A Fun Day

 Being greeted by this gentleman set the pace for a VERY fun day!

Sam was first up the stairs and whacked the newspaper, thinking he would get his Dad.  Boy did he grin big when he realized he'd been had!  Cam was up next and was ready to go for a morning snuggle.  His eyes showed a few moments of confusion when he got behind the paper and didn't find anyone there but they quickly turned SUPER twinkly.  No one else wakes up quite like those two so while everyone did a double take, their reactions were a bit more subdued.

Combining that with a few other Mom pranks and a bunch of school day pranks and these kids came home fired up to do a little pay back.

And it was the greatest part of the day!  They were so much better at it than me.  No hour spent on pinterest to find ideas.  Here are a few of their best.

• Leah got her teacher to write a note that said she had been disruptive during math and needed to complete a few extra assignments.  They have to learn the art of being subtle because when she came off the bus pretty sad I wondered what she had done but the more she pushed for me to read her agenda the more the warning bells went off.  She did give me a dirty look when I wrote back to her teacher to "just lock her up and throw away the key" :) 
• Cara and Cody were in the lego room.  Cam came in from outside so cheerfully and announced he was going to help them.  In a few minutes there was a mini version of a world war happening in there.  I was a bit suspicious but I went to go play referee.  Those kids can act!!!!  If it wouldn't have been prank day I would have been sure they were royally ticked with one another.  Meanwhile this wasn't so much a prank as a diversion as Leah snuck into the empty kitchen and grabbed the ketchup bottle to do a "MOM, COME, LEAH'S HURT BAD!!!" with Sam outside.
• Cody, of course, wanted to do his own ketchup version on Steve when he came home but I veto'd that.  He was VERY sad.  After listening to his wailing for a while Sam sweetly came in, sat beside him on the couch, slung an arm around his shoulders and then offered to help him think of his own original prank.  They decided Cody was going to pretend to be sick on the couch.  Cam didn't think Cody's laying there with a blanket was super convincing and asked if Cody could have 1/2 a banana and a bucket.  His thought was Cody could chew on the banana, keep it in his mouth till Steve came home and then spit it in the bucket for shock effect.  Original idea... I love their creativity... but I nixed that too :)
• the last one I remember right now was a gigantic spider that they made out of construction paper, taped to a bamboo pole and made crawl along the bottom of the kitchen window.  Noticing movement, I looked up only to see this spider making it's way along.  I couldn't see them below the window and I couldn't see the end of the pole either.  So much fun!

I'll have to start planning now already to combat that kind of effort.  10 points for effort, my dear lovies!!!

Next Chapter :)

One late Saturday night we ended up with this...water flowing from under the girls' new bedroom flooring!

 Which ended up bringing on this... Les and Brody and Steve coming up with the next solution.  They doctored this pipe...

 And dug a hole...again!

 We'll see how it works :)

 Meanwhile the kids did things like this... MUD! and helping...

and watching.  While obviously already having participated in the mudding :)

 After they got the hole all filled in again the helpers all went home and Steve and Sam stayed outside in the cold rain to frame in the bathroom and set a post for the porch!  Came inside freezing cold and pretty proud :)

 And for you... you know who you are  :)... here's the newly trimmed hedges.

 And the pile the kids helped me pull off the neighbours lawn before the rain started again.  Steve came home just in time to do the raking/finishing while I made supper.

That guy with the dirty tool belt?  That would be my very hard working husband who has worked MANY cold rainy Saturdays (not always on his own) in a row to get us this far.

Thanks, Steve.

One of our Fav's so Far

We're watching it over and over and laughing every time.

Savour every Moment

I don't have authority, experience or wisdom to speak on many subjects.... but I can say something about this one!  So here's my encouragement to all you busy, busy moms of young kids.  I know it's exhausting.  Believe me I know.  I can still feel it when I look at the pictures.  But there is something SO VERY precious about this time of littleness that can never be done over.  Don't wish it away.  Spend time with them, experience the joys with them.  And take lots of video.

That way five years from now you can be like me.   You can watch their precious little chubby faces, revel in their giggles, half laugh-half sob your way through the videos and be thankful you have these recorded memories because really, no matter how long or tiring today felt, you'll never get it back and before you know it your precious giggling babies might be reading and running and thinking they don't need you for anything.

tonight

maybe a little more tomorrow and then some other work first :)  Lots of figuring out to do but between Steve and Trevor they got a nice bit done today!

Happenings...

So, first Brian came and helped us save some $ by being willing to wheelbarrow MANY trips of cement over the ramps Steve set up.

Thankfully it was a nice, Spring-ish kind of day!

Then Steve spent a Saturday in the very cold, wet, muddy back yard stripping the foundation.  The very wet, cold rain turned into TONS (for us :) ) of snow which changed our home to a resort with a mountain range....

if you have a VERY good imagination :)  Amazing how convincing a thick blanket of white can be ;)

Lots of kids playing and warmer temps churned the white and brown together for more fun.

And then the snow all had to melt and go somewhere and the rain kept coming and Steve spent another Saturday in the cold, wet backyard with 50lbs of gloop hanging off each boot as he tarred the foundation and put in some drain tile.

And Mr. Sam here endeared himself to his mother by forgetting the rule about just stay away from the mud already!!!!!!!!!!!!! and lost his boot to sinking sand sucking mud.  What to do but pull your feet out of your boots and stand there in your socks and dig your boots back out.  

It was almost out of sight (right beside his hand) and he was a sorry sight by the time he was finished.  Seeing as I had just spent an hour scrubbing  all the mud out of the bathroom for Opa & Nana's upcoming visit, I wasn't real excited to deal with him...despite his GRIN?!?!?!  Thankfully, Steve came home from work just on time and lovingly took care of the entire mess!

 Then yesterday Les showed up again and in a jiffy he had half the pile in the back of the dumptruck.

 And by lunch time the other half was distributed around the front and back yard ditches :)  And Gramps had the plumbing all ready to go!!!

 Before we knew it the kids were delightedly watching the next step...

 which had the kids doing this before supper!  Please note Sam's hockey player, Cam's deep digger (I think he was hoping to hit China he was digging so deep!) and Cody's dinosaur..

Maybe some framing this afternoon??  Incredible how much those hard working guys get done in a day...especially when it's unexpected!