Free Babysitting

This is a picture of the first time my neice Maci babysat for our kids. Two years ago...she was only eleven at the time, but so responsible and mature. She has watched them several times since then and does such a great job. She watched them this past Saturday night for us while Kevin and I had a date night. We went to my favorite restaurant, Cork N' Cleaver, and had a wonderful candlelight meal. Kevin gazed in my eyes and told me all the things he loves about me...and I soaked it all in. After dinner we saw a movie and then had dessert at Applebee's. I love their maple blonde brownie with ice cream served warm and drizzled with white maple sauce. Yum! Everything was free for us that evening because we had gift cards for it all. That doesn't usually happen, so we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This is the certificate Maci gave us for Christmas. She's so creative and thoughtful. Whenever she comes to babysit, she usually brings along a bag of fun stuff for the kids to do. This time she brought movies and dress-up clothes for Kaiya.

She took these pictures while we were gone. I didn't even ask her to. Great idea, Maci! And when we get home, she always leaves a note to let us know what they did while we were gone. Whenever I tell the kids that Maci is going to babysit, they get so excited. She was able to spend the night that night and I found this note on the fridge in the morning.

She's so sweet, and I'm very proud of her.