The Fourth

After an afternoon outing with Sarah while the kids played with their respective grandparents, we all loaded up and invaded the Dukes new space.

Alida is taking a pause from galloping the horse ALL OVER the new wood floors so that she can describe the horse to her daddy on the phone.

On the way home Monday, Elaine pointed out the window, "Here is a horse Alida! Look!"

"Thank you Elaine for showing me the horse!"

I was assured that we were not ruining new wood floors with all of our galloping about in what was meant to be a rocker drug up by Alida's own hands from the carpeted basement.

And what a treat to meet the Dukes grands.

If you can get Elaine to cling to you instead of cling to me, you're good in my book.

They really were like little birds with the snappers.



The snakes. Remember? Light them up and they take off creating a big ashy tube--a snake.

I think Joe's words were something like "these suck."

Nicholas, on the other hand, exclaimed "AWESOME!"

When I later tried to explain to Nicholas that if everything is awesome, nothing is awesome, he replied: "That's where you went wrong mom."





Nothing like making sure that no snapper goes unsnapped.

Ian. That boy knows himself more than any three-year-old I've met. He didn't like all of the noise, so he covered his ears and stayed back a little. He didn't fuss. It was like he was aware of his comfort zone and knew to stay there so he would enjoy himself.

Henry.

As I lamely attempted to entertain everyone in the van while we shifted our plans, he was excellent at placating me. He just smiled and answered while I shot question after question. Then those snack bags came flying through the window from some guy (Dukes grandad in the nest car), and we got to talk about our favorite item in the snack bag. He just smiled and answered while eating his snacks. That was about the time I broke out Curious George on the DVD player. What must he have thought of me to take these snack bags from a stranger and hand them encouragingly to everyone?

Nicholas shared. Perhaps he was wanting me to try the food that flew threw the window before he dug in...

It rained a lot.

Sarah didn't miss any girl time.

Sarah also happened to have four pair of rain boots for my maniacs.

And in the end, it was a perfect way to celebrate.