not too far from home

The other day I had the boys and most of the usual neighborhood friends over playing and eating dinner (pancakes--another breakfast dinner, at the request of Ben, when Daren is gone working at the fire station). I have been trying to take more pictures of the everyday things that happen, and this day was definitely one of them. We end up feeding the neighborhood more often than not, but I don't mind because I love that they like to be here.

So I tried to get them all together on the slide for a picture, and you can see how well that went over. From top to bottom: Danielle, Jaycie, Jake, Gregory, and Ben. I couldn't get Will to sit with the rest of them in the picture, but if you look close in the first one, you can see his feet in the top right corner, sliding down the fire pole. He's not the most social one, you know. The third picture shows a typical day of play for them, including Ben tackling Will to the ground on the right. These kids are so dang cute, and they play quite well together most of the time. I love the look of pure joy and fun on their faces as they race around the fire pole!!

These guys are like the three musketeers--Jaycie, Jake, and Gregory (formerly known as Craig--it's a long story!). They love to play together as much as they can.

Wednesday afternoon we had a bunch of mulch (Will to me: "Mom, is that turkey poop?") and rocks delivered so Bart could put it all in the next day. Wait a minute, that may have worked if he and Daren hadn't been golfing the afternoon away!! I'm kidding hun, I don't care! Bart and his crew showed up on Friday and worked most of the day away putting it all in, and the following pictures are the final results. It's looking good!! Bart is amazing--he has such a great eye for landscaping.

The front yard final results--our grass is slowly but surely coming back; it's about time!!

This is what the backyard looked like 7 years ago when we first put the grass in. The cement curb-edging lasted about a month or so and then Daren couldn't stand it anymore so he ripped it all out. Our yard has come a long way since then!

Our tomatoes and pumpkins have done well this season--I won't have enough tomatoes for my salsa this year, though, but that's ok--I still love you Jake, even if you do try to help me pull the weeds and pull up my tomato plants instead!!

Will escaped down to Danielle's house after church today, and this is the usual means of transportation she uses to bring him back quickly. We are still working on the password thing with him--he has to tell them (at Danielle's house) a certain word so they know he has permission to go down there. The first letter of the password corresponds with the day of the week it is, so since yesterday was Saturday his password was snake. He'll get it one of these days, I hope!

Much of our week has been dealing with school stuff. I am a parent rep in Jake's class this year so I had meetings to go to, Ben met with his teacher and class one day, and Jake met with his teachers and class one day. School officially starts on Tuesday and Ben said to me today, "I can't wait for school to start!!" I love that he is excited for school.

For our Young Women's mid-week activity we had all of them over here for kind of an "after-camp" party. We ate lots of yummy food and watched the DVD Megan and I made--it was lots of fun. Daren took the boys fishing that night to keep them away from here. It sounds like they had a good time, and it was a dream come true for Will, who has been a wanna-be fishing junkie.

All the boys spent Thursday over at Gma Train's house, which was very brave of her. Daren picked up Ben that day to take him to his lacrosse practice--yes, you read right, he is playing lacrosse this season with a bunch of school friends. Somehow we talked him into trying it, and he seems to like it so far. It's still just practices right now with games starting in a couple of weeks. I'm excited for him. Ben went back to Gma's after practice and stayed overnight while Daren brought the twins home. Ben stayed there until Saturday when Daren picked him up on his way home from the fire station, only to find that Gma and Gpa's basement had flooded, so they spent the better part of the day hauling stuff out of the basement to help. By the time Daren got home he only had a short time here before he left to go to a concert at Deer Valley with his brothers and mom and dad to see Dwight Yokam. I don't mind a lot of Daren's old country music, and I've even learned to like Johnny Cash and Randy Travis, but I have drawn the line at Dwight Yokam, so they went without me and had a great time. Well, that's about it for this week.