Last weekend my husband went to see Bob Dylan in Vegas with his friend Joe, leaving us gals to have a 24-hour PAR-TAY! Ok, so that last part is only partly true.

After taking Dad to the airport, we headed to Target for a few necessities, leaving an hour and a half later with 4 pair of kid shoes, 2 kid outfits (no, not that Panda head above), 2 unneeded toys and oh, a few necessities… How does that HAPPEN?! We also grabbed some Halloween decorations, including a big black bug to hide and scare Dad. More later on that.

One of our local Target stores is also right beside a playground, so prior to shopping, the girls got the wiggles out on some play equipment, with the promise that they would be helpful once in the store. These kids love playgrounds…

We had a birthday party at 2 pm at yet another park for our friends Holly and Amanda’s little girl, Addie. Oh, 1-year-old birthdays! Addie was awesome, Ella was sassy and Zoe wrangled all the little kids with her “I’m an old lady teacher trapped in small kid’s body” manner, at one point reading a book to them all on a blanket and at another teaching two little boys to share when playing kick-the-ball.

Let’s just say, they both had fun (even if the last pumpkin patch shot looks less so):

Ella and I had fun with a “Baby Faces” book that was there (which she wanted to take home until I reminded her she was not a baby):

Creepy? Cool? You decide. I think a little bit of both and can’t take my eyes off the bad nail polish. Never paint children’s nails. They will constantly want it done, will NEVER notice when it looks disgusting and are hard to keep still. If you MUST paint their nails, sadly the crappy “kid friendly” stuff lasts a day or less and takes a while to dry. I found Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri, which dries (seriously) in 60 seconds.

So after the party guess what the girls wanted to do? Go to ANOTHER playground… At our 3rd park of the day, they ran around some more, then we headed to the grocery to get ingredients for homemade HALLOWEEN pizza (thank you, Google). After offering up this great idea, I realized I had never actually made homemade pizza without Bart…

Sure, it SEEMS easy to use pre-made dough, but apparently there are a few details of importance. After looking up a How To video on Google, my brilliant daughter said, “Oh, you just have to get flour on your hands first because it’s sticky, then press it out and put on the sauce. It’s easy, Mom.”

I won’t call it EASY – at least not with 2 small children and me in the floor of our kitchen pressing out dough and trying to keep Ella’s feet out of the pizza (it seemed like a good idea at the time). But without too much trouble, we ended up with these three masterpieces to pop in the oven:

Zoe = Dracula, Ella = Jack-o-Lantern, Mom = well, you guessed it, Mummy.

For those of you who (unlike me) can actually cook, you already know what happened next. Two of the three above came out as cheese pizzas with tiny spots of pepperoni once all that cheese melted (yay, heat!), but they were delicious, so no one cared. Oh, and I’m glad I got a before NOT an after photo to send to my husband, who replied “You have outdone yourself.” Mission accomplished.

But I almost forgot the big, black bug we got at Target to scare Dad. He looks like this:

And is 8 inches long. Zoe had the great idea of hiding him under Dad’s nightstand near some white cords, then pointing out the cords and asking why there were black ones, just to get him close enough to notice it was a “bug”…

Ever been partner in crime with a kid who is SO EXCITED about her own joke/prank that she can barely contain herself and makes it OBVIOUS that it’s a trick? I have. Dear Dad played along but my idea of NOT telling him and waiting for him to find it and scream like a little girl would have been more fun, if you ask me.

And so, 24 hours with Mom worked out just fine. Dad got to see Bob Dylan, get some friend time, play some craps and sleep past 5 am. I’d say everyone won this one :)