This morning, we are getting ready for school & the day. K was told & told to get his socks and shoes on. He didn’t. It was time to leave to get R to the bus stop, and he was still barefoot.
Fine, then. Get your jacket on and let’s go.
Yeah. I made him walk to the bus stop in barefeet. Next time, he’ll put on his socks and shoes when I tell him to.
Amusing story aside, we need prayers and good thoughts for G. I can’t really go into detail right now, but she needs them badly.
R and C had their twin baby girls yesterday! Congrats, guys!! Yay Big Sister H!!! And welcome to the world, C and L!!!!
We went to Linvilla today and wore the boys out! They are both asleep, which means I have a little time on my hands…woohoo! (Of course, what I should be doing is cleaning, but hey, whatever. 
I’ll work backwards with the news.
Like I said, today was Linvilla. I’ve got some great pictures, and can’t wait to share them. (Wednesday!!) We went apple picking, and got pumpkins, and cider donuts…yum, yum!
Yesterday, we finally got the old entertainment center out of the living room. It’s currently living on the front lawn with a big “Free” sign stuck to it. I’m hoping someone comes and takes it, otherwise it’s getting dismantled and tossed into the trash over the next couple of weeks. We’re getting a “new” hand-me-down couch to go in the living room, and moving the current funeral-parlor-looking couch (thanks so much, J, I have never been able to get that image out of my mind since you told me that our couch looked like it came from a funeral parlor!! 
) into the playroom. That way the boys can do all the couch-jumping they like (just not in a creepy Tom Cruise kind of way). One of them may eventually move upstairs into the “library” if we ever get that room put together.
Also yesterday, K got stung 3 times in the arm by a yellowjacket. It got inside his shirt and went to town. Ugh. They were pretty light, as stings go, and this morning, there was more of a mark from the band-aids than from the actual stings.
We’ve been so busy with school & life & stuff, but it’s been good. I volunteer at R’s school library, K’s been doing great in school (but we’re still having some potty issues at home…ugh!), we’re still playing D&D pretty regularly, and really liking 4th Edition and the new Living Forgotten Realms setup.
We haven’t settled on Halloween costumes yet…we need to get on the ball with those!!
We went camping a few weekends ago with T, K & D. We had a great time…very relaxing. Well…relaxing besides the hike D & I went on with the boys. We got a little lost, and needed to get a lift back to the site from one of the rangers!
Other highlights of the weekend were:
~The boys and I found a toad when we first got there, and the boys were fascinated by him for a little while.
~I got the tent almost completely put up by myself! (I just needed help with the rainfly)
~D sang almost the whole soundtrack from “Once More With Feeling” (The musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) for us as dinnertime entertainment one night. R particularly liked the “I touch the fire and it freezes me” bit, and I still catch him trying to sing it occasionally. N helped sing some of the duets.
~S’MORES!!!!
Pictures from camping:
When the boys and I first got to the site. It was PJ day at R's school.
We found this little toad while we were getting ready to set up.
The boys' little pirate tent. They played in it, but I didn't let them sleep in it.
Our tent. I actually got the whole thing up by myself, with "help" from the boys. I needed help only with getting the rain cover on later
The whole group
Me and R, at the top of a big rock
Me and K, at the top of the same big rock
What time is it? Dinnertime! K cooking his kabob.
T and his kabob!
D singing for us over dinner. Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!!!
Fire
R and T
Sunday morning, family picture
R back at the big rocks
Look, K's a bridge!
N on the rocks
Me & D playing games
D and K
Me and N at the lake
The boys played frisbee golf, too.
I’ll post a bunch more pictures from the past few weeks on Wednesday (or maybe over a couple of Wednesdays) I need to go through them and figure out what I’ve got that’s any good.
Today was a big day for R…his first public performance!
He joined the children’s choir at church, and let me say, all the hassle of getting him to weekly rehearsals was so worth it to see him up there today. He told me again and again after rehearsals that Mrs. B said he has the most gusto when he sings…and she was totally correct. We could hear him clearly! But I was impressed with my scatterbrained son (comes of having a scatterbrained mother 
) remembering and singing all the words, focusing and not playing around up there, and I was so happy to see my often shy son getting right up there and singing his heart out. He wouldn’t sing the song to me before today, and I will admit I was wondering how much attention he was paying in rehearsals. His stories have been of how M giggles at everything, and the other kids do this and the other kids do that, but the only other thing he would tell me was about Mrs. B’s gusto comment. I love to sing, but I don’t do it when anyone else can hear, because I do it very badly. It thrills the hell out of me that my children love to sing, and have the opportunity to actually learn to do so!!
We had a moment of sheer parenting panic today. The childrens sermon was about parties. The parable of the king who throws a party for his son, and none of the rich so-and-so’s he invited show up, so he sends out his servants to fill the party room with whoever they can find…that’s the story they were talking about today. Which would be fine except for one small snag on our end. You see, we went to J’s son W’s first birthday party yesterday…which they had at Hooters. We went, the food was good, it was fun…but I REALLY didn’t want the boys to mention this particular birthday party right up there at the front of church today. (and they didn’t! Woohoo! and whew!!).
