lost boys

It's been a vision of mine for a long time that when the boys were older they would want to bring their friends to our house to hang out and eat us out of house and home. My logical side figures if I want that to be the case then I should probably start with the play dates now and surprise surprise we currently run out of fruit snacks and Goldfish crackers before you can say some sort of bodily function.   

Aaaand here's a confession. Having lots of really young, really energetic, really loud boys in the house isn't exactly my fave. I know it's so good and important and man am I selfish, but the multiple play dates a week at our house sometimes make me like it's a circus. And who doesn't love the circus?! ;) But. It's important to me for the boys sake so we keep the elephant's marching. Errrrrrrrday. It's all about the big picture am I right?

Okay, let's cut to the fun stuff.

I believe Tuesday afternoon sets the stage nicely and should give you an idea of just how lively our playdates can be when I was in the mood to do something, "fun and spontaneous with the boys" and thought ice cream sounded like a nice treat and so....we found ourselves invading Freddy's ice cream shop.

All five of them plus me.

Lil' charmers. Especially stoic Beckett. He's not easy to impress. 

Getting to this point involved a barbershop quartet of bodily function sound effects. It was close to a Handel's Messiah of farts.

I was a real dictator about the boys sitting and waiting for me to get all the treats to the table (and to snap a pic) before letting them partake. Because I trust the boys about 0% when it comes to food in an uncontrolled environment.

Allow the following pictures to demonstrate why:

It's a real monkey see - monkey do set up.

The glorious miracle that graced our outing was when the whole police force showed up to instill the fear of authority into the boys. Just kidding they came to enjoy some good food as the totally deserve.

But maybe I did mention a few times that the police could, maybe, possibly put them in a time out if they threw one more french fry. Because I'm not opposed to taking advantage of a little intimidation style discipline when it pulls up in a squad car. And then when Rad ran into the men's room and a rugged policeman needed to go in and pull him out...it just bolstered my case. 

 Post ice cream and french fries I loaded them all up and set up camp at the nearest park to wait for Jake to get home from work so that we might transfer the parental duties and power as soon as humanly possible. My heart and its generosity knows no bounds. 

And he was treated like kid royalty upon his arrival.

Happy memories and heart emojis abounding.