Adventure...?

Take the picture!! It's time for ice cream!

I started out the weekend packing, not just for me but for Buddi, too. Don't know how I managed to forget that I needed to bring Buddi with me. Packing for the bird meant her travel cage, a bag with her pellets, seed, treats, toys and "happy hut:" two trips to the car. Then I packed my big book bag with library books (seven for Anna alone), paper, "workbooks," dry erase board, crayons, markers: trip number three. Duffel bag with clothes, toiletries, medications and a couple of things on hangars for church on Sunday as well as a few non-meat items to satisfy my vegetarian diet. Trip number four. One person and one small bird...ridiculous!

Anna & Gracie cook breakfast; Levi tastes.

The kiddos are a bit out of sorts what with Mom and Dad away for a long period and different sets of adults, with different rules bossing them around in different ways! Still, the girls pitched in preparing and helping to prepare many of the meals...without complaint, I might add. They are really good cooks! The boys did their jobs when asked to on Saturday and when the weather turned nasty we hunkered down with a couple movies and some computer time as well. I felt obliged to reprimand three of the boys at one point for what seemed to me to be nonstop physical battles. The older one told me, for the umpteenth time, that's just what boys do and it's FUN! I found myself repeating my mother's words: sure, it's always fun until someone gets hurt. Which by the way, was occurring with regularity. Guys, I told them (not quite that calmly), you can beat each other silly when your parents are here but kicking, punching, pounding the snot out of and, yes, biting each other are not allowed on the Mimi's watch.

Caleb climbs the stairs...his way.

I didn't win a popularity contest but I think everybody had at least SOME fun this weekend and, except for littlest guy who runs everywhere and bumps into everything and got a couple of knots on his head, everyone survived the weekend relatively unscathed. I think next weekend we need to spend less time working and more time having fun; I'm thinking roasting hot dogs over the fire pit and nighttime hide and seek.