when daddys away, we will play!

thatcher left for a work conference in pittsburgh on saturday morning, so it was just me and the kiddos all weekend. and we kept pretty busy! because that's how i keep my sanity intact while solo parenting ;) 

backing up to friday, i have to share this picture of the coolest fog that was hanging around ballard all day...

on saturday morning we went to swanson's nursery to check out their fall festivities. we've gone the last couple years and its nice because it's (mostly) free. they have an indoor hay bale maze, pumpkin decorating ( with glitter!), and the ever-popular koi fish pond. in past years, they've had goats but they weren't there this year. bummer! the kids each decorated a pumpkin and ran around in the maze. it was a fun morning. 

in the afternoon, azalea went to a play date at her classmate maggie's house with a group of girls. they were calling it a "unicorn party". love it :) then we picked her up and went straight to a birthday party for one of ashford's buddys from preschool last year, lochlann. it was a halloween birthday party, so you can see a sneak peek of the kids' costumes. we ate pizza and cake and the kids ran around. 

we got home at 5:15 and since we had eaten dinner already and i was convinced it had to be bed time, but no, it wasn't. ha! we relaxed the rest of the night. 

sunday was the second super early morning in a row. they didn't go easy on me when it came to sleep this weekend. it seemed like one or the other was awake in the 5:00 hour each morning. we hung out at home all morning and then i took them to a new restaurant called "crown hill broiler" for lunch. it's about a mile and a half away and i had heard from multiple friends that the food was great. the food was pretty good...but we were one of two tables occupied in the whole place, which is always a bit awkward. and the manager was serving the tables. i hope they get some more traction soon. after sort of a tumultuous morning at home, the kids were complete angels at the restaurant thanks to the big screen tvs playing football. they had all sorts of questions about who was playing, etc. it was pretty cute. 

after lunch we went to playdate seattle in south lake union with our friends julie and ben. ben has been in azalea's class for the past 2 years and his mom is my friend. we ended up staying for 3 hours which was a nice way to kill the afternoon. we grabbed groceries on the way home and then i made one of my favorite meals: italian chicken sausage and roasted veggies: fingerling potatoes, green peppers, red onion, and broccoli. it's super easy and so good! 

we ended the night by watching "hotel transylvania 3" which the kids have been wanting to see. 

two more days til thatcher returns and his dad comes into town as well!