Friday Fun

Jonathan drove up to Ada, Ohio last night. He had to be there at 8:00 this morning for an Ag related meeting. His Dad went to both days of classes, but Jonathan had to work Thursday. Since the weather was supposed to get gross overnight, we both thought it wise for him to go crash in the hotel room where his Dad was staying. That way he would be there instead of driving through windy, snowy conditions at 5:30 in the morning.

Knowing I would be parenting alone from the moment the children got up, I decided I would enlist my children and their boundless energy to help me clean the house. Busy children would lead to less time for 'trouble'. At least that was the plan. Did you know a canister vacuum cleaner is a wonderful play thing? I let Kenneth go at their room for about 40 minutes before I went in to check on him. It is extremely difficult to achieve cleanliness in that room. It has fire engine red shag carpet which was put in there in the mid '70's. I told Kenneth he would have to vacuum many different directions in the same spot to get everything out of that long carpet, and he did and excellent job. He even vacuumed under the bed and in the closet!

I knew the carpet attachment would be too heavy for Samuel, so I vacuumed the living room and hallway, and then gave him a chance at the kitchen. He doesn't have a very long attention span, bless his little heart, so he was "finished" in a grand total of about 5 minutes. I spend another 10 minutes on it, leaving the back hallway for later.

After lunch the boys played with their little box of Legos. We will definitely be adding to the collection for birthdays this year. It provides endless hours of fun for them. Samuel made a little lamb, and then decided to make it a long-legged lamb. I wish I had the camera today (Jonathan took it), because his creation - and his giggly smile - was hilarious.

The best fun came after nap time. I was trying to decide what we could do to burn off some energy since it is too windy today for playing outside. My brilliant mind, which has been fueled by Dr. Pepper this afternoon, remembered we have a sack of balloons.
Watch and enjoy:

I gave them the balloons and shooed them out to the living room so I could finish straightening up in the kitchen from some afternoon 'de-stressing' I'd done (also known as baking). When Heidi started giggling, I grabbed the Ipod to capture the fun!

Now it's supper time. Maybe later we'll do some family baking. We need some treats on this lonely evening without our Daddy. Or maybe we'll make popcorn with our new popcorn popper, peel some oranges, and watch a movie. We have a good musical production of the story of Ruth and Boaz. Or maybe we'll snuggle with mugs of hot cocoa and marshmallows, read stories and sing songs. Any of those would be cozy and "together", which is what I think my little Samuel needs. He's cried for his Daddy a couple times today, and "...why hasn't he stayed home with us for a very long time?!". It has been 3 weeks of his days off being filled with errands, meetings, or farm related projects. We're all ready for some quiet time together!