this a good family activity to do while Daddy was running errands (Daddy is not such a huge fan of giving our 3 little boys unlimited access to paint and would much prefer to see the final product than the process required to create such a masterpiece:)

Although it was Drew's Christmas gift, he was thoughtful and shared with his younger brothers.  Owen patiently waited for Drew to finish so that he could have a turn working at the easel.  And Evan . . . well (even I am not that crazy to trust that little man with paint), we just gave him some clean paintbrushes and let him dip them in water and pretend to paint on the canvases that were still protected with cellophane wrapping.   

Drew began painting Lightening's car red . . .

And viola! - 30 minutes later we have a finished masterpiece!  

Now, it was finally Owen's turn.  He set about his creation in a much less precise way than Drew did.  I think that Owen recognized that there were in fact, lines on the canvas to direct his paint strokes; but Owen was way more concerned about making sure that he covered up as much of the white part of the canvas as possible.  He also took care to make sure that every color was well-represented in his masterpiece so as to not make any color feel left-out.  My Owen is such a sensitive and considerate little guy.

Quite a beautiful job, if you ask me.   Now only if we knew where to hang this artwork!  

Evan eventually realized that the role he was playing in this painting process was not equal to that of his brothers; as a result, he was not happy.  Since he was so sad, I should not have been smiling at him and snapping away with my camera in his moment of distress; however, Evan is so stinking cute when he is upset that I have to ensure that even his unhappy moments of childhood are well represented:)  

The day later called us to the local bowling alley.  Not really sure why, but Drew had been talking about bowling earlier in the week (along with the list of the things that he would like to sign up for such as another session of indoor soccer, T-ball sign-ups, swimming lessons and karate) and I thought that it would be fun for us to go bowling together this weekend.  And it was was fun!  Although I am embarrassed to say that at the end of the game, Drew and I both had a score of 107; I tied with my 5-year old (and I'd be lying if said that I wasn't trying hard)!  Oh well - I just prefer to think of Drew as an excellent bowler well beyond his years.    

Evan loved bowling!  He got so excited watching the ball approach the pins.  Even the smallest ball was too heavy for him to carry, so he invented his own approach to bowling - he kicked the ball.  Whatever.  It worked.  

Owen had recently been to a birthday party at the bowling alley so he was our expert.  My Owie is such a cute-pie!    

 And that is a wrap on our wonderful Saturday.  Enter Sunday.

I'm not really sure why, but I have always had a bad case of "Sunday-itus."  It is the moment of realization that the the blissful hours of Saturday have now receded into Sunday which means that we are just moments away from the work week commencing again and interrupting the peaceful flow of life that we established over the weekend.  The re-entry has always been the hardest part for me.  It is almost as though I'm hesitant to allow myself to enjoy extended breaks for fear of having them come to an end.  I've never figured out why I have this emotion, but it rears it's ugly head every weekend right about this time.  The strange part is that I enjoy my job, am grateful for my job and believe that it is important to work; so who knows why I am plagued with this "Sunday-itus."  My only hypothesis is that during college, I procrastinated my studying way too much and now even as an adult, I am forever feeling the guilt and "pressure" of the looming Monday morning alarm clock.

But here's to a happy Monday and to counting our infinite blessings!