After church, we went to lunch with G & GL, Mom & J, and T. It was great to see everyone, and tomorrow I’m getting a knitting lesson from G while the boys are at school. Huzzah!!!
N has a sty on his eye, and is down right now with a migraine (that we think is partially from the sty). I hope it gets better quickly!!
Oh, and I got the results back from R’s first round of standardized tests at school. He scored 55/56 correct on the math test, and the reading portion was a baseline, they’ll measure the results of the next test against how he did in those. I’ve also done my first shift as a children’s librarian, volunteering at the Kindergarten library. It was fun, and R is so excited that I’m “working” at his school.
I want to go check in on the hubby, so I’ll leave off here with a pic of R in his choir robe:
So lets see…I’m caught up with the visit with L, D & IA.
My birthday…well it’s done now. I’m 34. Woohoo. It was a great day though! Had lunch and did a little shopping with Mom, M came out & a bunch of us went to dinner at Hibachi. Fun fun! It was R and K’s first time at Hibachi and they enjoyed it! And so did I…so yummy! No flaming volcano this time, hee hee. Came back to the house for cake (and prezzies…yay! I’ll never outgrow loving getting presents!!!)
ROCK CLIMBING! We took R and K to a climbing gym. We used to go, years ago. I’m far too out-of-shape now to really do it but we went and taught the boys and belayed for them. R took to it like a monkey takes to bananas. Actually, given the rate at which the boy eats bananas & the way he took to climbing, I’m starting to wonder…teehee. K didn’t like it quite as much, he got nervous half way up his first climb and then decided he liked the coming down part, so he’d climb up a bit and then want to come down, over and over again. He says when we go back, he’ll try to climb higher. And we may be going back tonight or tomorrow morning! Happy Happy Joy Joy!
Some pics:
R:
K:
Belay On!
No wordless Wednesday this week, I am SO far behind here! I haven’t blogged the treehouses yet, or rock climbing, or even my birthday!
To finish up the visit with L, D & IA, we went to the museum on Wednesday — mostly to see the Mastadon skeleton (which I managed to not take any pictures of). They had a beautiful antique carousel, which we did get to ride, and a 9/11 exhibit which I very much wanted to see and I’m shocked I didn’t cry at. After the museum, it was back to the house for some lunch and quiet time. L had some stuff to do, so D and I took the kids to the playground after quiet time. Pics follow from the carousel & the playground:
Boys on the carousel:
L on the carousel:
A few of the kids at the playground:
R climbing…we’ve gotten him but good with the rock climbing!
IA on the slide:
And finally…each night we were away, we called N at bedtime and he told the boys a story over the phone. IA was into it, too!
The next few days should see a bunch of posts, since a lot has been going on lately…
I spent the better part of last week visiting L, D & IA in upstate New York.
While we were driving up there, I stopped at one of the many toll booths, handed the guy my ticket & toll money. “have a nice day” he said. “Thanks, you too” I said, and pulled away. This conversation followed:
K: Why were you so nice to that man?
Me: Why wouldn’t I be nice to him?
K: Because he’s a THIEF
Me: Wha????
K: He stole our money
Me: What? No he didn’t! I had to give him some money to pay our toll.
R: What’s a toll?
Me: We have to pay to use certain roads. Those are tolls.
R: Well when we stop driving on the road, do they give it back?
Me: No, we just have to pay it in order to drive on the road.
K: See? He’s a thief!
Me: (sigh) No, he is not a thief, he’s just doing his job.
Part 2 will be: R, the tooth and the mouse carcass.
Today is P’s birthday, and L wanted to throw her a surprise party. I agreed to act as the decoy, and took her out to lunch so they could get everything set up.
Here’s P when we got home, and she saw everyone there:
Me & P:
Cake! Yummy cake!!!
Group shot:
It was a very nice & fun party, P was really surprised, and everyone seemed to have a great time! Yay for birthdays!! 
So R decided he wanted a dinosaur party again this year…the kid LOVES his dinos!
The party was fun, I didn’t clean the top of the fridge this year and it was all okay anyway.
Some pics of the festivities:
The Cake: (and note the distinct lack of blue icing!)
(I did think it was kind of cheesy of them to use the little plastic “Happy Birthday” sign, and write in the 6th by it. But it was a yummy cake!)
This little guy was not yet born at last year’s shindig…look at him now!
G and K:
The birthday boy:
G and R:
Silly:
Part of the gang:
The other part of the gang:
Pinata:
SuperT came out for a visit recently. We grabbed some bagels for lunch, and headed out to Longwood Gardens for the afternoon. They have a new exhibit of three treehouses that are placed around the gardens, and they are absolutely gorgeous. They took great care to build them in a way that would not damage the trees, and all the wood they used was reclaimed from other places. (some of the wood came from as far away as Alaska and Washington State!) There were woods reclaimed from a toothpaste factory, a chocolate warehouse, an old barn, and some they found that had been cut but never used.
Here are some photos from the day:
Enjoy! And, SuperT, I’m sorry it took so long to get this post up!
