Those delivery guys do like to keep me hanging! After a bit of misleading tracking information on Friday (grrr!) the delivery truck finally made it here today, at 5:45! But boy was there excitement in the air. We were outside riding bikes, enjoying a break in the rain, when my usual call of “Car!” changed to “Truck! The swing set is here!!” (ok, the excitement in the air may have been created by me!)

The kids oohed and aahed at the ramp on the back of the truck that raised and lowered. They offered to help the sweaty, overweight delivery guy. I even offered to help him and he said keeping the kids out of the way would be the best help :) Of course! They danced and sang and merriment ensued.

Here it comes!

Dancing for joy!

Happy kids

Now we have three large boxes of swing set parts in our garage and the forecast looks like this:

A rainy forecast

Hopefully we’ll have enough time between showers to get that thing built! And hopefully we get some sunshine on Saturday! Otherwise I am going to have a houseful of sugared up kids! Maybe I’ll send them out to play anyway, despite the rain! :) (Do you think there are enough exclamation points in this post?!! Do I need a few more?!!!)

I just realized it’s been four days since I last updated the blog! Eeek! Sorry! :) Lots going on I guess. Alan and I have been trying to go to bed earlier too, which leaves me with little time for blogging. Right now Eve is having quiet time with Dr. Seuss audiobooks and I’m turning my back to the dirty kitchen in an effort to get caught up on the important computer things.

My brain has been wrapped around swing sets, garage clean out, and birthday party plans for next week. The swing set is on it’s way and should be here this afternoon (I HOPE!). The garage is clean and I’m now dealing with a flurry of freecycle emails in an effort to avoid massive dump fees. It’s amazing the things people will take from freecycle.

We have three days of cake coming up. My little, low-key family party this weekend has grown into a neighborhood shin-dig, plus a few friends from a bit farther away. It’s taking a lot of restraint on my part to not invite everyone I know :) We gave the party a theme this week “Playing in the dirt” and Lex wrote invitations and delivered them around the neighborhood. I’ll post pics of them later. Actually, he made Eve do the final delivery because he got a sudden case of shyness. Good thing she was there and happy to help!

Next Wednesday we will have another round of cake (cupcakes really) for school. And the following weekend there will be one more cake for his party with friends at the bowling alley. We went to a party there once and the child invited the entire class. About half came and it was chaos. I told Lex he could invite four friends only! Hopefully they all can come. I think with them, plus him and Eve, that will be a manageable number of children :) I’m going to make a bowling pin cake for that party! Then I’m going to boycott cake for a long(ish) time! Maybe.

I started running again and made a few changes to my Weight Watchers process, and I’m hoping those things combined can help me combat the upcoming cake week. I do like cake.

Hmm… what else? Oh, yes, I’m working on a new chore system for the kids. More on that later. They are driving me crazy with the bickering and bad attitudes… so I’m going to put them to work! Just kidding. Sort of. I think they are old enough for some real responsibilities around here so Alan and I have been discussing the logistics of how to make that happen. Charts, stickers, marbles, money, allowance, etc. I’m sure I’ll be super proud of whatever I come up with and want to tell you all about it. I hope.

Ok, that’s all my tired brain can think of right now. Next post will include pictures. I promise! In the meantime, cross your fingers and hope that swing set delivery happens today. Otherwise my brain might explode!