week of the kiddos

Well, you’ve mostly heard about my week with all these Food, Fitness, & Faith updates, but you haven’t heard about the kids, so here’s their updates:

Monday was, as previously mentioned cold & rainy & full of laundry.  The kids came home from school to see piles & piles of the stuff for them to put away, but they were okay with it because the piles were warm and fluffy.  The kids watched some of their latest obsession: Avatar: The Last Airbender (which everyone else in the universe seems to be watching right now.  Cepheids, friends from various churches, kids of friends from high school.  everyone.)

Tuesday I got all the kids to school.  (Greg at MDO)

It was David’s Track & Field Day.  This year the 4th & 5th graders got to have a big track meet with some of the other elementary schools over at Rose Stadium (the big one the two high schools use). I was only going to go for the first half, but David didn’t have a whole lot going on during that time period, so I stayed til the end.  It was a big disappointment for him: he followed directions and didn’t get a chance to play any games because none of the other kids were following instructions.

Tuesday afternoon they watched some more Airbender (as I call it.  Avatar, as they call it).  Greg and I dug holes for the azaleas that had magically appeared in our front yard.  We planted & watered them. The brothers had to be pried out of their seats to go to piano lessons.

Wednesday morning Greg and I spent at my friend SJ’s.  We spent ALL MORNING LONG there.  We played inside with drums, then outside with spray bottles and brooms.  We ate lots of snacks and the kids drank lots of juice (me, I had COFFEE).  So much fun.  See:

That afternoon Greg and I repotted some plants, big and small:

Thursday was the Day that Wouldn’t End.  There were no toaster pastries left when we got up, which I had promised as a special treat (Nick didn’t know that David had eaten his already, so he thought he was saving me from fighting kids by eating the last two), so we had to go to the grocery store before school.  Eventually got everyone to school, but then I had 10,000 errands to run and none of them went exactly as planned (mostly the scout related ones, naturally).  I did manage to buy everything needed (I went to the grocery twice and Wal-mart as well) and got back homewards just in time to pick kids up from school.  Of course then the kids had kids with them, which I’d invited and everything, but had forgotten about having over.  So the house was a wreck, people were coming over, I had no snacks (despite all the grocery runs), and there was chaos. Which is when my mom called to say that the main city water line had broken outside of their house; water was everywhere and they couldn’t leave to come up here because they were blocked in my giant bulldozers. I couldn’t do anything for her, but for us, all was not lost: we had water balloons and Junk Trail Mix (saving money/parenting tip: if you have a houseful of kids, no “real” snacks on hand, but lots of leftover holiday junk food, combine the whole thing in a bowl, toss, then dish out as “Junk Trail Mix” The children will devour it, think you’re the funnest parent ever, and you will have saved money by not shelling out for “real” snacks).  The water balloons saved the day and there was much fun wetness. We filled up fifty balloons, split up into three teams, and picked our bases.  The big kids took the jungle gym, the medium kids took the trampoline, and me & Greg took the comfy chair (there really were only two bases that were decent choices, alas).  The big kids were very sneaky and let the younger kids throw all their balloons before pelting them from above.  We also noticed that throwing balloons up there did no good, as they bounced on the wood and did not explode, so that gave the big kids more ammo to pelt us with.  After the filled balloons were gone, I went inside to check the camera and the kids started filling more balloons, but not tying them off.  They figured out that they could be twisted and thrown with all the watery splash and none of the broken balloon pieces, as long as they were throwing short range.  They also kept trying to lure me outside to get me wet: a cute kid looking sad at the door while two to the side were armed with balloons waiting to pelt me when I opened the door. After everyone went back to their homes, we grabbed a quick dinner before Nick and David left for Webelo scouts.

Today is Friday and my parents are on their way up.  We’ll spend the afternoon with them, then hit somewhere fun for an early Mother’s Day celebration, since our Saturday is filled with church stuff and they’re going home early Sunday morning.