July 15, 2016

(click here for pictures)

• Last night Robby explained to the kids that tomorrow (actually today) was a very important day.  They guessed birthdays and holidays but Campbell was the one who finally guessed that it was our anniversary.  So on the morning of our 16th wedding anniversary, we woke up to breakfast in bed (actually, Robby had to get back into bed after his shower).
• Campbell was the one orchestrating breakfast.  She finally had to ask her brothers to help her pour and carry everything.  I was served raisin bran cereal in my pretty favorite bowl and Robby was given 2 pop tarts on a glass plate (apparently that was very big deal to them).  We were also given 2 big glasses of milk.  We ate our breakfast and then started our day.
• Soon after Robby left, Pops came over to pick up Robby's chainsaw for a large limb in his yard.  He mentioned that it was about to rain again so I herded my crew out side to work on our plethera of limbs.  We were able to get the front yard mostly picked up before it started storming again.  
• Once inside, we all sat in the kitchen and drank some coke as a reward for our hard work,  Then we went to work inside the house on our chores and a tiny bit of school work.  The chores went fine but the school work is were the problems started.  Graham just completely fell apart at the prospect of having to do one page of phonics.  That was just enough to set him off for the rest of the day.  We did have a good talk and I made it clear that his behavior wasn't acceptable.  Later in the day, I recieved a text saying that he was sorry-I knew all of that texting that the kids are doing would be beneficial someday.
• Shannon came over to borrow some freezer space since their electricity is still out.  She stayed for lunch and when she left, Reagan and I started pulling stuff out for Graham's party.  We filled the kitchen table up with stuff for the party and once we had finished, the kids had a bit of downtime before I made them come back outside for more stick picking up.
• It was late afternoon when we started again and Robby went to town mowing the kickball field.  We then worked on sticks by the playground area and that took a very good while.  Then the line crew (Keaton, Campbell, Anderson and Graham) went to work on painting the lines on the kickball field.  We stopped for pizza supper on the back patio but had to call supper short because another storm was coming through.
• Reagan missed out on all of our excitement at home tonight because she went out with some friends.  They went bowling (Reagan won the first game) and then to eat at Purple Cow.  They came home just a few minutes before the Wilsons came over.  They needed a cool place to lay their heads tonight and in return Shannon brought over corn dip and Tony hung my Eat letters on the wall.  
• We ended up letting the kids stay up until almost midnight when I finally put them all down. I am sure that they were all exhuasted after staying up so late tonight but I bet breakfast will be pretty early in the morning!