Come Aboard. We're expecting you....

No, we didn't take a trip on The Love Boat but we did venture out this past weekend with the kids to eat at a restaurant. This is not something high on our list of things we do. My friend, Kelli, has posted a few times about taking her kids who are similar ages as Kenzie and Ben to Red Robin. Our experience was much like The Love Boat theme song. They were definitely expecting us, kids in tow! They had a great kids menu, crayons for coloring and even balloons! We will definitely be returning next time we want to go out to eat.

Here are McKenzie and her Daddy and the pink balloon. Oh, how she loved that balloon! She also insisted in leaving the restaurant with her plastic milk cup, colored menu and the two crayons she received. Our girl is such a hoarder.


This was Ben's first time venturing out at a meal time without baby food. By this age McKenzie was eating anything she could get her hands on but Ben acts like I'm poisoning him if I slip him some 'real' food and prefers the baby food mush. I try to reason with him and tell him the baby food is poison but he loves the stuff. Looking forward to next week and switching off of formula to real milk - then we can really be on the go! Now if I could only get him to actually hold his own bottle all the time. That's another difference in the kids, McKenzie was off the bottle at one and onto the sippy cup with no issues. Ben is just not interested in tipping his head back to properly drink out of either a bottle or sippy cup so it's hard for him to get anything.  Then he gets bored and gives up for more exciting things like climbing the bookshelves. Maybe if I made eating more of a challenge he'd help out more.


Here's Ben using the tiny cup his orange wedges came in as a phone. It's amazing how quickly they pick things like that up!


One of the reasons Matt and I don't eat out with the kids often is our difference in opinion on the mess kids make. Matt feels we should pick up all the little bits of food from the floor and surrounding area and I, on the other hand, am okay to pick up the really big stuff and leave a big tip. Going to Red Robin and seeing that there were tons of other messy kids there and they were prepared to deal with a bit of a mess let us find a happy medium in our opinions and we left the place neat but not as neat as we found it.

We also made it to the park again this past weekend.  It is so amazing to have sunny days in January here in Seattle! We have some really nice neighborhood parks that are a quick drive from our house. When the weather is nice one of our favorite things to do is grab take out sandwiches or something else easy and have dinner at one of the parks. This kills two birds with one stone - we eat and the kids get some energy out. I'm really looking forward to the nicer weather now that Ben is really mobile and can enjoy the park too.

Yes, Ben is going to be that kid...the one going up the slide right from the start!


Looking forward to the weekend and hopefully more sunshine!