Doing our part

We did our part .... the economy has been officially stimulated by the Leatherwoods. Thanks to G.W. Bush and the Economic Stimulus package of 2008, we took the plunge and bought a swing set. We've been wanting one for a really long time (Austin is almost 10), and have had our eye on the Costco set for several years, but honestly we hesitated .... mostly out of fear. I can't say we weren't intimidated (and a little nauseous) to see that it came in five six-foot long boxes, and one huge box of hardware, but our desperation for entertainment for the little ones prevailed.


Dave is my hero, and that is true for a lot of reasons, but this time it is for putting together a Costco swing set which, if you ask me, is worthy to be placed on his official resume. He worked so hard on this thing and spent countless hours (really that is true since we stopped counting at over 30 hours!) working late into the evening by the light of a lantern. It was cold that week too, and he was out there twice in the dark in the snow determined to finish. I was inside drinking hot chocolate. I'm not very good at putting together thousands of little parts, and I got fired from my post as "assistant" a few times. Dave did a good job being patient and methodical and sorting out all those pieces. I was cranky after the first two hours, and he just kept plugging along. Way to go Dave!

We are so glad that the kids absolutely LOVE the swing set. That would have been horrible to spend all that time and money and have them not be too interested. Thankfully, they never get off the thing. T.J. runs to the back door every morning and asks to go to the "park." It has a little sandbox underneath the fort, and he spends a good chunk of his day in there playing with his tractor and digging up all the little toy animals he buried the day before. London has learned how to pump herself on the swing, and she loves to push T.J. on the swings too - what a good job for a big sister. Austin and Jackson like running up the slide the wrong direction and sliding down on their head (go figure). The rock wall is a hit too. We're grateful that they're having a fun time on it, and we're so grateful to Dave for putting it together for us.

Thanks Daddy! You're the best!

I think I'm beginning to see why it took so long .....

Funny funny T.J.

London got a new scooter for her birthday, and of course T.J. had to give it a try. The funny thing is that he "rides" it just as shown in the above picture. He puts one foot on either side of the scooter and walks up and down the sidewalk with the scooter rolling along in between his feet. It is so funny to watch. As soon as I figure out how to put video on here, I'll get him to "ride" the scooter and you can all see how cute it is.

T.J. all decked out in London's pink princess safety gear and my sunglasses - ready to "ride" the scooter.

Farm Country

A few weeks ago, on the first warm day we've had since like Labor Day 2007 or so, the kids and I ventured out to Thanksgiving Point to go to Farm Country. I haven't been there for years and forgot how much fun it is (and how cheap it is). We all got in for around $15 and that included a free wagon/pony ride. Not bad for hours of entertainment. You can buy food (for a quarter) to feed the animals, and the kids loved it! I was so impressed with my kids and how brave they were. I'm not a huge fan of having animals eat out of my hand (or really animals in general) and I remember being particularly timid around animals as a child. So, way to go kids. I kept busy taking pictures with one hand and holding the animal feed in the other. The kids fed the animals for a couple of hours and laughed and played and had a great time. I went through a lot of quarters.

London and T.J. enjoyed a pony ride. Austin and Jackson declined since they were fairly little ponies, and they were worried about looking silly on them. I'm not sure I'm ready for them to be worried about their reputation and how it pertains to ponies at Farm Country. Oh well.

They had some little old buildings to play in, including a jail. I hope there's no foreshadowing there for London. We'll have to make sure and talk about "obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Jackson apparently got his sheep and rodeo horses mixed up. We'll have to work on that too. We'll definitely be going back to Farm Country.

London's big day

We just recently passed one of the most anticipated birthdays in the history of earth (or at least in our family). London turned 5 on April 17th. Now let me explain ....

Somewhere around Christmas time, London figured out that her birthday would be the first one in our little family to come after Christmas. Now, in our defense, this is partly the fault of her well-intentioned preschool teacher who insisted on teaching her the months of the year. We may have filled in a little with the details. This was sort of like the time that we told the kids six months in advance that we were going to Disneyland. We didn't think that one through too well, and we heard about it every day (and a lot of nights) for six months.

So, guess what London has asked us several times a day each and every day since Christmas time?!?! You guessed it. Every morning started off with a very excited burst into our room with "It's my birthday today!!!" We had to soften the blow each and every day and explain "Not today honey, but soon ... I promise." I was starting to feel really bad for her about February, and we still had two more months to go! We started telling her that her birthday would come in the spring, so as soon as we saw any signs of spring (thankfully there were not many), her birthday excitement really intensified. We clearly did not handle this whole situation very well, but finally one day ....

The big day arrived! I'm sure you can imagine the excitement of all of us! London had a wonderful day full of family and friends and lots of fun. We let her have her first birthday party with friends (and cousins), and she had a wonderful time. She didn't quite know what to do with all the presents and attention, but she loved it, and it was fun to see her so happy and excited. We had about 20 friends and cousins over for games, a pinata, and cupcakes. Dave was great as party entertainment chairman and carried on a game of duck duck goose for almost 40 minutes. Seriously, it was amazing.

We are so grateful to have London in our family. She is our little "firecracker" and keeps thing exciting around here. She takes her role of "keeping the boys in line" very seriously and handles being the only girl pretty well. She likes to tow the line between her "girl things" (Barbies, dollhouse, and Dora), and keeping up with the boys with soccer, wrestling, jumping on the tramp, and being wild and crazy. We love her energy and contagious laugh. She is a lot of fun and we love her so much! It is fun to watch her grow up. She'll be starting school in the fall, and I can hardly believe it. She is so excited to "go to the big school" and loves to learn new things. I am grateful that she is healthy and strong and that she is so much fun. She loves to play with her brothers and especially loves to make T.J. laugh. We're so grateful for our little princess. Happy Birthday London! We love you.

Funny T.J.

Dave went out to fix the sprinklers the other night, and you know, why shouldn't he be working on the sprinklers? We've only been working on them for the last three weekends in a row!!! Thankfully they are all working properly at this point (at least for now). Anyway, this was about 20 minutes after I had put T.J. to bed. Dave called me out there with one of those "Honey, you better come out here. You've got to see this," and you know, honestly I was relieved it wasn't about any more sprinkler issues (i.e., geyser, flood).

We found T.J. standing on his windowsill behind the blinds running his little car back and forth on the window. He was having a great time and didn't seem to really care at all that he was so busted (apparently he knows that he's adorable). We sat there and watched him to see what he would do, and he actually tried to engage us in playing with him and definitely had a big smile on his face. Of course I had to take a picture (actually about four of them), which made any sort of discipline a little tricky, but he did eventually have to go back to bed. The question is, does he do this every night?