September 9 with the kids

Tuesday: Nothing extremely notable occurred today--so why bother posting?!? Well, that's just it ... there was nothing "out of the ordinary" that occurred while I was with the kiddos today ... just normal routine stuff. But isn't that what life is about? 

Actually, Kelly texted me this morning that they had an unfortunate situation with the water in their house because of some plumbing work that was being done; and they had ZERO water available to them until the city could get out there and remedy the problem. No water is a problem! I am NO pioneer woman, believe me. I am so used to the comfort and convenience of running water, electricity, heat, flushing toilets, etc. I know how I feel when we lose power out here at Leisure Village--I feel deflated ... powerless (Ha! no pun intended), and rather STUCK. I'm always so relieved when the problem is solved and I can actually flip a switch and have light. 

I have been coming over a few hours before the kiddos come home from school just to do a little bit of maintenance cleaning (no time for deep cleaning) to try to be of some help to two working parents whom I love. I was very glad when Dylan messaged me that their water was back "on" so that I could accomplish my small cleaning tasks today as usual. 

Brendan had a Cross-Country meet today that began just after 4pm. The younger kiddos don't get off their school bus until after that, so we decided to just have them stay home with me while Dylan and Kelly were at the meet with Brendan. They promised pizza upon their return. Yes!

I hardly took any pictures of the children today! Aidan wanted me to read him jokes from the internet--which I did do for a little while. Aidan's favorite was this: "Some people pick their nose, but I was born with mine!" This totally cracked him up (me too). Erin and I talked for awhile and she had a bowl of cantaloupe before her friend Emmy showed up and asked if Erin could come to her house to play--so Erin went to Emmy's for a time. 

Cal and I played a game of Chess. For being an early learner to the game, as well as being only five years old, Callaghan is a very GOOD Chess player. I think it's probably because his mind is so LOGICAL (and brilliant). 

Cal cracks me up. He loves doing the "castle" move, but every time he plays that move I caution him about having his king stuck in the back row without a way out ...

I checkmated him soon afterwards to demonstrate to him that "castling" isn't often a very good move! He was not pleased by being checkmated, but he handled himself well and accepted defeat admirably. This is an important part of game playing, don't you think? I love this little boy so much.

Cal was searching for snacks afterward and was grabbing everything in sight. I finally told him he MUST find a healthy snack; so he reached into the refrigerator and pulled out 5 string cheese packs and decided he would consume them all! Thankfully, I removed 4 of them from his hands before he had opened them and told him 1 would probably be enough since it was so close to supper time. Here he is pretending he is a MONSTER eating string cheese.

Isn't he something? What a love you are, Cal!

Dylan, Kelly, and Brendan came home with pizza at about 6pm! I got to visit with Brendan for just a few minutes, enough to talk a little bit about him spending the night Friday--so that was good. I'm hoping the weather allows us to go to Schwallier's Saturday and do the "Back 40" where they boast an apple shooter that flings apples into the air like rockets. Plus, there is a good corn maze out there! I hope we can do this together this weekend.