I Haven't Fallen Off the Earth, I'm Just Lazy

Why, oh why, is it so very hard for me to blog during the summer? It's not because there's nothing going on. It's actually been a busy, fairly interesting summer so far. Mason turned seven and the world's most awesome ninja-themed birthday party. We had it in the backyard, and I spent a month making props for games, decorations and party favors. It was seriously awesome- he said it was the best birthday he's ever had. It totally deserves a post of its own, but since it's probably won't get one, you'll have to settle for a couple of pictures.

I made the karate kid headbands for all the kids. Oh yeah, they were cool.

He got a real, honest-to-goodness ninja suit for his birthday.

Happy ninja family!!!

In the week after the birthday party was over, the twins spent as much time as possible outside. They love playing in their pool- especially if they can do it naked. Those boys LOVE to be naked. It frequently looks like we're running some sort of preschool nudist colony over here.

While they were finding as many opportunities to strip down as they possibly could, I was busy getting ready for Matt and I to go out of town. We took a kid-free trip for five whole days, not just out of town- out of the country!! Okay, so it wasn't much out of the country, but we did cross the border into Canada. We needed passports and everything!! Matt was attending a business conference in Toronto, so his awesome boss let me tag along. We spent a couple of days at Niagara Falls....

Then we went to Toronto and spent a couple of fun days there. I got to meet up with a friend who took us around the cool parts of town. And I got to hang out and relax while Matt did the boring conference stuff. It was a great trip. And the grandparents survived five whole days with the boys. They took 24 hour rotating shifts, and I left 13 pages of notes detailing anything they could possibly need to know, so they made it through relatively unscathed.

Since then, we've just been trying to survive the ridiculous heat wave. The kids had a week of Bible School. Well, Mason did. The twins struggled through two days before I finally gave up and decided that they just weren't quite ready this year. Maybe next year....

Mason is at cub scout day camp all this week and he's getting to do all sorts of cool stuff. He's become a big fan of archery. He'll probably want a bow and arrow, but I think we all know that it would have disasterous consequences in this household. He'll probably want a BB gun too, but that's not happening either. Around here "You'll shoot your eye out" isn't just a warning, it's a guarantee.

And now, we're just a few weeks away from beach week!!!!! Woohoo, I can't wait. As long as my sister's baby doesn't decide to make an early appearance, it will be a great trip. But I've already told her to make it very clear to him that he'd better stay put until we get back. If he messes up our vacation, I will dislike him forever, no matter how cute he is. So he'd better just keep that in mind......