On Sunday, April 10, life group was held at the Lehman's house. They have a huge backyard that backs up to a creek, and the boys thought it was fantastic to play there with the older kids. One little girl (I'm guessing around age 6) climbed right up on a bent tree, and Joshua followed right after her. Daddy went and kept an eye on them - he's such a good father! At least one of the other dads went out as well to make sure the group was doing okay. The older kids started tossing rocks into the creek and getting pretty muddy. Shawn said that Joshua was having fun playing with them and did pretty well keeping relatively clean until we said it was time to go in for the actual study (we start by socializing and eating munchies). At that point, Joshua was running to come in and slipped into the mud with his shoes. Such is life! They left their shoes outside as they came in and the younger ones played inside while the older ones (again probably ages 6-10) stayed outside unsupervised. I don't have quite the comfort level with letting my kids climb and play near water yet, so we insisted they stay in with us. For some reason, there wasn't a hired babysitter to help with the kids this time round, so Shawn would go down and check on them when we'd hear anything suspicious or Caleb would come up. But, I don't think he missed much.
The following day (Monday, April 11), it was GORGEOUS outside! It was by far the nicest day we have had this year with temps hitting 80 degrees. We had went for a walk around the neighborhood and played outside in the morning, and then I called Daddy and offered to bring a packed lunch his way and we could enjoy eating outside and letting the boys play on the playground. He agreed, and I brought the camera to take some pictures. That said, I had the settings screwed up and couldn't figure it out until after we left. Oh well! You can see Joshua flashing his muscles on the slide below.
Even after the park, I wasn't in a rush to put the boys down for their naps. We have so few nice days that I decided it was better to let them enjoy as much sunshine as they could handle. They dug up "weeds" (they love digging in the dirt) and played with their cars and drew pictures with sidewalk chalk on our driveway. Finally they said they were ready to go in since they were tired. I agreed, and I'm glad that they said it when they did because I didn't realize that I was already turning pink. But, if a little sunburn is the worst part of your day, then it's been a good day!!!
That evening, Maria from Water Street Ministries had invited me over to her house for dinner. Shawn kept the boys while I ventured to Maytown, and she fed me a delicious homemade pizza and salad. She told me when I was there that it was volunteer appreciation week, and I volunteer for her department doing editing or any kind of marketing help they need. I thought it was sweet that she would invite me to her house even though I volunteer because I enjoy it and have a heart for the work that this organization does. I also enjoy serving Maria in this role. As we finished up our dinner the sky got black and the heavens let loose - it was a downpour and hard to see to get home, but I made it safely. It had been a nice day all around, and Daddy & the boys had enjoyed more outdoors time while I was away. We love being outside!
One of the nights last week - I'm thinking it may have been over the weekend - we saw our neighbors outside. Shawn was doing some chores inside, and the boys were playing when one of my neighbors pulled in her driveway. She came over to chat. Then the one across the street came over. We all said how nice it is to be outside once again and seeing each other! I commented that we need to do another neighborhood picnic, so hopefully we can get that in the works. I enjoyed hearing what was new in the lives of our neighbors and neighborhood. Eventually it got late and dark and another neighbor came over who is certifiably crazy (sad, but true) so we all dispersed. I brought the boys in and gave them a bath. Now that I think about it, I think it may have been Sunday night. That night, I also took their shoes and put them in the washing machine since they were covered in mud. I LOVE machine washable sneakers!
Tuesday, April 12, it was back to being rainy and cold outside. We still went to Bible Study and preschool, and we realized that it has rained or snowed every Tuesday during the entire year. I don't remember one nice Tuesday, and neither did the girls in our group. Such is life! I still enjoyed catching up with the other moms. More on the week to come!
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