In a little more than 24 hours, Ryan will be coming home for a week of leave! We are so excited to see him, love on him, and spoil him for a few days! It's Molly's birthday tomorrow and she is getting a wonderful present of her big brother's arrival.
Unfortunately, his leave was shortened from 10 days to 7. ugh. And Jeff has a mandatory, out-of-town trip next week and will miss two days with Ryan. But we will make the best of it.
We are planning to dress in red, white, and blue, get some balloons, make signs and generally make a nuisance of ourselves to pick him up at the airport. It was his request, so we can be as patriotic as we want!
The house isn't totally put together, but it's decent. I have had the week-of-stress-not-to-be-believed. God had to remind me yesterday--after I cried from frustration--that I needed to lower my expectations about getting everything done while trying to keep up with the regular chores and keep an eye on the kids who are eagerly exploring their new environment.
Outside.
In the yard that has a serious lack of grass. IE: dirt.
They also decided to turn their riding toys into makeshift luge's and ride down the sloping sidewalk at breakneck speed. How many times can they wipe out and faceplant before realizing that this is a very bad idea? Apparently, to infinity and beyond because I am still having to go out there and reprimand them for going too high up the hill. Despite losing their luge-mobiles yesterday for an entire afternoon as punishment, they went past the boundary line again today. No pictures of it because...uh...it's hard to take photos when you are yelling and angry, ya know? Not that I was...I'm just sayin.'
Oh yeah, right, who am I kidding?
The landscaping guy keeps coming over and teasing us by moving dirt around, raking it, etc. which raises our hopes of some hydro-seed being forthcoming. Alas...nothing yet. It has rained almost daily for the past 10 days, which would have been great for newly planted grass. Why do I just KNOW that our grass will be planted when it decides to be 90 and humid for about a month? I so love slogging around in the mud carrying muddy hoses. Oh...and we are not allowed to use our outdoor faucets between 9AM and 4PM---EVER. And we can only use them every other day during the other hours. Argh. This means that I will be out in the early morning hours moving the sprinkler around to get the grass growing. There are some things I don't like about Mass. and the absurd water rationing is one of them. That means that during the nice hot days of summer, our kids will not be allowed to experience the joys of running through the sprinkler, because we won't be allowed to turn it on. This actually ticks me off. Maybe I should write a letter to someone.... ha. How dare they rob my kids of this childhood joy?
Thankfully, we didn't know of this dastardly rule when we got our new, uber fun sprinkler out a few days ago.
"Da water is fweezing cold."
SaraGrace figures out she can spray her brothers with the squiggly thingy's
"I guess I'm not taking my car to da car wash, afterall."
"I take da car to da carwash. I not 'fraid."
