A "Toad-ally" Tiring Day

We had to attend a six-hour class at church today, and the kids had a very long day in the child care program. They had a lot of fun, but were very tired by the time we went home. In light of this, we tried to make the evening fun for them as a reward for behaving so well all day.

Right after a short nap, we proclaimed "backwards night," which means that we have dinner for dessert and dessert for dinner. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner of cookies-and-cream ice cream/chocolate animal cracker sundaes, with macaroni and cheese for dessert, and then we took the kids outside to blow bubbles in the yard. After running and yelling and chasing bubbles for an hour, we finally dragged our exhausted family back inside.

Well, everyone came in except for Hannah and Josh, so I went back out to see what was taking them so long. Hannah immediately greeted me, squealing and jumping all around me. "Look what we found! Look what we found!" Josh held out his hands and handed me a lovely reddish-brown toad, all covered with grass. I put it in a large tupperware bowl and let the kids examine it for a little while before releasing him back into the yard.

Hannah drew a picture of him on Ben's magna-doodle. It actually was pretty good for a hastily drawn sketch! It's a side view, and I labeled the parts to make it more recognizable. It doesn't show up as well in a small photo.

We trudged upstairs for baths and bed, but the kids amazingly were not quite worn out yet. After Bible time, we started singing the song "Undignified," because we had been talking about David. Hannah and Ben yelled, "Again!" so Josh pulled out my guitar and we sang the song while the kids had their own version of a mosh pit in the middle of the room. After mandating a safer form of dancing, we proceeded to sing "Holy is the Lord," which is one of the kids' favorite songs. Hannah kept running over to me and saying things like, "I just thanked God for everything He made!" and "The earth really is full of His glory!" She was just so excited, it made my heart glad. We sang two more songs and then tucked three exhausted kids into their beds.

It was a "toad-ally" tiring day! Pardon the pun...