Dairy Queen’s Nutter Butter Blizzard with chocolate ice cream – pure heaven. If I could eat one for breakfast and dinner, life would be even better.

The kids and I biked to DQ last night after Mario’s football practice. Mario got an orange freeze (just like his dad – how can you go to DQ and not get ice cream?!) and Maria got a peanut butter chocolate sundae. I asked the cashier to make it “mini” but she failed to heed to my request and Maria’s eyes burst open when the cashier slid it across the counter to her. I gave her the “you aren’t eating all of that” look and she promptly walked over to the other side of the building and began shoveling it in with the thought she’d eat it all before I paid. But I know her tricks and made her stand next to me and wait to eat until Mario and I had ours.

My nutter butter blizzard hit the spot. Maria impressed me by only eating half of her sundae. Mario didn’t care for his freeze so he traded with Maria. I think we converted him to the ice cream side with her sundae – he chowed it down!

We hopped back on our bikes and could have rode for hours with the sugar we delivered to our systems. Instead, we rode home, took showers, and read books. Mario picked “Tacky the Penguin.” What an awesome book. It’s perfect for Mario who is much like Tacky, himself! Mario absolutely cracks up at Tacky’s songs (“How many toes does a fish have?”) and his cannonballs. And in the end, Mario learns that being unique gives you an advantage in life.

Maria read Junie B. Jones to the end (even though I know she skips some pages here and there!). I’m so happy when I see her curled up on the over-sized chair reading!

We woke up this morning with Maria’s head at the end of one side of the bed, me smashed in the middle, and Mario on the other end with his arms sprawled at on either side of him. What a night!