Happy Birthday Daniel!!!

Today is Daniel's 5th birthday!! It's hard to believe that in a few short weeks he will be getting on the bus and going to Kindergarten!! :o) He's really looking forward to school starting. In fact, just about every Monday morning he asks me if the bus is coming. it's only a few short weeks away now. We've been pretty busy this summer - visiting with family and friends, swimming, going to Stone Mountain, playing at home and playgrounds, etc. There are still a few things we'd like to do before the summer's over, but we'll just have to see how it goes. We may need to save some things for next year.

We've been working on getting the house ready to put on the market. Actually, Darrell's been doing most of the work, I've just been having to go through everything and decide what to keep, what to throw or give away, and what to store. I'll post pictures when we have all the painting done. Everything looks great, Darrell's done an outstanding job!!

A Much Needed Break & Where Are Your Shoes?

The kids had a blast at their birthday party - they were so wiped out after all the fun!! In fact, that night Daniel slept in his clothes because he was too tired to change into his pjs when it was time for bed. Here's how they looked when I went in the next morning to get them up.

Last Monday (July 2) was my sister's birthday. Our gift to her was a little red-headed 3 year old girl (well, only for the week). She took Emma home with her. It was so nice to only have the boys for a few days (especially since one of those days was a holiday and I only had to deal with one child). Daniel didn't seem to miss Emma very much, I think he kinda liked being an only child; Emma liked being at Linda's as well. So much so that I would have let her stay another week except that she and Daniel both had camp this week. So we left last Friday to spend the weekend with Linda & Michael - and to bring Emma back home. However, we'll definitely have to do that again! Maybe next time Linda can take both kids for a week or two and then I'll take her girls for a week or two to give each other a much needed break!!

Now for the shoes . . .

The kids are finally putting their things away without being asked, not all the time, but at least it's a start. A few weeks ago Darrell bought one of those shoe organizers that hangs on the door. He hung it in the laundry room so we would have an out of the way place to put our everyday shoes. One of the first things the kids do when they walk into the house is take their shoes off. We are usually having to remind them not to leave them in the middle of the floor, but lately they've been good about putting them away. Yea!!!!! Well, we went to my parents' house last night for dinner. Before we left it was late enough that we put their pjs on so they could go straight to bed when we got home. I didn't realize until we got home that we left Daniel's shoes. When he took them off last night, he put them away in the only place he knew to put shoes away at Grammy & Papa's house - in Papa's closet. What a smart boy!!

THE Party!!

So, we had the big birthday party last Saturday for the kids. This year we decided to have just one party for both kids instead of trying to do two parties about a month apart. There were several reasons for choosing to have our one party at My Gym. Here are just a few:

1. Having one party saves on money! Besides, our guest list would've been about the same for each anyway.
2. People coming from out of town only have to plan one trip. (In other words, the family is more apt to come if they only have to come once.)
3. I didn't have to plan any games and the kids could play as loud as they wanted without having any adults tell them to quiet/settle down.
4. The kids can have fun playing hard and the adults don't have to stand in the hot sun to watch (and you don't have to change plans if it rains - although I'm glad we had a nice day).
5. I don't have to worry about whether the house is clean enough to have people over. More importantly, I don't have a mess to clean up when the party's over.

Here are a few pictures from the play time. Some of the time is organized games/activities and some of the time is free play. I've loaded a lot more pictures in the Harman Photo Gallery.





I think Maddie had a good time too - I know Grammy loved having a little one to hold for awhile. As you can see, it wasn't exactly easy to get everyone to stop long enough to get a group picture. So, we had to settle for the ones we could get.



Then it was time for some cake . . .




It was a lot of fun getting to see our friends and have some time to play together. We should all get together more often!! Thank you so much to all our friends for coming to our party and helping us celebrate our birthdays!!!!!