The boys late night with friends...

What do you get when you invite

 

9 boys, all either 3, 4 or 5 years old...

dressed in their jammies,

with sleeping bags in tow,

on a Wednesday evening

to roast marshmallows

and make SMORES;

play basketball

jump on the trampoline

bounce on the blow up bounce house

drink 4 boxes of Capri Suns

eat one GIANT bag of movie popcorn,

Twizzlers and Airheads...

add in a movie projector

a fence with a canvas tarp draped over it

and the movie "RIO"....

??????

Go ahead take a wild guess...
... yep, you guessed it, that's right!  

Why it's the PERFECT summer late night for our little boys and some of their friends!

The boys had SO. MUCH. FUN. having their friends over to play. It was a little loud (no worries, I've already apologized profusely to our neighbors around us for the noise) but totally a hit!  I just wish we'd done movie nights like this earlier on in the summer.  I'd LOVE to squeeze a couple more in before school starts, but I just don't think that will be possible since I'm leaving for San Diego next week and plan to be gone for the next two weeks.  Oh well, hopefully we can do at least one more movie night like this on a weekend in September while the evenings are still a little warm and not too chilly.  We'll see...

Have I mentioned before that our ward has just over 300 kids in the Primary alone?! I know, it's an insane number of kids! The cRaZy thing is, our ward boundaries only encompass 4 streets (two main streets and two small connecting streets) and a cul de sac so literally we have tons and tons of kids living every which way!  This is GREAT- and sometimes a really BIG nuisance, particularly when it's nap time and I have kids from the neighborhood ringing my doorbell for 15 minutes straight- but like I said, MOST of the time, I consider it a blessing--- our boys have made lots of friends their own ages (we've never been so lucky before--- every other place we've lived with the boys, we've only ever had lots of old people surrounding us).  There's two problems though: For one, like I said previously, either the kids drop in on us- which I am NOT a BIG fan of- I have a life. I'm busy enough with our 5 boys as it is; I'm NOT a babysitter for the neighborhood kids too- especially for those kids whose moms only have one or two kids and send them out every day to wander and find "something to do" so they can have a little "alone time to themselves"... and TWO, I feel like every week at church I'm promising at least a dozen moms that "we'll do a play date together, for sure!" (which I really mean and it's really a promise I hope to keep) when even 2 or 3 play dates that week CAN'T seem to fit into my crazy schedule for the week!...So... as a simple solution, I've opted this summer to start organizing just one great big play date, usually each Wednesday morning, for all the little boys in our ward/neighborhood that our boys are friends with.  There may be a little MADNESS each Wednesday morning as I scramble to get all our boys dressed and things ready for our little visitors, but once all of our mini guests have come and gone, I find myself thinking "BOY, that was easy and SUPER FUN! I can't wait till next weeks play date!!!"  I know, I probably sound cRaZy, but let me just tell you how EASY it is to entertain little boys... EASY PEASY!  Just give them some balls, a trampoline, something to catch bugs with and some water guns--- throw in some juice boxes and an Otter Pop for each kid, and they're in HEAVEN!  I LOVE that we have a backyard now cuz I don't even have to worry about the messes they've made--- I just hose them down.  I will admit, I DO already have a little anxiety about play dates INSIDE the house this winter when the weather won't be permitting to send all the boys outside--- but I'll just worry about that problem when the time comes.  Anyhow, YES. I DO enjoy a good play date, particularly because I see how happy it makes our boys to be with their friends; they NEED that time to play with someone OTHER than their own brother.  There will come a time, a few years from now, when I suppose they WON'T think it's cool that Mom (that's me) is supervising their play date--- they probably won't even think it's cool that I call it a play date, so for that very reason, I'm going to enjoy it now! It's worth it just to hear them giggle and laugh together--- march in formation, watch them race each other to see who can eat their popsicle the fastest--- dance and make shadow puppets on the movie canvas,

roll play and argue some over who get's to be the girl bird, Jewel, from the movie Rio and even share such stories like Ghost Stories--- where in which the storyteller may only get two words out before he begins to bust up laughing and all the other boys chime in with a good belly laugh too! It's just SO.DARN.CUTE!  I LOVE IT! I heart the simple things that little boys LOVE so much!