Catching up...

Loads of new pictures from the past week or so.

Jay finished up the Table of Unusual Size on Monday and delivered it that evening. With him gone most every evening for the past couple of weeks, the boys and I have not done much other than hang out in the back yard every night. I would tidy the house while the boys ate dinner, load the dishwasher and then throw them out in the back yard until bath time. This served multiple purposes: the house stayed at least as tidy as I got it, the boys wore themselves out so they slept better and we all got some fresh air and sunshine.

As you can see, the boys didn't mind one bit. Allan has become more and more adventurous. He has completely mastered sliding. He's pretty good at climbing the ladder up to the playset, but the problem is that he does it slowly and by the time he has gone a rung or two, Griffith is ready to climb over him. I would counsel Griff to learn patience, but Allan tends to lollygag and get distracted when he's climbing (he's a lot like his father that way!). In the end I have decided that the best thing for me to do is let them work it out. I stay close so that Allan doesn't fall, occasionally prod him in his A-double-S to get him moving (a service I also offer to Jay) with mixed results (ditto). I try, too, to make Griff wait for his brother which he does with more grace some times than others.

Griff is very excited to have everyone slide together -- "Momma, slide!" and "AlJude, slide!" Sometimes we go down solo, sometimes in pairs, sometimes all three at once. You never know about us -- we are crazy that way. And, apparently, we are frightening. Monday night the next-door neighbor came over to ask if I would take the boys out back and have them make noise. Her stupid yippy dog (whom she used to let out to pee and yip at 6 a.m.) is afraid to go out and pee because of the noise the boys make. She had a trainer over to help with the issue. No kidding. Frankly, I am delighted that the dog no longer wishes to hang out in the yard and yip its fool head off. If the trainer is going in some way to make it possible for the little piece of fluff to return to his prior irritating ways, then I don't know that we want to help.....but go out back and make noise we did. We'll keep you posted on Fluffster.