Friend play dates 2012 - 2013 School Year

I made it a goal at the beginning of the school year to have a friend play date for Carter and Lanie once-a-month.  It didn't sound like a lot when I decided it, but once-a-month is better than no times a month and it's worked out really nice.  There really aren't very many young kids in the neighborhood for the kids to play with so it definitely has to be planned.  The rules are; Carter and Lanie have to take turns deciding what to do on the inexpensive play date, it has to be on a Sunday, usually the first one of the month (when Daddy is at work), chores have to be caught up, and it has to be a different friend each month unless you've gotten invited back to their house to play, then you can repeat.  I know...rules, rules, rules. 

My hopes were that Carter and Lanie would of course have fun, make closer friendships that would carry over into the school environment, and get to work on social skills with my help.

In October we just invited friends over to the house to play.  This was the first time Lanie had invited someone over and she was very excited to play some of the things she usually plays by herself with a friend.

In November, Lanie voted to go swimming at a hotel pool.  What a great, inexpensive way to spend an afternoon with the kids.  We brought swim toys and a yummy chex mix snack from my mom and the kids were happy for hours.

In December we had planned to go to a movie, but it there was nothing at the dollar theater you wanted to see.  So the kids each invited a friend over to play at the house.  The girls played for a while and then decorated Nutter Butter Snowman cookies with me.  The boys mostly played on the wii.  I forgot to take pictures:(

In January, Carter picked the dollar theater to watch a movie.  So the 4 kids and I headed out on a Sunday afternoon to watch Hotel Transylvania.  We got the largest popcorn possible to share and a big pop too.  After the movie, the kids came back to the house to play for a while.  The girls had fun finishing decorate the Gingerbread train from Christmas.