In my attempt to force the nephews to like us, we decided to kidnap them on Friday night and have a super-fun weekend with them. Also this was a chance to prove to the man upstairs that Josh and I would be fantastic parents. Here are the highlights.

We stayed up WAY past their bedtime (like 12:30) on Friday night playing nintendo intellectually stimulating games about math and reading. That way we'd spark their interest and improve their minds at the same time. The children were thrilled with our choice of the evening. Just goes to show you that kids really do like to learn. My philosophy on bedtime: if you're grumpy go to bed. If not, don't. (Clearly I don't deal with the next day. Sorry Sarah.)

Also, I'm pretty sure that moving the Wii wheel (up and down, in front of your face, around your back, and pulled close to your body) doesn't really change the direction or speed of the Mario Kart. But whatever they were learning about how to be gracious losers.

The next morning despite a very healthy breakfast, Dallin wasn't feeling so hot and gave me back his breakfast, which I handled beautifully. (By handing the kid a garbage can to continue puking in and making him change his own pants while I tried to hold off my gag reflex.) Fortunately he felt fine and acted fine the rest of the day.

We asked the kids what they wanted to do today. Dallin brought his swimming suit (he thought he might need it in an emergency, which Garret explained might happen if we were flying over the ocean to get from American Fork to Lindon and the plane went down and we had to swim to shore) but Garret didn't. Dallin thought we'd all go to the rec center and since he brought the oh-so-versatile size 4 swimsuit (I guess they both fit a size 4....but really I'm just guessing because I know nothing about their vital stats) he and Garret would take turns swimming. Josh and I decided it was a great idea but unfortunately we didn't dare split up for fear they'd overtake us the rec center was closed.
While waiting for Josh to "get ready" aka take the fastest shower of your life and get right back out here! Dallin looked at Garret playing the games, looked at me and said "it's too bad you don't have much of a backyard". To which I responded. "uh huh. wanna play Wii?"
First order of business (after the breakfast and puking) was bowling. Thank you Bountiful Bowl for being close to home because I think if they'd asked us one more time how far away the bowling alley was from our house I wouldda gone a little crazy. 20 times is cute. 21 times is annoying. At this point in the day I'm still happy we're playing house for a while and answering "pretty close" 20 times in a row without yelling at all makes me feel like I would be a fantastic parent.
At the bowling alley, the guy asked what size their feet were. He clearly directed the question at me and I looked at the kids for help. They each took off a shoe to check and told the man themselves. Then he looked at me waiting for an explanation. "13 1/2" I repeated. He sighed and turned to get the shoes.
When the boys sat on the floor in the middle of the doorway to change into their "uber-cool bowling shoes" I didn't even yell about how they were in the way and needed to move.

Josh got a strike and gave me a thumbs up.

Dallin got a spare, but I guess that wasn't really exciting for him. Whatever, I didn't yell then either.

Dallin liked to push the buttons - of course they didn't do anything, but he was just as entertained with that as anything else. We shouldda just stayed home the nintendo intellectually stimulating games. Whatever.

Garret was an amazing bowler. Seriously. He beat us all, by 37 pins but just barely.

Dallin was an amazing bowler too. But, given that the ball weighed about 1/3 of his body weight (I'm guessing because clearly I don't know their shoe sizes, weights, social security numbers or even their middle names), after the first few frames he was having a hard time hucking the thing down the alley. So being the incredibly observant caretaker that I am I asked the bowling guy to get him this thing, which he carefully placed each turn, and then quietly put back away at the end of every turn. This kid is SOO polite it's ridiculous really.

This is my "I got 2 gutter balls in a row" face.

This is the "focus on recovering from 2 gutter balls" face. (Ignore the fact that all the shoes but none of the people are in the chairs behind me. Josh is taking my picture, where are the boys? No idea. But they did come back.)

After turning in our shoes and safely making it back to the car (and making sure everyone was buckled - once again with the 'I'd be an awesome mom' feeling) we decided it was time for lunch. For some reason when I asked what they wanted to eat for lunch I kindof expected something cool or exciting. "oooh a McDonald's is right there!" Is what I got. Amazing. While waiting in line at the drive through, Garret shared this little tidbit with us. Josh and I looked at each other and smiled because we're good parents that don't laugh at our (borrowed) kids.

We ate our (non well-balanced) grub at the park. Half Dallin didn't want to finish his hamburger because Garret asked about the toy that came with it. Given my lack of wild success with breakfast, I didn't really want to force feed the kid anything, so I let it go. During a rousing game of tag, I realized a few things. 1) running in the sand is hard and I'm out of shape. 2) If my success as a parent depends at all on my ability to keep up with 2 running boys and Josh dies, I will die too. 3) It was DEFINITELY a mom who invented the "safe bench".

Josh had a blast with them at the playground. And this is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Again, where are the kids? Probably on the slide of death and doom.

He conquered the "slide of death and doom".

Quickly followed by his brother. They're both smiling, and that's how I know it was OK to let them go down on their own. When you're a mom sometimes you just learn by trial and error.

Who can swing highest? Well, on this swingset, it was a tie. When Josh jumped out, I freaked out a little because Dallin likes to be cool like his "fravorite uncle". Images of the Emergency Room and blood and guts flew through my mind, while Dallin flew through the air. He safely landed and I promptly told them it was time to leave.

Back to intellectually stimulating games. Safe and sound where they belong.

When we got back, we were all bored. What do you people do all day with your kids? We had gone to the park, had lunch, breakfast, made our beds (and deflated their air matress) showered, gone bowling, and were totally worn out by 3:00 in the afternoon. Granted we didn't have all the normal daily stuff going on....the kids obeyed our every command because we aren't their parents, and nobody cried or whined the whole day (which I'm sure takes up a big chunk of time....). I was just surprised that we did all the fun things I thought would take the whole day, and it didn't. Not even close! If we had been required to be entertaining for much longer we both would've cried. Not to mention the fact that they and we were perfectly content to play Wii for 90-a hundred 1.5 hours this weekend. Geez, what do you with a kid who doesn't play Wii?!

After giving these lovely children back to their lovely mother (and giving her an only partial report of the day's happenings) Josh and I came home and crashed. For real. Josh fell asleep at 6:30 last night and I followed at 9:00. We didn't bother to get up until 8:00 this morning, and that's how I know it's a dang good thing we don't have babies yet.