We love family night!

Since the boys were going to be with their daddy-o on my birthday this year, we decided that we were going to celebrate a day earlier on Family Night.

Dyl had been saying that he was sad that he didn't get me anything, so I decided to remedy that by planning a trip to "Color Me Mine".



The boys were told that they could pick out something special to paint for me. They were soooo excited.

Decisions, decisions, so many decisions...

these were the final items

they felt most said,

"Happy Birthday! We love you, Mom!" ...





Aidan's: a snake that opens up..."you can put your jewelry in there, Mom!".



Dylan's: a dalmation puppy (which was in & of itself a fun adventure).

He had seen a display & wanted it to look EACTLY like that. Needless to say, his 5 yr. old fine-motor skills did not accomdate his desires for perfection.

I do believe the words, "THIS IS THE WORSE FREAKIN' NIGHT EVER!" came from his lips when he was unable to perfect some of the spots (um...if you look below, you will notice a rather large drip under one of the dog's eyes...oh well).

I did eventually stop painting my own project (a birthday plate we decided we wanted the tradition of getting to eat from on our birthdays), to help the Dyl-man fix his puppy...

well mainly because people

were starting to stare.


Also, the fact that I had still not transitioned our clocks (blasted DST), made us hard-pressed for time since the store was closing soon.

I do need to extend a very special thanks to the staff at "Color Me Mine"

for being so patient & positive with my boys.

They were awesome.

All in all, I think the boys did a great job painting their pieces...which technically were gift for me,

but who are we kidding...the boys wanted to get the precious items for themselves.

I guess the true gift was the time & memory of the night:)