Prepping for playgroup

We're hosting our first playgroup here tomorrow, I've spent a huge part of the day procrastinating. I did dishes and started laundry, plus steam-cleaned the carpet where Dandy peed (again!) but that pretty much is the extent of my productive activities. Granted, Beth's been having a rough day and needing held a lot, but it's telling that I'm procrastinating by writing a blog post about procrastinating. Ahem.
So, moving on ... life is good in spite of nasty headaches and suchforth, I'm superly looking forward to going to Cedar Point with my mom (and Greg & Sarah) this Saturday, I can't wait - a kid-free day! Clay and his mom and dad (so, mostly his mom) is going to watch the kids so I can run away for a little bit and have some fun. THEN on the 4th of July weekend we're doing our annual Girl's Weekend with me and Clay's mom and sisters - 2 kid-free times in a row! Seriously! I love spending my time with the kids (and it's nice to finally be getting us all settled and back in a predictable schedule) but this weekend can't come soon enough!
Ok, now I really need to stop goofing off and sweep floors, finish dishes, do more laundry, and generally pick up. And prep food (not much to do on that, thankfully!) Then I can waste some more time.

Father-Son activity

We got Clay a "Doodle Box" for Father's Day, basically a tool box with supplies to decorate it. Clay and Thomas had a great time decorating it together today, they put stickers and Thomas's handprints all over it. I'll have to post pics once I get them taken.
Allergies are murder here, we're all feeling totally drained, and have been since we got up this morning. Ugh.
Mom and Dad came down to drop off some shelves for Clay, he's going to use them in his garage. He's got so much stuff to put away that he really needs some organizing tools, so this will help a lot.
Now I need a (cat)nap before Thomas gets up!

Not a whole lot going on right now, Thomas is napping, Beth is just hanging out, and Clay is supposed to be home soon. We're going to go up to Bucyrus to celebrate Greg's birthday this evening, but will return home afterwards. Next weekend we get to go up to Bucyrus and I get to go to Cedar Point with my mom (and brother & his fiancee) for a totally kid-free day. Yippee! I can't wait!
I'm getting a major headache, so I'm going to eat and try to head it off.

Updates

We gave Clay a cute picture frame and "Doodle Box" for Father's Day. The picture frame was our project at playgroup, Thomas did pretty much all of it himself. I gave him the letters for "Daddy" and traced/cut out the kids' hands, but he did all the gluing, coloring, picking out what to put on there, and placing everything. Now I just have to a) take a picture of it and b) print out a picture to put in it. The "Doodle Box" is actually a tool box sold by Craftsmen that comes with paints and stickers and such for the kid(s) to decorate for their Dads. It's still in the box, Clay and Thomas can do it together (lol, I'm seriously looking forward to watching this, I can just hear Clay trying to not be completely anal while a 2-year-old decorates). Clay wants to take it to work after it's done, I guess tools are pretty hard to keep hold of there, so he wants to be able to lock them up.
Thomas's sandboxes arrived, along with a little playset and (finally!) a slide for the big swingset. Now we just have to get the swingset finished and the sandboxes filled. We got the sandboxes and little playset from a garage sale, the playset has a little steering wheel. It's taken up residence in the basement, Thomas calls it his "car" and a new favorite phrase is "Should I drive it ... ?" I love his "Should I do X?" questions, I'm not sure whether it's a cute saying he's come up with or a new way of discovering standards of behavior. It certainly helps though!

Father's Day!

The kids and I are going on a secret mission today. Well, not so secret as I'm spilling it here on the 'net, but as Clay doesn't read this blog (I doubt he knows even where to find it!) I can tell. One of the mommies in our new playgroup is hosting a Father's Day craft-making playdate, so we're going to work on a picture frame for Clay. I'll have to work on printing a picture to put in it later, the photo printer isn't hooked up yet, but one thing at a time ...
I'm trying to decide what else to do for Father's Day. I think Clay is an incredible dad, and no amount of money spent will ever be able to tell him that. We're both pretty big fans of the Combined Gift idea - instead of getting smaller gifts at each occasion, we'll do one more expensive gift for XM/FD/MD/BD/GD. I've given thought to a La-Z-Boy recliner, but not so sure yet, they're pretty expensive! Any ideas, anyone?
Ok, off to get us out the door!

It's hot!

Mid-90s here, it's been miserable without A/C in the cars. We went up to Bucyrus this weekend, Clay fixed the white car (cv axle?) and I helped take pics for the Little Theatre's production of Seussical. Beth was going to be the baby at the end for next week's shows (they had another baby for this week) but yesterday afternoon Horton (main character) asked "Can't we just use the same baby we've had since the other baby is so little and can't hold her head?" Reassured that she's been able to hold her head for MONTHS now, he still wants to use the other baby. Whatever. Here's a pic of the costume I made for the babies to wear - not identical, tho the same pattern, this is a pic from the pattern using the original design:


Kind of annoying, but at least we'll have a cute costume for Beth for Halloween!
Ok, needing to get started on housework, etc. for the day. I'm so glad we have central air!

Off of hiatus (maybe)

What with moving in and all I haven't been much for posting lately, but as my mom has posted on her blog THREE TIMES since I last posted, I figured I'd better get started again.
It's been quite a month! (Wow, a month already! I can't believe it's been that long!) Let's see, we left PA April 29, closed on the house April 30, Clay graduated that weekend then went back to PA to finish up his stuff there and get the movers all set, we stayed in Bucyrus till our stuff arrived the following Tuesday, May 13, and have been unpacking ever since. Well, sort of. We had the Cold From Hell (ALL of us! Sick 2-year-olds are NOT fun!) which seriously lengthened the time it takes to unpack. The kids and I went to our first playgroup-meetup last week, it was nice to meet some other people.
We're loving being so close to family, Clay's parents (55-minute trip) have been down twice and mine (1 hr. 10 min. trip) have been down once - a visit every weekend since we moved! My mom also came down one day to shop for some Little Theater stuff. And this is all since we officially moved in - everyone but my dad was here before that at least once to help us get stuff cleaned up and ready for move-in!
My brother Greg and his fiance Sarah came over for dinner last night, which was nice. I made some chicken fettuccine alfredo (main dish) and strawberry shortcake (dessert) as the main things of the evening - salad and rolls to round us out. It was nice having them over, we got to play a game of cards too, which was fun. Here's hoping we can do it again soon!
Ok, Beth is eating which makes it really hard to type so off for now, but I'll try to be posting more regularly from now on out.