D is for Date

Our alphabet letter "D" was a brilliant idea, I must say. I don't know how I thought of it; it just came to me. I assigned each of the boys to take one of their sisters on a Date. Because our family has boys and girls divided so evenly, it worked out nicely, but I feel like you could make this work with a different set of siblings if you included mom and dad or paired the kids up differently.

Each brother had to plan his own date, taking into account what his sister would like best. Sam or I would drive them, but the rest was up to them. I said they couldn't all do the same thing (since I wanted each to be able to give one sister his undivided attention) and they had to stay fairly close by since we were going to have to fit all three dates into one Saturday. And I gave them each $6 to spend.

And it all turned out so awesome! I loved it so much. It was great for the girls to feel so focused-on and loved and pampered by their brothers, and it was great for the boys to feel so grown-up and responsible and adored by their sisters! After their dates were over the children all kept saying how fun it was and asking if we could please please do this again. Everyone was excited about the idea of the different things they would do if they were with a different sibling, so I think we'll do it again for sure, maybe with a higher or lower budget just for variety. $6 to spend and a time limit of 2 hours was just right for a sweet little brother–sister bonding time, though.

Sebastian took Marigold out to get pastries for breakfast, and then to Target to buy stickers (they had $1 left after their pastries) and then to a playground. It was THE SWEETEST how he kept asking her, "Is this fun, Goldie? Do you like this?" And he kept telling me to take pictures of them. "Did you get one of us on the swings? Here, take one of me holding Goldie." And needless to say, Goldie was in heaven. She chattered to Sebby like a little magpie. Oh, it was sweet. Afterwards Sebby said, "If we do this again, I want to take Goldie again." Who wouldn't?

For his date, Abraham took Daisy to the Curiosity Museum at Thanksgiving Point (we have an annual pass, so it was free and didn't count as part of his $6). Daisy had a bit of a fever but there was NO WAY she was going to miss this date that she had been dying with excitement about all day. She wasn't showing any other symptoms so I let her go. Abe bought them French fries and frozen custard to share, and then they played at the museum on the playground for a couple hours. They both loved it.

Malachi took Junie out for ice cream, and then they went to the Farm Country part of Thanksgiving Point. Junie loves pigs so Malachi decided that it would be fun for her to go see real pigs. It was so cute to see him planning it out for her.

They wanted to take pictures of themselves in the car. I love Junie's sweet little head on Ky's shoulder.

As an added bonus, there were bunnies!

And baby lambs!

And they got to ride the ponies, which they loved.

Pigs are…just pigs, but Junie oinked at this one and he oinked back. They bonded. She was happy and it was adorable.

My favorite part was just watching them interact with each other, talking and holding hands and giggling together. I mostly tried to stay out of the way and let them do their own thing, so I was just watching from afar, but I could see how much they were loving it all. Such a joyful thing, to see one's children being friends!