Beautiful Day

Today was so nice. We spent the morning visiting Claudia and Aimee our neighbors with Eliza and company. The kids had lots of fun running around outside, though 5 of 5 kids fell and most scraped knees or hands. It's tough being small. Then we walked down the street a few buildings and parked ourselves on the curb to watch the heavy equipment tear up the road and replace the bad parts. I couldn't believe how long they watched, at least 30 minutes where all 5 kids were just silent, watching in amazement while I got to chat with my good buddy Catherine. Then it was back to the house for popsicles and painting on the back deck with ice cubes and water. After all the friends went home, we had lunch on the back porch, at Maddie's request, in the lovely September afternoon weather. Maddie took a snooze, Ben got to eat some of his precious candy bar he earned by giving a great talk in primary on Sunday and I sat down to get organized for Joy School that starts next week. I sorted out all the random pictures we had just thrown in a file from last year and labeled it all. It was sort of nice to feel I had finally made some progress with that project. Maddie woke up and we played for a while, mostly store, Ben has lots of things to sell from the piano bench at his store everyday. There is a three day return policy however, not that you can return it in under three days, but all things MUST be returned in three days, sort of like the library. Lately, Ben has also been supplying the money, so that helps the family budget a bit that he buys it all with the store's money. Eventually, Brian came home and we ate homemade chicken noodle soup from Sunday (thanks Brian). Then Brian installed my birthday present from last year in the kitchen. It is an under cabinet mounted TV/DVD/CD/radio. I LOVE IT!! Now I can make dinner and listen to my favorite music or catch up with Dr. Phil during nap time. I'm really going to enjoy this birthday present. I know, my next birthday is in about 6 weeks, so we're slow. It once took Brian 3 years to install a Christmas present I bought him, a remote car starter, oh well. While Brian worked on installing my DVD player, I took the kids out front to play in the field in front of the house. They ran and ran with the neighbor, Jacob, kicking soccer balls, searching for bee holes in the grass and chasing each other around. I worked on trimming up the bushes under the front window so our tiny yard would look tidy again. Then Ben went in to get sidewalk chalk. He came out with water balloons instead. They had fun launching the balloons, even if they weren't strong enough to make them go far. We chatted with our neighbor Katie and her mom Karen before they went in to do homework. Then Ben wrote a love note with sidewalk chalk at Katie's door (she's 13 years old) to come over to our house and that he loves her with all the innocence of a child. It took forever, but we got the message written. Then Ben had some more chocolate bar, brushed his teeth and put himself to bed. What a good kid. Pretty good day I'd say.