What We're Up To These Days

So apparently my new blogging pattern is one post every two weeks.  How sad is that?  You'll understand when I tell you what we've been up to...

Our Easter was great.  Pictures will be posted as soon as I have a chance to get them off the camera.

We bribed the kids with lunch after church to get our annual bluebonnet pictures.  Pictures will be posted as soon as I can convince Ryan to help me coax them off the computer.

Both Sydney and Evan have their birthday parties coming up.  Poor Evan has never had a "friend" party before so I promised him that he could have one this year.  We're having five of his friends over for a play date on a Monday morning (the only morning they don't have school).  It will be Star Wars themed (of course) and thanks to the nice mothers who post pictures and ideas from their kids' Star Wars parties, I have plenty of ideas for games and activities.  Evan is most excited about turning pool noodles into light sabers.

Sydney's party will be a painting party.  We're hiring a friend to come over and show Sydney and her friends how to paint flower pots.  The part I'm most excited about?  (Besides hiring someone else to do the bulk of the entertaining.) The cake!  (Or the lack of.)  Again, thanks to nice mothers who post party ideas on their blogs, she's having flower pot cakes - chocolate cake baked into flower pots with flowers sticking out of them.

Both of these parties, in addition to the family party that falls between them, will be at our house so I am going crazy planning, getting supplies and hyperventilating.  Did I mention that all three parties will occur in an eight day period?

And, if that's not enough going on, Ryan and I are in the process of completely redoing our backyard.  The deck has been pulled up.  A new-to-us play set has been installed.  A pallet of grass has been laid down.  I still need to stain the play set and we need to take all of the wood from the deck that is currently living in our garage, cut it and place it in another spot in the backyard for a "new" deck.  All in the next three weeks.

And, our tenant is moving out so we're trying to get our rental house looking good again.

And, Ryan's dad has been very sick so we've been really worried about him.

Add the normal goings-on of homework, piano lessons, girl scouts, swim lessons and chauffeur duties (Ryan still isn't driving) and it's no wonder I'm exhausted at the end of each day!