So much for that parenting theory

In an effort to teach the boys a valuable lesson about taking care of their possessions, and the worth of a dollar, they have been saving for months to buy a Nintendo DS. They saved birthday money, allowance, and the very generous payments from the neighbor for taking care of their pet hamster (Bruce--short for Bruce Springsteen). Finally last Monday I went online and ordered them a DS. It arrived on Tuesday with much excitement and fanfare. They didn't actually have any games to play on it, so we used the doodle pad to play hangman...$110 to play hangman seems a bit extreme. On Wednesday they borrowed a couple of games from the neighbor. This went well for a couple of days. By Sunday morning the DS was missing. They took it in the car when we went to Lowe's and it hadn't been seen since the ride home. I cleaned out the car after bringing home all of the plants (64 of them). Today I went through the garbage to see if I inadvertently tossed it while cleaning the car. It wasn't in there. We spent awhile looking for it today, but to no avail. This afternoon Samuel went to the neighbors to play and guess what he found sitting on the retaining wall in between the two houses? Yep...the DS. So, I'm thinking that perhaps this was a parenting theory gone bad.

$20 for $638.42 of plants

Yesterday we went to Lowe's to look for gloves for Ben. As we were walking to the store, we saw some racks of "distressed" plants. Well, we would like to put plants in some of the areas that we are pulling ivy out of, not to mention the empty planters that we have in the front yard. Most of the plants were $2-$7, so I was just going to pick a few. While we were standing there picking what we wanted, one of the store employees came over and told us that we could have a whole rack for $20. So, we spent a couple of minutes moving plants around on racks, so that I only bought perennials (why exert the effort of planting something that is going to die and never come back?). We had to take the cart into the store so that they could ring up each plant individually. The total--$638.42. Wow! This was a better deal than the time we got a whole case of 48 cadbury eggs for 25 cents.We couldn't fit all of us and the plants in the van, so we loaded up the van and then Henry and I went home to unload so we could go back and get the rest of the family. I figure even if only one or two plants live, it was still a good deal.

More Ivy

Ben and Henry working on one of the trees

Samuel working on one of the trees

I worked on the ivy again this week and finally finished one half of it, except for bundling it up for the garbage man. Saturday, Ben and the kids worked on it with me for a while.

I haven't had the nerve to unroll this 6 foot long piece of carpet...I'm hoping that there's not a dead body in there.

Pretty pink dish

Under the "hammock trees"

4 Days straight at the playground

Last week Henry had baseball camp every morning. I told him that he could choose one activity for the summer, and that was what he picked. The township that we live in has a big main park. The camp was in one of the baseball fields, so I took the kids to the playground while he was there. Tuesday we stayed for about an hour and a half and then went and watched Henry at camp for the last hour. After we got home I e-mailed all of the mom's in the ward to tell them that we would be at the playground each morning for the rest of the week. I find that the playground is a lot more tolerable if I have other mom's to talk to, and the kids have more playmates. Wednesday and Thursday they had playmates and we stayed the whole 2 1/2 hours that Henry was at camp. Friday no one showed, so we went to the Library. I didn't get any pictures of Henry at camp, but I got some of the kids at the playground. By the way, Henry loved camp.

These red things spin...and spin....and spin. Samuel went in one the first day and ended up losing his breakfast afterwards. I had to talk him into getting back in it to take this picture.

I'm an awesome Wife

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

What a good day. I made prime rib, french fries and peas for dinner and then for dessert we had fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, bananas, and blueberries. We gave Ben some framed pictures that he took while he was in FL in March. If you want to see those pictures you'll have to check out his blog.