Weekending: Circus Widow Edition

Okay, so that title may be a bit of an exaggeration, because Darrell only had to work four of the nine shows since the Shrine Circus came to town on Thursday... But three of those four were this weekend, which has meant a lot of solo parenting for me. Not exactly my favorite way to spend a weekend, but it's for a good cause (and, quite frankly, if we didn't have the boys I'd probably be out there working with him) so I guess it's okay.

Naturally, the circus was not the only thing we had going on this weekend, so Friday night was major prep mode. We got our menu figured out for the weekend, stuff pulled together for swim lessons, and tackled some cleaning. Not surprisingly, we closed out the evening with some NCIS on Netflix.

After swim lessons Saturday morning, Darrell entertained the boys at the house and fed them lunch while I ran to the grocery store. Then, after the boys were down for their naps, Darrell left to get his hair cut. Nothing like a little tag-team parenting. I made a batch of banana bread to get rid of some bananas that were getting a little overripe, and Garrett was very impatient while it was baking.

I just love how he is up on his tippy toes trying to see into the pan!

Before long it was time to head to one of the gymnastic studios in town for a birthday party. To say things were a little wild would be an understatement, but the boys had a ball, so that's the important thing.

Darrell had to head straight to the circus after the party, so I took the boys home, attempted to feed them dinner (a little tough after the cupcakes they inhaled at the party), and then worked on getting them ready for bed. Once they were asleep I did some cleaning (seriously, sometimes I feel like all I ever do is clean yet my house is never actually clean), made sure things were ready to go for Sunday, and worked on our menu plan for next week. Darrell got home a little before ten and we considered turning on an episode of NCIS, but decided that it would be smarter to call it an early night since Sunday promised to be busy.

Sunday morning we hit the ground running. Seriously. I think we did more before church than we ever used to do on a Sunday before we had kids. Since Darrell was going to be gone pretty much all day, we made a pizza crust and cooked the pizza so it was ready for lunch (church gets out at 11:30 so we don't have time to cook anything after church and we didn't have any leftovers like we usually have for Sunday lunch), prepped a tater tot casserole for supper, and I went for a run--all in addition to our normal morning routines of breakfast, getting the boys dressed, playing, etc.

My handsome boys on the way to church!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. After lunch and naps, we hung out at the house and killed time until dinner--and we did more of the same after dinner until bedtime. The only excitement was the first thunderstorm of the season rolling through, but thankfully neither boy seemed terribly upset by the ordeal (and no water came into the house!). Darrell managed to get done working a little early, so he made it home in time to play with William for a little bit and then help get him ready for bed. After more cleaning and a little baking, we crashed on the couch for an episode of NCIS before calling it a night.

And, lest you are concerned that we deprived our boys and didn't take them to the circus, Grandma and Grandpa took them Friday afternoon. William had a great time, but apparently Garrett got pretty worked up by everything going on and they ended up having to leave at intermission (he couldn't even be calmed down by food, which pretty much never happens). Hopefully it goes better next year; the Shrine blood runs deep in this family and he has many years of circuses ahead of him!