Phil's & Parties

I took my little man on a date to Phil's Icehouse on Friday night. It's directly next door to Amy's Ice Cream which has all manner of slides and fun playground things outside for the wee ones. We drive by this place all the time and Matthew is constantly asking to go play there, so when I told him where we were going to eat he about jumped out of his carseat with excitement. He played for a good hour until I was finally able to convince him that we should eat some dinner. He wolfed down a corn dog, fries, the onion from my burger, and downed his lemonade. He was a sweaty, hungry, mess. Since he ate so well I told him we could share some ice cream, and he started to dance his little happy jig. Once he discovered that I had gotten Jr. Mint crushin's that's what he kept picking out of the ice cream. Jr. Mints are probably my favorite candy, and it looks like Matt may be beginning to have a love affair with them as well. After we finished he asked if he could go slide some more and I obliged even though bedtime had arrived. He needed to run off that ice cream! He befriended several children and ran around and had a grand ol' time until I pried him away at last. We've got to get back to that place more often. He loved it.
Saturday we headed out to Mary Claire's 5th birthday party. I can't believe she's 5 and about to start kindergarten! It's wild. In Bryan & Sarah's backyard was this huge inflatable slide for the kids to enjoy. Matt was immediately thrilled and ran over to it before I could get his swimsuit on him. He quickly got changed and climbed in, and with the help of his cousins made it to the top of the slide and gleefully made his trip down. He wanted to do it again and again but was frustrated that he couldn't climb up the thing on his own. I crawled in there and hoisted him up every time until I rigged the hose inside there and there was water squirting at me. Matt then turned his attention to the baby pool and had a blast in there. Sarah had made a very elaborate and fantastic looking princess castle cake for Mary Claire. Sadly, I didn't get to partake in any since we had to leave early, but Matt got to taste some of the scraps and loved it.I left there with Zach & Joy and we drove over to her grandmother's house to drop our children off. The kids spent the night there while we drove to Houston to attend Erin Tooley's surprise birthday party. Joy & I did a wardrobe change in the McDonald's bathroom and then we walked over to the restaurant where the party was held. I'm talkin' fancy, y'all. That place was very nice and the food was delicious. I had been craving a steak and I was awarded with an awesome filet of beef. Erin was most definitely surprised and I think thoroughly enjoyed her evening. David had put together a slide show showcasing Erin through the ages and it was quite enlightening and entertaining. We had yummy cheesecake for dessert and then Tooley had also ordered a special birthday cake, so I was in cake heaven! Even though I was totally stuffed.

We spent the night with the Stirmans in their fabulous new house and enjoyed getting to visit with them. The best was their son running around in superhero costumes all morning, changing into a different one every few minutes. We drove back to Austin and rescued the kids. It sounded like they had had a great time. Poor Steven had to work this weekend so he missed out on all the fun. I gave him an earful when he got home on Sunday night which I'm sure he loved.

I think I'm going to go make some cookies now. Bye!