the cleanest lawn in town

Erin's school is on a modified year-around schedule so they have a very short summer break and instead take short breaks throughout the year. We are in the middle of a two week break now and during these break times her school offers optional sessions to attend. Basically, if the parents have to work there is someplace for the kids to be and they'll learn and have fun but what they do isn't part of the mandatory curriculum. So Erin is taking the session these two weeks and she spends her day doing reading and making crafts, playing outdoor sports and games, learning a bit of German, dance, and even classes on manners. I wish they would add in a class on leaving your little sisters alone and the evils of whining.


Today, a rarity. After we all got home from the YMCA this morning, Erin asked to go for a bike ride. She got the exact bike she spent about 4 months talking about before christmas last year, and she started riding it (with training wheels). Then she fell a couple of times and totally lost all enthusiasm for bikes. Every so often I ask her if she wants to go out and ride her bike but I haven't had her accept that offer in a long, long time. So John went with Erin while she biked around the block and according to him she did "ok". Didn't pedal all that well, didn't fall, tried to practice a bit about leaning uphill when you are going across a slope (driveway) so that you won't fall. Not very confident about any of it though.

Yesterday I worked all day and when I got home the twins were in the backyard. I went out there and trimmed a few bushes and came back in as Kate was dipping her bubble wand into a huge gallon of bubble solution that John opened for her. As I attended to something else in the house I heard John yelling something and Kate saying she "needs new clothes".

It turns out Kate dumped out the whole gallon of soap on the lawn and somehow managed to get mostly soaked in it herself with main concentrations in her hair and her pants while her shirt and shoes were relatively dry. Go figure that one out. I just threw both Kate and Allison in the bath. Here is our green lawn which I photographed for posterity since it will be an entirely different color very soon, I'm sure. And a post-bath photo of the happy lawn-killing culprit and her crazy-faced twin.