Cheap Family Fun

We are t-minus 16 days and counting until I start getting a paycheck again. In the meantime, we're getting creative as we continue to stretch Eric's severance and our savings. We've had quite a bit of fun this weekend, on less than $20. First up, Friday night...
...indoor movie night. I had a free rental code for Redbox, so we rented Rio. A blanket on the floor, some popcorn, a few toys for Brennan, some cold beer for Mommy and Daddy, and we were set.
The movie was cute. I have the Angry Birds Rio game on my phone, which Cate loves playing. She loved pointing out the "angry birds" and "mean monkeys" in the movie. The music had us all dancing (and wiggling) to the beat.

Yesterday morning, our local children's bookstore hosted a Max and Ruby story time. Cate got to meet Max. To say she loved him would be an understatement.
Last night we headed up to our local Catholic parish's festival. Cate and Brennan both enjoyed the sandbox. Supposedly there were dinosaurs you could dig up in there, but we didn't find any. Brennan liked the sand, until it stuck to his sweaty hands and arms. Hopefully he'll like beach sand better next summer (this sand was gravelly).
Cate rode the Rocket Ride. She wasn't too sure about the ride at first, but loved it by the end.
Next we were off to the games. Spinning the wheel, playing Plinko, and rolling the skee-balls amounted to Cate earning enough tickets to come home with a small stuffed whale (named Spaghetti), a paperback book, a wooden train whistle, a pirate finger puppet, and a stuffed snake (named Meatball).
Someone is just itching to get to play games too. Next year, buddy.
Today has been mostly rainy. B and I napped together after church for a couple of hours while Cate and Daddy read several books and played quietly. I have another day off tomorrow-- yay, Labor Day! The heat is supposed to break and we'll only have highs in the low 70's tomorrow. I'm excited to hang with my trio again. I'm also going to try my hand at making some freezer jam.

In other news-- Cate's preschool teachers paid a visit to our house last week. They read her a book about going to school, talked to her about coming to school and what it would be like, and left some homemade play-doh for her to play with. This week she gets to visit the classroom by herself for 25 minutes while Eric and I conference with her teachers.

Eric's second week as a stay-at-home-dad was a great success. They had fun at the zoo one day and the children's museum another day. In between they went to the library, played games at home, and colored several pictures (okay, Brennan didn't color, they did that while he napped). It makes me happy to come home to three happy people every day.

~Melody :-)