Movie night

Fridays are now free days as I mentioned here. On this Friday I didn't have anything special planned, like a park day or field trip etc. After all you can't always take field trips, as much fun as it would be, as budget allows. I have to be creative with what we do since we do have a small budget. Thankfully God has blessed me with a creative mind, so we do low cost things that are still great fun for the boys.
(It really doesn't take too much to amaze a 3 year old and his little brother :))
But Jonah and I had a day date planned this day! So Oliver and Aleksandr had some play time with a great friend of ours that watched them for us.
Our fabulous date was kayaking, and it was a gorgeous day! We had so much fun rowing (6 miles. that is SIX miles) down the river, splashing each other, jumping in the very bone chilling water and just hanging out kid free for a few hours. It doesn't happen often, and while we love our boys, time alone is essential for building our relationship. I love spending time with my sweetheart!
For that night I had planned something special for Oliver. We had a "movie night" with him. This is a rare treat because we don't have TV.  This might be strange to some people, but honestly we don't miss it at all. We decided to cancel cable a few years back (I believe since Oliver was born) so it's been a while since we remember what is like to have a TV! When we watch movies, it's on the computer. Oliver watches some shows here and there so he knows where to watch them. He knows what a TV is but doesn't miss it either as he doesn't know any other lifestyle. But he knows what a movie is and when we said we were going to have a movie night with him, his little face lit up. This was a special thing indeed!
After dinner, bath and pj's (and little brother was in bed) we went down to pop some popcorn. I thought Oliver would enjoy watching it but he was a little freaked out by the loud noise (air popper) and didn't really want to eat it. So I ate it begrudgingly. (um, did you know popcorn is my very favorite snack in all the world?? truly. no lie here.)
Our movie was Mary Poppins. We got through about an hour of it before there were yawns from the little boy. So we ended it there and had him go to bed. I think he loved the special night (even though he doesn't realize he didn't see the whole movie) and time with mommy and daddy. We'll finish the rest of the movie once he is feeling better from his chest cold he's picked up :(. A fun night with good memories!