Grandma & Grandpa time

So my sister started me down the slippery slope of child truancy.  Once I let them skip half the day on Halloween it turned into a terrible habit.  My parents came out for the week before Thanksgiving and each of the kids got to choose their half day date with my parents.

However, I was so ashamed of my Ferris Bueller-ness that I only allowed really crappy phone photos to be taken.

Sadie (Queen Diva Extrordinaire) was up first and being the artist that she is, picked As You Wish pottery.  My mom and I went to pick her up from school.  As I was asking the front desk to call her down, we heard a little giggle and we turned around to find Sadie all ready to go.  She was so excited.

They went to Rubio's for lunch, painting (a new piggy bank since her little brother broke hers and was un-surprisingly taking a long time doing enough good deeds to earn money to buy her a new one) and finally to Cold Stone for dessert.  Luckily for my parents, all 3 stores were right next to each other.  Or maybe this was all the genius planning of a smarter-than-average mother.  Sadie also came home with her very own artist's kit.

Of course we also needed pedicures to make the day complete.

It was Sadie's first mani/pedi and she loved every second of it.

Somewhere in there Luke had an amazing school performance witnessed by my dad because my mom and I were stuck buying my beautiful new birthday present -- a strawberries and cream beach cruiser.

Ellie's date was Tuesday and she picked lunch at Brio and then shopping at the mall.

My dad strangely enough wasn't interested in the shopping portion (could have been me reminding him how much he hates shopping), so I weaseled my way onto the date.

We hit up 10 or 11 stores, Ellie got a make over at Sephora and managed to come home with 4 or 5 new outfits -- probably because we had to buy her more stuff than we bought for ourselves in order to consider the trip "Ellie's Day."

Nate lucked out and got to skip the entire day on Wednesday and headed up to the Zoo with my dad and Luke.

 My mom and I stayed home to pick up food, prizes, and decor for Thanksgiving, the Race, the Baptism. . . But somehow we ended up at DSW??  We thought we had ended up with the good end of the deal until these pictures started coming in:

My dad said it was the perfect day and they saw every single exhibit at the zoo.  About 6 hours later, they finally made their appearance -- tired, but happy.

Luke had so much fun at the zoo, that he got mad at me the other day because he thought we were heading there, but instead I took him to IKEA (he forgave me once he saw how much fun IKEA is).  "Oooh, it's my Grandpa's path to the Zoo!"  "We're going to the Zoo!!"  "Heeeeeeeey!  That not the Zoo."  "I so mad at you Mom.  I want to go to my Grandpa's Zoo."

We had so much fun having everyone come and stay over the next few days for all the Thanksgiving festivities and all the big events, but I think these individual dates were probably my kids favorite memories.

It reminds me of the talk by Elder Oakes: Good Better Best.  "Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent."  I'm so glad with all the craziness that abounded, my children were still able to have some amazing memories of time spent with my parents.