Making the best of a bad situation

Maddie and Jake dread this basement thing, I believe. I mean - they are excited for the finished project, but with all our trips to Home Depot or Lowe's, they can probably lead you right to what you are looking for in there.

So, Saturday we made yet another trip to Home Depot. Picture the eye rolling - now multiply that times five, and add loud, exasperated moans. That was just me. Kidding...it really was the kids.

But, it always amazes me how they can come up with games to keep themselves occupied. Home Depot is roughly five minutes from our house. This is what they played in the the car on the way there:

I'm not even sure what it involved, but they had to have their hoods over their heads and then had to try to reach the other person. Now, they were what - a foot from each other - so the reach wasn't so difficult. But, it illicited giggles and guffaws until they had tears coming out of their eyes.

Once inside the store, not much changed except the game. This time one person had to turn their back and the other person zipped up their jacket, removed their arms from the sleeves to the inside of their coats and the "it" person had to turn around and guess where the arms were hiding. Basically this meant front or back. Eventually they would guess then lunge at the person to keep their arms from moving to see if they were right. When it was my turn to be "it" it took forever and when I turned around I found this:

That's right, I'd waited while Mike shopped for stain and the kids had switched jackets. They kept them switched until we were home again.

What is so crazy or ironic or whatever you want to call it, is that while we are in the car, they can be having so much fun that they will get incredibly loud - we'll ask them nicely to quiet down, but in two minutes it's loud again. Like earsplitting loud. Eventually we end up getting frustrated to the point of threatening the whole "pull over" thing - all because they were having too much fun. Seriously.