Yes, it has taken me awhile to get to my weekend update. Alan is working late on that darn mudroom tonight so I’m going to squeeze in a blog post about last weekend before next weekend arrives before we know it!
(I have to go back through the pictures on my camera just to remember back to the weekend!)
Saturday started with an early morning trip to King Arthur Flour. Grampy Don’s friend Pat had never been and I couldn’t let her get so close and not actually visit the new KAF store! She is a proper southern baker and besides, everyone should visit KAF whenever they can! So we were there at 8am on Saturday morning. The kids came along. We watched the bakers baking bread, we had delicious pastries for breakfast, and then the kids colored in the awesome kid corner while Pat and I browsed. A lovely start to the day.
Time to bake the bread, with an audience!
While we were enjoying our morning, Alan and his dad were getting the camper packed up and hooked up and ready to roll! I had planned to say a fine farewell, with photos and all, but it took them awhile to pack up and we had birthday parties to attend to, so it ended up being a quick goodbye and I snapped a farewell camper shot on my way out the door.
Farewell camper! Safe travels. Just imagine two lovely people standing in front of the truck waving goodbye. That was the image I had in my head, but the timing just didn’t work out.
The rain was kind enough to hold off for our first birthday party – an active party at the skateboard park! I, of course, completely spaced it and forgot to bring the kids bikes and helmets. We were half hour late for the party too. (I feel like I’ve been running fast and late for weeks now!) The kids had fun running around anyway and Lex happily borrowed a scooter. I really need to get them back here sometime with their bikes. It would be a blast!
Lex running. Somehow I managed to not take a single picture of him on the scooter. He loved it!
Eve took a short turn with it as well.
Then it was time for pizza, presents, cake, and playing!
A skateboard cake for a skate park party! Check out the cool goody bags too! Clever mama!
Pizza! The birthday boy wore his helmet for the entire party. :)
We were all waiting for the pizza to come back up here! The boys, however, loved it and never wanted to stop!
Lex and Eve waited patiently through the entire present opening part. They wanted their gift to be last, which meant they were the last kids still paying attention. We went shopping on Friday for three birthday presents (two this week and one next week) and the kids did a great job wrapping them Saturday morning. I didn’t take pictures of their awesome, clever wrappings because we were running late. You can get a tiny peek at Eve’s decorating in this picture.
The kids played hide-and-seek for a long time. Here are Lex and Eve hiding from the birthday boy.
Unfortunately the rain came just as we were leaving this party. The next party, for one of Lex’s classmates, was supposed to be outside at a different playground but got moved indoors at the last minute due to rain. I decided to drop Eve off at home with Alan instead of bringing her to an indoor party for Lex’s friend. Outdoors at a playground seemed ok to bring a sibling, but I knew he had a tiny house and I wanted as few people in it as possible! It ended up being the complete opposite of the first party. Other than the fact that they had pizza again, from the same place! :)
This second party involved a lot of this:
Standing in line for a long time to play a variation on Pin The Tail on the Donkey. The poor kids couldn’t even see the beginning of the line so they had no idea what was going on.
Lex just wandered around a lot while the rest of the kids watched some Star Wars digital animated cartoon thing.
The rain let up briefly and we ventured across the street to the playground, but no sooner had we arrived then the skies opened and the downpour began again. On the way back I grabbed Lex and we left (after saying goodbye, of course!) They did a good job with what they had, but I couldn’t take returning to the house again! We headed home and crashed for the rest of the day.
Sunday came, bright and early. The sun was shining. Mid-morning our neighbor Charlie knocked on the door and asked if he could rake our leaves. I said sure! I asked if he was looking to earn some money (why else would a sane person want to rake our leaves?!?!) and he said no, he was just looking to rake some leaves. Children != sane.
When Lex saw Charlie out raking he quickly went out too. Eve followed suit. Soon we were all outside raking “the biggest leaf pile in the state!” Eve insisted we were.
Raking leaves. This is just from one tree too, the other hasn’t started dropping yet!
Where did the kids go?!
There they are!
They had fun hiding in the pile.
Happy kids!
Leaves!
It was 12:30 so I brought out some lunch for the hard workers.
All morning Eve kept insisting they were making the biggest leaf pile in the state. She asked if I would make them awards. I smiled and nodded. Yes, sometimes I just do that. But she persisted. Sometimes asking me if I had made them yet, just five minutes after the last time she asked, when I had been outside raking with them the entire time. When I went in to make lunch she followed me in to ask if I was making their awards yet. I finally relented and whipped up some blue ribbon awards while they ate lunch. She was thrilled. Sometimes it’s the little things in life.
Awards
This year’s winners of the “Biggest Leaf Pile in the State!” Congratulations team!
I have no more weekend pictures on the camera, so I assume we all just went to bed after lunch! :) Just kidding. What I failed to mention was that my parents were here too! They got here Saturday afternoon, after the birthday parties. They treated us to delicious take-out so I didn’t have to cook dinner. On Sunday afternoon they took the kids roller skating while Alan and I went to a movie! We all had a great afternoon!
That was our weekend. Tomorrow begins another busy one! I’ll see ya next Thursday! ;)