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!

We broke out the gator this afternoon to move the leaf mulch pile. We need to make more room for our swing set so those silly leaf mulch piles had to go!

In this second picture he was explaining to her how to navigate a tight area, then he quietly slipped his hand on the wheel and helped her. It was sweet.

Back when Lex was having trouble on the bus and wanted me to pick him up after school every day we ended up agreeing on a once a week schedule. I even wrote standing note that I’d pick him up every Tuesday for the rest of the school year. After a few weeks of this I figured we should go out and do fun things on Tuesday afternoons since we were all in the car anyway. The past few weeks we’ve been going to the science museum. It’s very quiet on Tuesday afternoons, which I love! The kids run around and play and I don’t have to keep as close tabs on them as I do when the place is packed.

This week I realized that they have started slowing down when we are there. Instead of running from one “active” exhibit to the next like crazy people, they’ve started slowing down and paying closer attention to the exhibits. They have started looking at the more natural stuff (dinosaurs, birds nests, ants, etc.) instead of just playing with the more active things. I think this is in part because we’ve been going more regularly, but also because it is quieter there. My kids, like everyone else’s I’m sure, get all revved up when the energy levels are high and they just bounce around. When it’s quiet they are able to focus more. I love it. Last week we watched the ants being fed, they both helped, and Lex even asked a few questions. This week we sat down and did some building and played with tangrams (I love those things!) and, of course, hit the water park!

The pictures are all funny looking because I was playing with camera settings… Someday I will take a photography course. Some day!

That's now how we use this exhibit!

Serious Lex

Holy turtle pile. I took a lot of pictures of these guys! :)

We had fun with the tangrams. It's neat to watch the kids figuring them out.

Lex followed the directions to build a truck with these blocks.

Then he modified it to his liking.

This is another shot I'll have to dig up a before-and-after for. I know I have many photos through the years in this pose.

Our third try at movie night was a big success! Pick-your-own dinner, picnic on the floor, Mary Poppins (nothing scary there!), cuddles only the couch, success!

Part way through the movie I started thinking about making popcorn, but then Lex picked up a big bowl of sugar snap peas I had put out with the picnic and brought it back to the couch. We all cuddled and the kids ate the whole bowl of peas. I quietly tucked the popcorn idea away for another day.