March Break Madness is upon us. The kids are out of school and looking for fun stuff to do.

I was worried about this week, being that I'm broke and all and the only free things my kids are interested in doing involves the Wii or iPods. Not exactly family friendly fun.

But the planets have all aligned and the stars are smiling upon me because my income tax came in on Friday and while I plan to put most of it on the ever increasing debt, it's given me some room to plan a thing or two for the kids that cost money.

What I really want to do is go swimming but since my side is still peeling and nasty I don't think the other folks at the pool would be happy about that.

So I'm leaning toward bowling, or glow in the dark mini putt. I'd like to do something bigger like Medieval Times but holy crap, have you seen how obscenely expensive that shit is? Even with our kids eat free coupon it would cost almost $200. I'm sure in the grand scheme of things that's a great price for a family of 5 but I'm a little cheap and think I can get Swiss Chalet and rent a movie on Rogers On Demand for a third of that. Plus popcorn! 

Yesterday we took a walk on a trail we like to visit. It goes through a marsh, then woods and it leads to a beach. The girls both brought their cameras so they could have a photography contest. I brought mine too so I could play with my new lens. Here's some of the pics I got.

Yeah, I know, that last one is a picture of rocks.

We collected a huge batch of rocks because today, amidst the laundry and house cleaning we're going to have a rock painting contest. Yes, we have a lot of contests in our house. The kids like being judged. Go figure. The girls are wise to me though. For the longest time I could get away with not declaring a clear winner by having categories and therefore they would each win for a different category ("Emily's picture has the most detail but Mary's makes the best use of colour")  Now when I'm asked to judge I'm told right from the get-go  "Pick ONE winner." 

I don't want to tell any of my kids that one is better than another so I just word it differently. "If I had to pick a winner based on the most realistic sketch it would be Emily but if I had to pick a winner based on the most imaginative picture it would be Mary."  It's working for now.

Of course, the bonus is that Connor is old enough  to participate in these games now and young enough that losing is not an option. So when he's playing, he wins and the girls are okay with that. Because they know it won't be long before he's old enough to lose and then we'll be back to Mom's creative judging techniques.

Though, for the record, don't mistake me one of those Mom's who never let's her kids lose and then they grow up not knowing how to accept defeat. They only all win when I'm not playing because the simple fact of the matter is, if it's a board game, it's on and Momma don't have no loyalties. I'm not above crushing my 4 year old in a game of Diego Chutes and Ladders.