A Bunch of Sillies

I thought I'd take a picture of my me and the man building a playset for the kids.  See, we bought this nice, redwood fort/sandbox/slide/swingset thingie at the end of the summer.  I've been wanting a swingset for the little ones for a while, and as I passed the "play outside" aisle in the hardware store, there was only one swingset left - and it was 70 percent off!  I have a hard time making snap decisions.  I said yes, then no and started to walk away, then reconsidered and looked terribly wishy washy for the longest time.  Finally, I put my hand on the giant box, as if to protect it from the imaginary mob of Black Friday shoppers, and told Chris to go get us a big flatbed cart.

We brought it home (with three kids!  In a smallish vehicle!) and unloaded it in the back yard.  When Trent got home, I had to sheepishly confess my spontaneous purchase.  He was actually proud of me.  The next morning, we walked about the yard, trying to decide where to put it.  Here.  No, away from the cement.  Near the house.  By the chicken coop.  This spot is more level; that one is rocky.  But we never felt really happy about any of the places we thought to set it up.  So we covered the box with a tarp and left it under a tree until we could come to a decision.

Within a few days, we were packing up our entire household and moving away.  I'm glad we didn't set up the swingset, or we would have had to take it right apart again.  We moved the by then soggy box and piled all the lumber in our new backyard.  

My dad has been eyeing the growing pile of... things on his basketball court.  He even made mention that he would like to use the court again to play some ball.  (He hasn't played basketball in years.)  I know he is anxious about us moving in, and the amount of stuff a big family uses.  We'll get organized, I promise.  Unfortunately, this has turned out to be the slowest-to-get-settled moved that I've ever had (and it's the 15th move for me since high school!).  It's just a challenge to move all your life into a place that is already full of someone else's life.

Anywho, we started setting up the playset today.  I'm so grateful that Dad found the instructions and rescued them from the rain!  Trent and I worked for about 5 hours on a project that the instructions said takes 2 to 4 hours.  They lie.  We're nearly a third done, and I was too busy to snap a cute little with-my-man-selfie as we did a big project together.

After dark, I came in and snuggled with my babies.  They are still babies, aren't they?  They love making funny faces on the phone, to the point that it's hard to get them to give me a nice smile.  I love them.  I even love their unseasonable fuzzy haircuts because they played barber on each other.  And I know they love me.  I have the phone.  Of course they love me.