More Swimming in February

We are LOVING our new indoor pool! Since our debut, we've hit the water once a week and are having a ball. (The frog in the picture above isn't sad...just cold. The pool's heaters were on the fritz today, but that didn't stop us.)

Mardi Gras Party

This morning, the buddies and I joined our friends for the second annual Mardi Gras Party and Play Day. Sadly, our New Orleans friends were unable to host this year, due to a lice epidemic from their youngest daughters pre-school class. But, Fat Tuesday must go on, so we made a last minute change to a cootie-free location.





We dined on authentic red beans and rice and King cake. Then, we tossed beads from the top of the play scape, but that only lasted a minute before one of the kids got hit and cried. The buddies decided to decorate "floats" for a parade and convinced some of the other kids to join them. We had cars, lawn mowers, scooters, and ride-ons jazzed up Mardi Gras style.









We'll continue our celebration tonight, with a big pot of gumbo. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

You asked, so here goes...

A few of you asked just what was so eventful about last week that kept me from blogging. So here goes. I'll try to keep it short.

On Tuesday, after a very fun swimming play date, Ace stuck a raisin up his nose. And then pushed it up so far that he lost it and told me it "went into his chest". After much blood, drama, calls to the pediatrician, and a trip to the ER, Steve met up with us, looked up his nose and announced he could see the raisin. So, we left the ER, drove to a grocery store, bought a pair of tweezers, and Super Dad yanked the offending raisin out. Here they are, right after. You can see the relief in Ace's eyes.


The next day, we met some neighbors at our neighborhood park for another play date. We discovered the play scape in this condition:


And that really ticked me off. Vandals had torn huge sections down all over the play scape leaving screws, bolts, and splintered wood within reach of small children. The screws pictured above were about chest high on the buddies. The Mad Moms united and Operation Save the Park was formed. I took pictures of everything and emailed our elected MUD officials. My awesome neighbor got our HOA involved. The next morning, the play scape was repaired in record time! Since then, I've been in contact with the police and am setting up a little neighborhood watch program among the families that frequent our park. There seem to be some kids in our area that have a little too much free time and could benefit from some court-mandated community service. I hope we catch the little sh!ts.

Country Boys

After quite an eventful week, we slowed things down, county-style, by stopping to take pictures on a tractor for sale on the side of the road. Enjoy!

Me Mom's Visit

We are coming off of a 3-day visit from one of the buddies' favorite people: Me Mom. Ace held his hands high over his head and jumped up and down when he awoke to find her in the playroom on Saturday morning. Ben was excited too.



We packed in loads of fun stuff during her brief visit. The buddies invited her to help them pass out Valentines to our little neighbors on Saturday morning. Then, we made our debut at the new indoor pool at our gym. I haven't seen such big smiles on two wild boys, since our last swimming trip many months ago. We also spent lots of time riding bikes around our neighborhood and even showed her one of our favorite evening activities: making smiley face pizzas.


Today was her final day with us and we took her to visit the Inner Space Caverns in Georgetown. The 100 million year old limestone cavern was a cool place to visit, even if a lot of the coolness was a little lost on two wild boys. We'll have to try it again in a few years, after I recover from today's excursion.

After a quick lunch at Rudy's and ice cream and play time at McDonalds, we drove Me Mom to the airport to send her back home to Philadelphia. And now the buddies are chattering constantly about our annual summer visit to Me Mom's house. They can't wait to see her again!

Valentine Play Date

I've been running a Valentine card sweatshop in our house for the last few weeks. Between two parties and valentines for our little neighbors and friends, the buddies needed to make a little more than 60 cards. We started in mid-January and still have a few more to make before our next event.





Thanks to a great idea from my cousin, we melted bits of crayon in heart shaped molds and created heart crayons for our friends. Then. the buddies glued them onto foam hearts and added heart stickers. Later, I attached notes to each of their friends. Ben chose, "Have a happy Valentines Day for 'crayon' out loud". Ace liked, "You make the world colorful".




This morning, we squeezed into our Gap Kids Valentines shirts (for the third year!), packed up 34 of our handmade Valentines, and headed to Miss Annie's house for our twin & triplet playgroup Valentine's Day party. We also brought Baked (with love) Ziti, using heart shaped pasta for the delicious and festive potluck.



Each kiddo created a cute bag for their valentines. The buddies both chose pink bags but decorated them with manly train stickers (of course!). Then, the little friends stuffed them with valentines and other goodies.


After several hours of fun and way too much good food (and punch for Ace) we said our goodbyes and headed home.
View the rest of our pictures here.

College Friends

This evening, we had a rare opportunity to reconnect with some of my college friends who are in town for the weekend. Though our lives are very different now and it has been over 10 years since we last got together, we picked up right where we left off. And the buddies loved horsing around with their gorgeous daughters.

We spent three wonderful hours catching up and getting to know each other's kids. The buddies were their rowdy, but well-mannered selves and said they had a great time at the "party". Hopefully, it won't be another 10 years before we get together again.