Last Saturday while Jen went to get her hair done I decided to venture out with all three kids on my own.  I’ve done this before and it definitely wasn’t easy on past attempts.  The main issue really is the inevitable “I gotta pee” or “I gotta go poop” that comes at the most inconvenient time (like right when we get to a store or wherever we were going).  After thinking about it leading up to Saturday I figured the park down the street was a fun place for them and an easy outing for me.

This park is pretty new (~ 3 years old) and has 2 different playgrounds.  As we were headed in Alex and Avery said they wanted to play on the lower playground, which we don’t usually visit.  Luckily we had the whole playground to ourselves which made my job much easier.  All 3 kids had fun and the park even had some small stuff that Adam could enjoy.

After a while on the playground I got out the stroller for Adam and we all 4 went on a nature walk around a very small part of the ~ 1 mile path.  The kids enjoyed all of the nature (birds, bees, etc) and luckily there were some very clean/over-sized porta potties for when the moment we spoke of came (leave it to Alex!)

Luckily I was able to snap a bunch of good pictures while the kids were all playing and getting along.  All in all it was a fun little outing that I was able to handle (as Alex and Avery would say) “all by my own.”

I think I figured out where some of our problems around here stem from. As we were getting ready to come in for the bedtime routine tonight, Don told the twins to pick up their sidewalk chalk, which was scattered all over the garage floor. Avery didn’t hear him, so I told her to please pick it up. She looked at me and said something along the lines of, “No, I will never pick up anything you ever tell me to pick up again.” After a time-out, I called her over and asked her who was in charge, who was the boss, who could give directions in our house. Her response? “Me?” as she pointed to herself, sort of incredulous that I didn’t know that already. Umm, that would be a big old no, sweetie, but now that we know for sure that’s what you thought, we’ll get that clarified for you.

So, a fireman, a cheerleader and Batman were having a tea party…  (sounds like the start to a bad joke, right?)

I think that cheerleader is doing some binge drinking!  More action shots from the event here.

Yesterday we were invited to spend the 4th at Bill and Judy’s (Jen’s Uncle’s Sister’s house) in Leesburg, VA.  It was nice because Leesburg is only 30 minutes from us so travel was pretty easy yesterday.  What started out to be a rough day (thanks to the kids having colds) turned out to be a nice day where everybody had fun.  Bill and Judy have a beautiful home with an amazing pool.  As you’ll see in the photos we essentially had the whole thing to ourselves.  In addition to the cool waterfalls the pool was also heated, so swimming was a blast!

By the time we got home everybody was pretty zonked and ready for bed.  We didn’t see any fireworks but heard lots of them going off in the neighborhood.  Maybe next year we will try to take the kids to see a fireworks display.

Maybe we should lock his door at night so he can’t escape!